En directa relación con las distintas vertientes de su inquietud social, hay

In order to maintain programme fidelity, the lessons followed the underlying tenets of programme theory, using the original materials as much as possible. As these materials were designed for adults, some simplification was conducted, particularly with respect to underlying biological mechanisms to meet the needs of younger participants. It was also considered important to incorporate some ‘fun’ elements to enable the children to maintain motivation. This included sensory investigations and the use of balloons for deep

breathing.

The child interviews suggested that the ‘fun’ elements were much appreciated but could ideally be increased further, with the extension of practical work such as sensory investigations mentioned by more than one child. There was also a comment from a sensory-aware child (Tom) that the programme tended to say the same thing in different ways, causing it to ‘go on a bit’ suggesting the need to differentiate based on starting knowledgebase.

Two of the children also referred to communication difficulties related to autism; the first by Tom, commenting that he found thinking of examples difficult and the second by Peter, who suggested a practical way of expressing emotions (using balloons). The field-notes added further information relating to potential communication issues for Tom, as he reported a tendency to ‘drift off halfway through’ listening to a sentence when his parents were talking to him if he was not interested and he reported he was doing the same to the researcher. The development of more autism-friendly communication channels appears to be an important consideration for the future development of the intervention programme with this population, in conjunction with differentiation based on prior knowledge, needs and age.

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Peter also commented that seeing how other people used strategies to calm

themselves would be helpful, suggesting the benefit of working more as a group, or in the case of children who were not ‘group-ready’, providing such information by other means such as more opportunities for adult disclosure, in conjunction with the use of social stories and/or video clips.

The parental comments were predominantly positive, though Peter’s mother felt that her son, (who has speech and language difficulties) needed more differentiated material to fully understand.

Parental comments were largely based on the provision of the book at the beginning of the study and discussion with their children as due to a process issue, outlined in the next section, parents did not receive much of the lesson summaries until towards the end of intervention, and were therefore less familiar with the content than the children or the teachers. One parental suggestion, nevertheless, was to include special interests and another was to share activities with the children.

Other comments regarded the suitability of the programme for that age group, which was overwhelmingly affirmative, though some parents considered it could be adapted for much younger children and one wished they had been given access much earlier, such as the time of diagnosis. There was also consensus that the programme should be available to the wider school community to enhance understanding of the autistic population and for mainstream teachers to meet both their needs and those of children with sensory processing issues without a diagnostic label. This clearly has staff-training

implications and is also a systemic issue, as a result.

Staff feedback revolved around several different themes. The first was a perceived challenge of getting parents on-board, providing evidence that staff were not fully cogent of the importance afforded sensory processing by the parents and their depth of

understanding due to their own as well as their child’s sensory challenges.

Staff did have access to the material used in lessons, as it was provided in a master file, regularly updated as the lessons progressed. This enabled staff to provide constructive feedback on the amount of information the boys were expected to take in, (which caused Peter difficulties, in particular), and to suggest the use of social stories and more visual materials as part of programme development.

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Staff 1’s view that as ‘none of our guys really get on that well’ the use of smaller groupings, would have been better, had been superseded by events. Her additional comment that having an external person might have contributed to pupil discomfort was not supported by other sources of evidence, though clearly needs due consideration in future programme development.

156 Table 39

Illustrative Comments for ‘Programme Development’

Children Parents Staff

Simon: Maybe encourage like (..) maybe like (…) teach the programme maybe in a more fun way.

Researcher: Can you expand on that?

Simon: Like (.) Maybe do some more of the sensory challenges, perhaps or something like that. (Lines 38- 43)

Vince…it could be less wordy in some parts, yes.

Researcher: Can you expand on that? So, where it is ‘wordy in parts’ what would you put in its place?

Vince: I found it alright but some of the other students found it a bit complicated. Make it a bit more practical? (Lines 104-108).

Tom: Well I told you I didn’t like trying to think of examples of the things, of the things which made me go a bit ‘erk’ on bad days (laughs). (Lines 171 - 173).

Peter: Yeah it could, yeah it could be a lesson in your programme. You could get the child to write feelings on the balloon like I did, see? So yellow means happiness, blue means sadness, red means anger, green means disgust and purple means fear, just like that (pointing at the balloons). (lines 366-371).

Adi... I found all the stuff like the sensory (.) having to do the smell and stuff like that, I think we could do more about that to find out about the senses. I think that would be fun. (Lines 457-460).

Peter’s mother: I’m not sure, well, Peter didn't understand, not all of it, and I'm not sure how, maybe there may have been different ways, it's difficult to know if there were different ways to introduce it to him or whether it is just where he is at the moment. Does that make sense? (Lines 2217-2221). Tom’s mother: so yeah, I think it is useful and good timing, maybe at the start of secondary, that sort of age. Probably more so than primary, maybe.

Researcher: Okay.

Mother. Because there is that greater self-awareness isn’t there? (Lines 1549-1555). Simon’s mother: Oh, definitely from the age that you've picked, from secondary age. Most definitely. I think the sooner they can stop and think and try and think about their behaviours and have some influence, the sooner they do that the better, so definitely. I think it needs to be before adulthood, most definitely, doesn't it? From 12? (Lines 2863-2870).

Vince’s mother: So maybe a little bit of it filtering out to normal school, normal mainstream, helping teachers pick off those children that stand out with different needs that are never going to get a diagnosis. I think that would be useful. (Lines 3128-3132).

Staff 3: You would have to persuade them that it is worth doing. So, I think when they came to your initial (..). This is what we are doing they were all coming very sceptical, they don’t know what they’re coming to (..) they’re not sure they will agree to it, it needs to be presented in a way that makes them want to do it, not just see it as an extra box I’ve got to tick and it’s something else I’ve got to do in my already completely overstressed life (..) seeing the parent of a disabled child is maxed out (..) so stressed (..). If it is presented as one more thing you need to be doing for your child, I think it will be hard to get them on board. (Lines 714-725).

Staff 1: I think for parents to be able to see, being given this profile, and for this student that these strategies worked, being able to see it in black and white, they might say oh, okay, if it works for them maybe it might work for my son or daughter. Lines 733-737).

Staff 4: I think like that (information pack) could be improved graphically so that it is more colourful maybe, imagery kind of explaining things as well so that it’s, yeah, not a lot of written information. I know that there are diagrams and stuff in there, but, yeah, maybe a slicker kind of pack for the pupils. (Lines 766-771). Staff 2: … I was thinking of something like social stories (..) like animated so they can visually see, you know what I mean? (Lines 789-792).

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Another staff comment suggested a misunderstanding of the sensory intelligence programme theory, possibly due to insufficient time to look at the book provided. It also suggests that staff training should be an integral aspect of pre-implementation planning.

Staff 3: I think some of the strategies need to be more dynamic and need to be more different from, because you can look through a list that says eat crunchy snacks or bounce on the trampoline and they’ll all think I’m doing that anyway. Even the parents will think that this is all stuff I am already doing so I think there needs to be something that is actually (..) it needs to be more stark and there needs to be more contrast. This is something new and dynamic and we are going to try these things rather than just all the stuff you’re doing anyway, that’s just been formalised and put in lists. They are all doing this sort of thing naturally. They naturally chew, they naturally go outside, they are doing that so there needs to be another way of saying this is something completely different that we are going to try. (Lines 774-788).