Transdisciplinary Teaching for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that generally affects the development of proper social communication and behaviour skills (Bennett & Goodall, 2016). Symptoms of ASD may occur across a wide spectrum of ages and life situations and may vary with age, where in different cultures the interpretations for the same symptoms may be different. While the warning signs are numerous and vary greatly between individuals, up to a decade ago, many people on the spectrum were not diagnosed because the symptoms they presented as children were not yet officially defined or were not recognized as challenges that needed to be addressed. As a result, these learners were not taught appropriate learning strategies that could have promoted both their learning skills in all areas and their social skills that are needed for better inclusion as adults (Bryson et al., 2003). Nowadays, many researchers from around the world not only aim to find the factors that cause the development of ASD, in order to try to prevent it from one perspective, but also want to learn what interventions should be used to optimally promote their learning for inclusion in society. Nevertheless, as explained later in this chapter, understanding the main obstacles most learners with ASD experience together with recognizing their strengths allows educators to suitably prepare for their inclusion, regardless of the reasons for the obstacles their students face. These preparations can significantly and pre-emptively help learners with ASD to avoid or to better overcome obstacles in the realms of social and academic skills and abstract thinking and mainly how to define logical links between different areas of content, which is one of the main challenges learners with ASD have to deal with. However, while transdisciplinary methods can contribute greatly to learners with ASD, transdisciplinary teachers must carefully learn about the various implications of the disorder along with the most efficient strategies for successful inclusion in mainstream classes.