The Most Recent Advances on the Teaching of English to Studentswith Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
A Basic Literature Review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30854/anf.1252Keywords:
Autism, Inclusive education, Teaching strategies, Foreign languages, English, Government policy , (obtained from UNESCO Thesaurus)Abstract
Objective: To identify the most recent advances including the research trends, government policies and classroom strategies in the teaching of the English language to students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Methodology: Literature review based on 52 scientific articles and retrieved from academic databases through
the VOSviewer software. Publications were searched using key words related to ASD and English teaching. Doxographic data sheets to log the information were created and recurring topics were categorized using theme coding. Results: The results reveal, in the last decade, various countries have developed initiatives to support students with ASD. The main advances are grouped into four areas: (1) predominant research approaches by country; (2) government policies and the use of technological tools to ease the work in inclusive classrooms facing social inequalities and (3) strategies to improve ASD students’ English learning. Conclusions: Considering that inclusive contexts offer restrictive environments, the governments have implemented educational policies on treatment and prevention. Nonetheless, there is a clear contradictory discrepancies between educational policies and the reality of inclusive education. It is also necessary
to balance social inequalities to meet the specific needs of ASD populations.
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