Inclusion of People with Autism in Europe. Improving scholar transitions from primary to secondary school Erasmus Project

Project Title

Inclusion of People with Autism in Europe. Improving scholar transitions from primary to secondary school

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Disabilities – special needs

Project Summary

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are one of the most common childhood neurodevelopmental disorders which have increased over time. People with ASD have mainly difficulties in social communication and interaction, and repetitive behaviours. At school level, students with ASD have specific needs in different educational stages since difficulties derived from the disorder itself are heightened by the demands at school. It is during the transition from primary to secondary school when the new school demands can produce more stress, depression and anxiety symptoms in students with ASD. These consequences can affect their academic performance leading to school failure or even school dropout or absenteeism. Therefore, these facts show the need to introduce changes in the educational context by providing more training actions focused on teachers and classmates in order to improve the interaction with ASD students based on the support, empathy and comprehension of their needs and requirements. In this sense, IPA2 is aimed at decreasing scholar vulnerability of students with ASD in the transition from primary to secondary school. To this end, IPA2 is focused on the following specific objectives:
• Decrease early school leaving in students with ASD.
• Improvement relationships in school between students with ASD and their peers and classmates.
• Training teachers from primary and secondary schools working with people with ASD in order to provide them with strategies to improve the academic performance of people with ASD and to reduce their anxiety/stress symptoms associated with scholar issues.
• Taking advantage of the ASD families experience in order to develop tailored materials and training.
• Promotion self-defense strategies in people with ASD to help them to deal with scholar issues.
In order to achieve the aforementioned objectives, IPA2 project is focused on developing and implementing a training course for teachers from primary and secondary schools that will be made up of several learning modules, which will be developed by a co-created methodology involving end-users in order to identify and validate the curricular and training requirements. The school vulnerability of students with ASD during this particular transition will be also tackled by developing guidelines for teachers and video guidelines for students so that they can learn how to interact with pupils with ASD, helping them to face school demands. All the materials and products created under this project will be hosted in the e-learning IPA2 platform so that it can be accessible for potential target groups and stakeholders.
In order to cover the competences needed for the project, IPA2 partnership is made up of 6 entities from 5 European countries:
– 3 NGO’s related to autism: Autismo Burgos (Spain); A Thousand Wishes Foundation (Serbia); Federação Portuguesa de Autismo (Portugal).
– 1 organization related to Autism at European level: Autism Europe (Belgium).
– 1 research institute as a scientific partner: Polibienestar Research Institute from the University of Valencia (Spain).
– 1 enterprise related to the development of innovative ICT in the socio-sanitary field: Social IT (Italy).
All the partners involved in this project have experience in carrying out projects related to autism and intellectual disabilities.
IPA2 will develop different dissemination actions (i.e. project website, project newsletters, social media, multiplier events, among others) in order to exploit results obtained and reach potential stakeholders as well as to promote the sustainability of the products achieved. Consequently, IPA2 is expected to have the following impact:
– Raised awareness among all agents in the field of education (including teachers, students/classmates, tutors, etc.) and also in the general population, of the difficulties that students with ASD have to face, especially during the transition from primary to secondary school. It is expected to reach at least 170 people in a direct way.
– Improved competences of the educational community on tackling with the needs of students with ASD.
– Easy transferable outputs and products to different schools and contexts to cover the real needs and requirements of students with ASD, teachers and ASD people peers.
– Increased teacher’s knowledge and competences by training them on how to interact with students with ASD to reduce their difficulties associated with the demands at school. Hence, at least 30 teachers will be trained in the pilot training actions.
– Improved relationships between pupils with ASD and their classmates. At least two videos will be developed involving 2 people with ASD and 2 students without ASD. These video guidelines will be uploaded into the IPA2 e-learning platform permitting their visualization to a great quantity of people.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 191137,25 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAT DE VALENCIA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• SOCIALIT SOFTWARE E CONSULTING SRL
• AUTISME-EUROPE AISBL
• ASOCIACION DE PADRES DE PERSONAS CON AUTISMO DE BURGOS
• Fondacija hiljadu zelja
• FPDA-Federação Portuguesa de Autismo