New Perspectives in Science Education

By enhancing professional efficacy through a non-technical practice, could we improve the quality of educational programs for children with ASD? This is the question we are trying to answer. Working in educational programs aimed at children and young people with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) has a peculiar psychological impact on professional caregivers (e.g. educators, teachers, therapists, clinicians), that affects the balance of their mind and the quality of their work maybe more than other developmental disabilities, as happens for families (1). To the best of our knowledge, the psychological impact of caregiving on autism professionals is still under-examined. According to the recent research (2), the specific model followed by caregivers seems no longer relevant to their preparation and quality of their actions. Every choice, decision or intention, comes from the mind of the adult who guides the intervention. Therefore an expert is a co-protagonist, not just a technical performer, with a responsibility of taking care of his/her mental health, going beyond technical skills. We assume that there is a correlation between efficacy of care actions and the psychological and non-technical competencies of professionals. A sample of 100 caregivers of children aged 2 to 7 was used to understand the sources of stress in daily situations and to define the psychological competencies (3,4) and non-technical skills needed (5,6). We designed a 5-week Training Program, involving 27 participants, using a multimodal approach to evaluate the intervention. The factors that have the highest psychological impact seem to be related to the core challenging features of autism: connection impairments, mood instability, rigidity of behaviour, regulation issues. The communication with parents appears to be one of the challenging factors. The first available data confirm that the Training Program helps professionals to feel more resilient during critical moments, more confident with parents’ compliance ability and safer in understanding how to proceed. Moreover, they report an increase in vitality and self-confidence in being emotionally congruent, a perception of better efficacy and resilience in dealing with critical situations, a feeling of personal satisfaction and less distress, an awareness of a more productive way to communicate with parents. In addition to previous findings, we have observed that children exhibit (during the training of their caregivers) fewer dysregulation episodes and better strategy for coping and adapting to environments. In conclusion, working in the field of education for autism could undermine professionals’ personal balances, their self-care and self-control skills and finally the accuracy of their professional behavior. Therefore, caregivers have to develop a solid competence, which is a delicate balance between known things (and the capacity to continue to obtain and integrate the knowledge), things that they can do (technical skills) and ability to be involved and to remain in relationship (that comes from the intra/interpersonal skills), focused on themselves and the interactive field (7) with the same sensitivity and quality of attention.

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder, Emotion regulation, professional competence, educational programs, science of caregiving.

References:
[1] Schieve, L.A., Blumberg, S.J., Rice, C., Visser, S.N., Boyle, C. (2007). The relationship between autism and parenting stress. In Pediatrics, 119, 114-121.
[2] Rogers, S. (2018). Lectio Magistralis. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. Istituto Marino, 26 ottobre. Resoconto a cura di David Vagni.
[3] Epstein, R.M., Hundert, E.M. (2002). Defining and assessing professional competence. JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association Jan 9;287(2):226-35
[4] Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.
[5] National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2013). Autism: the management and support of children and young people on the autism spectrum. (Clinical guideline 170). Available on: http://guidance.nice.org.uk/CG170.
[6] Franciosi, F. (2017). La regolazione emotiva nei disturbi dello spettro autistico. Verso un modello operativo in ambito clinico e psicoeducativo. Pisa: ETS.