Student teachers' positive perceptions of characteristics and personality of people on the autism spectrum: “Challenging in a positive way”

Purpose
This paper presents quantitative and qualitative findings from an interdisciplinary research project exploring
student teachers' positive perceptions of people on the autism spectrum.

Method
The set of findings reported in this paper asked 704 student teachers from one university in England (n=191),
Finland (n=251) and Sweden (n=262) to write down the first three words they thought of to identify the
characteristics of people on the autism spectrum. Data was analysed using a multi-layered, deductive co-rated
coding approach. Through this approach repeated words were extracted as were negative and undetermined words,
leaving only positive words.

Result
Examination of the positive words identified found differences in the manner student teachers focus on the positive characteristics of people on the autism spectrum as this is an understudied area of research.

Conclusion
Finnish student teachers more frequently used language to describe the positive characteristics of people on the
autism spectrum that reflected their perception of learning being their primary professional role. However, English
and Swedish student teachers used language that showed they perceived their role as encompassing the social and
emotional development of their pupils, with little reflection about the positive characteristics of people on the
autism spectrum as learners.