Enhancing Teacher Preparation to Support Students with Autism in Primary Mathematics Education

There is a growing need for preservice primary teachers to be prepared to teach mathematics to students with autism spectrum disorder. Teacher education programs often lack opportunities to develop specialized knowledge for this purpose. This study addressed this gap by designing, implementing and evaluating the impact of an instructional unit for preservice primary teachers, focused on teaching word problem-solving strategies to students with autism. A teaching experiment involving 81 preservice primary teachers was conducted. The instructional unit was designed to improve teachers’ knowledge on mathematics teaching and on features of learning mathematics. The experiment evaluated improvements in those two knowledge subdomains of the Mathematics Teacher’s Specialized Knowledge model. A questionnaire was created to identify the knowledge that preservice teachers were expected to develop upon completing the unit. A list of observable indicators was designed to code the participants’ responses. Results report the number or percentages of participants in whose responses the expected indicators were found. Findings show increased knowledge about representations, task statements, methodologies, common errors and aids adapted to autism. Lower achievement was detected in relating learning characteristics and autism cognitive features. Implications for teacher education are discussed.