Barriers to cooperation between teachers and parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

This paper explores the barriers to collaboration between educators and parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The child's engagement in education and further social life depends on the cooperation between the child's parents and the kindergarten teacher. However, this fundamental cooperation is hampered by the difficult working conditions of the teacher. Another obstacle is the stress experienced by the parents of a child with ASD. In order to describe and investigate the experiences of pre-school teachers in the face of an ASD child's tantrum, a phenomenological research was conducted. The research aimed to 'capture' the phenomenon in the 'here and now', asking what it means for an educator to experience a rage attack in the presence of a child. The question allows us to discover what an educator experiences when confronted with a child's behaviour that harms himself or others? These questions were inspired by a review of research literature and sources, which shows that the main barriers to collaboration between educators and parents of a pre-school child with ASD are (a) the lack of preparation of educators for working with a child with ASD. The findings of the research reveal that the cooperation between educators and parents is stagnating due to the difficult working conditions of the educator: the educator is working alone with an overcrowded group, does not receive financial support to ensure adequate competence, does not have the necessary assistant, does not have the competence to cooperate with parents of a child with ASD, and is working contact time with the children overtime, which makes him/her incapable of establishing a cooperative relationship with the parents of the children. Another barrier to parent-teacher collaboration is the apparent lack of preparation of teachers to work with children with ASD and their families. Despite the recent renewal of the curricula for pre-school and pre-primary education in higher education institutions, more emphasis has been placed on knowledge of ASD, the specificities of educating children with ASD, and strengthening competences in working with the family. The phenomenological research on the experiences of the under-blanket revealed that (a) the participants experienced a loss of power (susitisation), often saying that they could not do anything, that they did not know how to act in this situation. Also common to the stories is that the children's fit of rage starts suddenly, unexpectedly, and the educator was unable to take any action for a few moments; (b) sensory fear and insecurity is revealed when, after the stagnation (shock), the educator's actions are directed towards defending the children around him/her and him/her. The participants in the research also experience insecurity because they are practically unprepared to deal with children's sudden fits of rage.