Teaching for Neurodiversity

This article was first published in Volume 6.6 of the Every Child Journal

A new approach helps teachers work with students with dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties. Dominic Griffiths and the British Dyslexia Association's Liz Horobin show how by thinking of these learning differences as part of a neurodiverse system, the human equivalent of biodiversity, the needs of the whole learner can be addressed and solutions that move beyond labelling or identifying problems can be implemented.

Background to the ‘Teaching for Neurodiversity’ project

In 2016, a consortium led by the British Dyslexia Association in partnership with Dyslexia Action, Dyspraxia Foundation, The Helen Arkell Centre, and The Professional association of teachers of students with specific learning difficulties (Patoss), was awarded a Department for Education-funded contract to provide support for Dyslexia and other Specific Learning Differences. A research team from Manchester Metropolitan University was tasked with evaluating the project.

A major element of the contract was to develop training to help equip the school and post-16 workforces to deliver quality teaching and effective, evidence-based SEN support for pupils with dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties (SpLD).This training was to focus on enhancing teachers’ knowledge, understanding and skills in identifying and supporting pupils with SpLD to ensure their ability to identify and respond to the needs of children from an early age. A ‘train the trainer’ approach was recommended in order to maximise the sustainability and reach of the programme.

The consortium addressed the requirement to meet the needs of learners with a range of SpLD by developing a training programme focussing on neurodiversity, called ‘Teaching for Neurodiversity’. Differing concepts of neurodiversity currently exist: some use the term in order to reframe the label ‘Autistic Spectrum Disorder’ (Singer 1999), others to refer to a range of specific learning difficulties (DANDA 2006; Baker 2011). However, the model underpinning the training would conceive that everyone is included within the spectrum of neurodiversity, and this conception is further developed later in this article.

It is important to make clear that the concept of teaching for neurodiversity is not the same as that of ‘educational neuroscience’ (a branch of science that explores the links between biological neural mechanisms and education). The idea that laboratory-based experimental approaches to the brain and learning can be transferred unproblematically to a school classroom has been fundamentally questioned by scholars working in the fields of critical neuroscience and critical educational psychology. While such experimental approaches might give some limited information about neurobiological functioning, they have been criticised for being very reductionist in approach, failing to account for, firstly, the affective dimensions of learning (Le Doux 1999), secondly, the concept of human personality as being more than the sum of its neurophysiological parts (Kirmayer & Gold 2012), and thirdly, the highly complex set of variables at play in the social dynamics of learning in the classroom (Johnston 2015).

The other danger with the educational neuroscience approach is that it is based within a positivist medical tradition which has traditionally considered human diversity through a lens of psychopathology and a focus upon deficit. In this tradition, the aim has been to identify and treat ‘syndromes’ within the individual, which, as Professor Tom Billington of the University of Sheffield points out,“restrict the available ways of conceptualising and responding to human difference in our schools and more specifically within special educational needs.” (Billington 2017).

It would be wrong to rule out all the claims of educational neuroscience, but, as Professor Billington concludes, these claims “...need to be viewed through a critical lens.” (Billington 2017, p. 876). Instead, a neurodiversity approach is based upon an understanding that so-called ‘special education needs’ categories have within them huge variation (Lewis & Norwich 2004). Each is seldom present in neat isolation, but rather occurs, as a rule, in conjunction with other learning differences, sometimes characterised by the term ‘co-morbidity’ (Gilger & Kaplan 2001) or ‘co-occurrence’ (Jones & Kindersley 2013). This factor, added to the fact that many dimensions or characteristics of learning, such as working memory or attentional difficulties are present in a variety of so-called ’special educational needs’, has led academic psychologists, such as Margaret Snowling and Charles Hulme (2012), to suggest that educationalists should focus upon ‘dimensions’ of learning rather than upon ‘categories’ of special educational need, especially when none of these categories have clear cut-off points and when so many learners do not have difficulties that have reached the threshold for ‘clinical’ diagnoses. Furthermore, American educational psychologist Thomas Armstrong (2012) has suggested that we move away from a deficit-focussed discourse of special educational needs to focus upon the individual strengths that different learners have.

Ultimately, the ‘neurodiversity’ approach is based upon the fundamental idea that all humans are neurodiverse, that learning differences are a normal part of human variation, and that this variation might be considered as a human ecosystem. As Professor Nobuo Matasaka (2017) of Kyoto University, Japan has suggested, neurodiversity can be seen as the human equivalent of biodiversity. Both Armstrong and Matasaka suggest that understanding learning differences as neurodiversity can represent a paradigm shift in the way that we think about learning in the classroom and has the power to transform the way we teach.

The ‘Teaching for Neurodiversity’ training programme

The ‘Teaching for Neurodiversity’ training, therefore, was about the importance of recognising and respecting difference. It supported the principle that every teacher is a teacher of SEND. However, it also sought to address the lack of confidence experienced by many in the teaching profession regarding the identification and support of learners with SpLD, which may lead to a learner’s needs being either unidentified because of preconceptions of what constitutes an SpLD or unaddressed pending a specialist assessment, or to the attitude that learners with SpLD are the sole responsibility of the school SENCo.

The training addressed such issues by focussing not on labels but, rather, on support based on observable behaviours and learner profiling, and, further, on utilising a range of whole-class techniques to establish a neurodiversity-friendly classroom. Devised to follow the recommended ‘train the trainer’ model, it was intended to be cascaded to all staff in the school at a ‘core skills’ level.

The training was divided into three sections:

Part 1. Seeing the whole picture promoted the importance of holistic learner profiling, taking into account the range of strengths and challenges that might be present in a learner with an SpLD.

