Pre-School Teachers’ Knowledge, Belief, Identification Skills, and Self-Efficacy in Identifying Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A Conceptual Framework to Identify Children with ASD

Abstract

Recently, the identification and detection of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has become an essential issue under ASD intervention services. The high percentage of ASD among children requires preschool teachers to recognizse children’s abnormal development and identify them at an early stage, followed by referral to specialists. Therefore, this identification calls for a specific ability among preschool teachers, identified as knowledge, belief, identification skills, and self-efficacy (KBISSE). This conceptual framework aims to utilize the current literature to present a discussion on preschool teachers’ KBISSE in identifying children with ASD and making decisions to refer children suspected with ASD to specialists. The conceptual framework is discussed based on social cognitive theory (SCT) and the health belief model (HBM). The conceptual framework emphasizes the need for preschool teachers to be educated in ASD via an educational module that could increase teachers’ self-efficacy in identifying children with ASD. Besides, knowledge in ASD, belief in ASD, and identification skills are also necessary variables for building the educational module. The educational module is useful for guiding future research on preschool teachers’ identification of children with any disability, one of which is ASD, and subsequent specialist referral at an early stage.

Teachers’ Knowledge Regarding Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A Systematic Review

“…Overall, in this review we found a lack of knowledge in most of the articles reviewed coinciding with prior reviews [61,62] and other studies [45]. We found that most of the articles revealed low [64,66,68,71,75,76,79,[84][85][86]95] or medium [65,67,73,74,77,78,80,82,91] levels of knowledge about ASD among their participants, coinciding with prior studies [21,25,36,37].…”

“…Early research literature has already collected articles examining teachers' knowledge regarding ASD. A review carried out in 2020 [61] built a conceptual framework of teachers' knowledge through 11 studies. The authors concluded that early childhood teachers have a lack of knowledge identifying students with ASD.…”

“…The particularity of our study lies not only with updating previous reviews, but also in illustrating the focus of the study. In this way, our study excludes other kinds of professionals that are not responsible for educational functions (for example, nurses [61]). It also puts the focus of attention on the ASD diagnosis, differentiating itself from other neurodevelopmental disorders [62] and covering all stages of education from early childhood, primary, secondary, and university levels (as students with ASD often reach higher educational levels).…”

A Mixed-Methods Evaluation of Parent-Assisted Children’s Friendship Training to Improve Social Skills and Friendship Quality in Children with Autism in Malaysia

“…Autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a condition that impacts a child’s development in two core areas: the first is social communication and social interaction, and the second is restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior and interests [ 1 ]. As the number of children with ASD is increasing globally, concerns about their neurocognitive and behavioral problems are rising [ 2 , 3 ]. Statistics indicated that at least one in 600 children in Malaysia has ASD [ 4 ].…”

The Challenging Heterogeneity of Autism: Editorial for Brain Sciences Special Issue “Advances in Autism Research”

“…(5) Treatment and intervention; (6) Etiopathogenesis (Biomarkers, Biology, Genetic, Epigenetic and Risk Factor); (7) Autism and comorbidity; (8) Autism and adulthood; and (9) Broader Autism Phenotype (BAP).…”