Research Questions

1
www.uwindsor.ca/autism
mgragg_at_uwindsor.ca
Early Childhood Educators knowledge and
attitudes toward early identification of Autism
Marcia N. Gragg1, Tammy Whitlock1, Lynnette
Ridley2 Beth Johnson3 1Department of
Psychology, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON,
Canada N9B 3P4, 2Windsor Regional Hospital
Department of Pharmacy, 3City of Windsor Ontario
Early Years Centres

• Introduction
• Early Childhood Educators (ECE's) in child care
  centres are in a unique position to help identify
  children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
  as they see many very young children with their
  peers for extended periods.
• Information on screening for autism, public
  awareness activities, and preservice training for
  ECE's has been recommended to help increase early
  identification of children with autism (Filipek,
  1999).
• Little is known about the knowledge, experiences
  and attitudes of ECE's with regards to young
  children with ASD in child care centres (McConkey
  Bhlirgri, 2003 Stahmer, Collings Palinkas,
  2005 Wall, 2004).

• Results
• no significant differences in autism knowledge
  for participants completing measures BEFORE
  AFTER presentation, except those AFTER
  presentation scored significantly higher on
  identifying very early signs of autism in young
  children
• Number of Times Worked with a Child with ASD
• no significant differences in autism knowledge OR
  comfort in identifying a child as autistic

• Research Questions
• How much do ECEs already know about ASD and
  early signs of ASD in young children?
• What experiences have ECEs already had working
  with young children with ASD (both diagnosed and
  undiagnosed) and their parents in local child
  care centres?
• What are ECEs attitudes towards receiving
  training in screening children for ASD, talking
  to parents about suspected ASD, and participating
  in screening programs for ASD?

• Method
• Participants
• 91 participants (90 female, 1 male) who worked in
  child care centres
• Profession ? 64.4 ECE, 34.4 other
• Education ? 63.3 ECE diploma
• 38.9 University education
• 25.6 some college/other college diploma
• 15.6 high school only
• 8.9 other

• Experience in Child Care
• 14.6 had 0 1 year
• 37.1 had 2 5 years
• 15.7 had 6 10 years
• 32.6 had gt 10 years

• Conclusions
• brief training can increase ECEs knowledge of
  early signs of ASD
• ECEs and others working in child care centres
  had similar levels of ASD knowledge
• ECEs knew a great deal about ASD already
• ECEs main misconceptions were about cognitive
  abilities of children with ASD and emotional
  factors in the cause of ASD training should
  focus on these areas
• 88 of ECEs had experience working with children
  diagnosed with ASD
• over 80 of ECEs had worked with a child
  suspected with ASD although almost half had
  never discussed concerns about ASD with the
  childrens parents
• ECEs are eager for more training on ASD
  screening and talking to parents about ASD and
  were positive about participating in screening
  programs for ASD

• Data Collection
• recruited at a workshop, Autism in the Early
  Years, Oct. 2004
• 52 to 61 return rate
• 53 participants completed the measures BEFORE and
  38 participants AFTER a presentation, Autism in
  the Early Years Early Identification
• Measures
• Autism Survey (Stone, 1987 Stone Rosenbaum,
  1988) to measure autism knowledge
• Early Childhood Educators and Children with
  Autism designed for current study to measure
  experiences attitudes toward working with
  children with ASD and their parents in child care
  centres, attitudes toward screening for ASD, and
  demographic information

• Acknowledgements
• Participants who shared their experiences with us
• The Association of Early Childhood Educators,
  Windsor/Essex Branch
• The City of Windsor, Children's Services
• St. Clair College, School of Community Studies

• Knowledge Translation
• Presented study results information on ASD to
  staff and ECE students at website and
• Ontario Early Years Satellite Centres
• City of Windsor Childrens Services
• St. Clair College, other community events

AC Autistic Children