Part 2. Understanding neurodiversity discussed the concept of neurodiversity and its origins in the work of Judy Singer. In this section of the training, a new Combined SpLD / Neurodiversity Checklist was presented, which had been devised to take into account the overlapping nature of SpLDs. The checklist aimed to provide a framework through which to observe and understand learner behaviours and encouraged teachers to look beyond individual labels and preconceptions of what it might mean to be dyslexic, dyspraxic, and so on.

Part 3. Classroom support strategies underlined the key message that “The purpose of identification is to work out what action the school needs to take, not to fit a pupil into a category” (Department for Education 2015). It presented a range of easy-to- implement strategies, encouraging teachers to build on their own best practice to create an inclusive, neurodiversity friendly classroom.

Three versions of the training were developed, at primary, secondary, and post-16 levels, and delivered, between October 2016 and January 2017, in a series of 48 one-day events throughout England. These events were attended by a total of 2,067 delegates representing 1,466 institutions.

In addition, the training was delivered in a series of webinars that were attended by an additional 1,143 delegates, including attendees from overseas countries as far away as Venezuela and Australia. The webinars have since been viewed in excess of 4,500 times.

Assessing the impact of the ‘Teaching for Neurodiversity’ Training

A research team from the Education Faculty at Manchester Metropolitan University designed and carried out and an evaluation the impact of the Teaching for Neurodiversity project over the year of the project, producing their Final Report in March 2017 (Griffiths et al. 2017).

Methodology

To evaluate the impact of the training, the evaluation team developed three
surveys. Survey 1 was to assess delegates’ knowledge, skills and understanding about neurodiversity and SpLDs at the start of the training day, the second to assess their knowledge skills and understanding at the end of the day and the third to be completed after three months by colleagues who had received the cascaded training.

From the impact data in Survey 3, three primary schools, three secondary schools and two colleges were to be selected as showing high impact, to be researched in more depth as series of case studies, through interviews with those who had the training cascaded, plus two other members of the teaching staff.

Summary of the Project Evaluation Findings

Data from Surveys 1 and 2 found statistically significant gains in delegates’ knowledge and understanding of SpLDs and neurodiversity, their understanding of support strategies for the diversity of learners in the classroom and their knowledge of multisensory approaches to learning and of metacognitive techniques. General feedback on the training was overwhelmingly positive, though some delegates did report already having the knowledge skills and practice in their institutions, and a minority seemed to have misunderstood the aims of the training and had expected more advanced level training for themselves, rather than being trained to cascade a core-level training pack to colleagues.

Results from Survey 3 showed a consistently majority of respondents (55-70%) reporting a positive impact upon their knowledge, skills and understanding of how to identify and support the diversity of learning needs within their classrooms.

In the same way, between 60-75% reported positive impacts upon whole-school approaches to supporting the needs of the diversity of their learners: both those with and without identified SpLDs. 53.4% noted improvement in student engagement in learning already and 44.5% of improvements in pupil performance. Although these two last figures are more modest, it was noted by many respondents that the recency of the training within their institutions meant that there had not really been sufficient time for impacts upon student outcomes to be fairly measured.

Data from the case studies staff, perhaps unsurprisingly, revealed positive responses to the cascaded training which had translated into teachers and teaching assistants (TAs) developing more multisensory approaches to learning, including appropriate resources to support these.These approaches and resources were not just being used with students identified with SpLDs, but with the whole class. This was not only to avoid ‘singling out’ certain students, but also because staff believed that these approaches and resources were useful for the whole range of learners. The same applied to helping the students develop metacognitive strategies to support their independence as learners. Staff reported increases in their own confidence in their lesson planning and teaching skills. Perhaps most importantly, the adoption of the term ‘neurodiversity’ allowed teachers to ‘look beyond labels’ and consider the individual strengths and needs of each child. Many reported improvements in students’ engagement, confidence and self-esteem, and some early signs of improved student performance were reported at some schools, though the general consensus among staff was that it was too early to measure the full impact upon student outcomes.

Conclusions and Recommendations

It is fair to conclude that, overall, this project has been a notable success, despite the tight time scale within which it was enacted. However, it could be argued that with more time, participation could have been greater, and opportunities to implement training and strategies in schools more extensive.

It is clear from responses to both the surveys and the case studies that this initiative has correctly responded to an identified training need in the schools’ and colleges’ teaching workforce for developing core knowledge skills and understanding of learners’ neurodiversity and how to respond to this in the classroom.

There remains a challenge in developing secondary schools’ uptake of such training and in response to this, having identified good practice in certain secondary schools, a series of case studies (Griffiths & Kelly 2018) and a set of videos have been developed to exemplify best practice, enabling secondary practitioners to analyse how and why this is effective.These could be accessed by secondary schools as part of their continuing professional development strategies, within a time framework perhaps more convenient to them.

Further, with the ongoing development of research knowledge about inclusive teaching and learning, two literature reviews have been completed focussing on the evidence base for dyslexia-friendly classroom teaching (Kelly 2018), and whole school approaches and processes of change for inclusive practice (Griffiths 2018). These provide information about evidence-based practice for dissemination to schools, colleges and training providers.

Finally, given the differing levels of expertise in respect of knowledge, skills and understanding in the teaching workforce in inclusive teaching and learning, a large-scale survey of teachers’ and TAs’ training needs could be undertaken with a view to developing training packages at different levels.

Dr Dominic Griffiths is Senior Lecturer with the Faculty of Education at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Liz Horobin is Project Director at the British Dyslexia Association.

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