An exploration of autistic adolescent female’s educational experiences within mainstream secondary school

Abstract

Research exploring education and autism has largely focused on the views and opinions of non-autistic professionals and parents (Nicholas et al., 2019; Richards & Crane, 2020; Tesfaye et al., 2019). Previous research has highlighted the unique challenges autistic adolescent pupils’ experience within mainstream secondary school (Symes and Humphrey, 2011; Brede et al., 2017; Moore, 2006; Humphrey and Lewis, 2008). Moyse and Porter (2015) explored the experiences of autistic girls within mainstream primary school, however limited studies have solely focused on the voices of autistic adolescent females. The project explored the following research questions: -
1. What is school like for autistic females in a mainstream secondary school?
2. How can personal experiences and knowledge of autism support the development of a fully collaborative research approach to enable the voices of autistic females to be heard?
3. How can creative and personalised approaches be used to engage autistic participants
This topic is particularly important to me, as an autistic female I really struggled in mainstream education. I believe that this doesn’t have to be the case for the next generation of autistic females.
The data gathered from the girls provided a unique insight into their school experiences at the time of this study. Interestingly all the girls were talented in various areas of creativity, providing them with stress relief, expression of self, as well as escapism. All the girls reported the importance of having friends, however, they often felt misunderstood by their peers and staff. Worryingly, the girls reported bullying and stigmatisation, it was clear that this had a detrimental impact on the girl’s well-being. An unexpected finding was the solidarity found in meeting and interacting with other autistic girls, as well as having an openly autistic teacher within the school.

Date of Award	2023
Original language	English