A UOW program that teaches high school students to behave compassionately towards classmates with autism will be adapted for use in preschools.
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The program, called Understanding Our Peers, has been shown to improve attitudes among adolescents towards peers with high-functioning autism.
It was created by UOW psychologist Dr Mitchell Byrne and his team, and was recently recognised at the Autism Spectrum Australian National Recognition Awards.
Dr Byrne said the program - involving classroom sessions and opportunities for students to meet people with autism and chat with them online - succeeded because it didn't set out to "change something that can never be fully recovered".
"A lot of the interventions that have been developed seek to change the person with the autism - to improve their skills or to somehow the way they engage with others," said Dr Byrne, whose teenage son has high-functioning autism.
"But the nature of autism is such that there are some fundamental problems that people never overcome, that are just part of the condition.
"Just like people in wheelchairs aren't expected to climb stairs, people with social communication deficits can't be expected to suddenly change and understand the nuances of the social situation and behave in ways that non-autistic peers might behave."
In the program's preschool format, under development with Autism Spectrum Australia, lesson plans developed for high schools will be converted into a story book format, with activities for the teacher to engage children.
The preschool focus is aimed at influencing children while they are still forming the attitudes that they will carry through to adulthood.
"The primary goals will be about accepting difference, strategies to increase inclusivity and ... reduction of bullying behaviours," Dr Byrne said.
"Children with autism generally tend to be ignored by their preschool peers. Sometimes they may be the victims of joking and of jibes from children or negative comment.
"They tend to start to experience that sense of exclusion very early on. That influences their development of themselves and both their capability and desire to engage with others as they grow older and it compounds the problem of their poor social communicative skills."
Chinese delegates will visit UOW later this week as part of a new partnership aimed at improving services for people in China who have autism.
Dr Byrne said the delegates would tour UOW's Early Start facility and take part in a conference showcasing strategies from both countries.
"Autism wasn't accepted as a disability in China until 2006. They are really early on in terms of their service development."