Relationships Between the Participation Levels of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders and the Time They Spend in Resource Rooms in Taiwan

PURPOSE: In Taiwan, 78.2% of school-age children with disabilities (28,779 out of 36,798 school-age children with disabilities) receive resource classroom services. A resource room is a partially inclusive setting and defined in the Enforcement Rules of the Special Education Act (2013) in Taiwan. Resource rooms are for students who receive educational services primarily in general education classrooms but are pulled out for special education or related services according to their individualized education programs. Additional supports for children with ASDs in inclusive settings, like resource rooms, are very important, and the amount of weekly school time they spend in resource rooms merits consideration. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the relationships between the participation levels of children with ASDs and the amount of time they spend in resource rooms in inclusive educational settings.

DESIGN: The researcher used a descriptive, cross-sectional design.

METHOD: In this study, participants were parents or primary caregivers who met the following criteria: (1) a parent or legal guardian of a child with ASD between nine and 11 years, 11 months in age and (2) fluent in reading Chinese and lives full time in Taiwan. A child with ASD must have received a diagnosis from a Taiwanese pediatrician. Participants completed the survey instrument, ‘Chinese Version of the Participation and Environment Measure - Children and Youth (CPEM-CY).' The CPEM-CY is an assessment developed to examine the participation levels of children and youth in three different contexts: home, school, and the community. It was adapted from the English version (the PEM-CY). Data were analyzed using multiple linear regression. The summary scores of participation frequency and participation involvement at home, at school, and in the community measured by the CPEM-CY were the dependent variables; the time the children with ASDs spend in resource rooms was the research variable; and gender, age, and extracurricular activity hours were the control variables. The working sample in this study consisted of 68 parents/guardians of children with ASDs in inclusive settings. Convenience sampling was utilized.

RESULTS: The researcher conducted six multiple linear regression analyses. The model was assessed with three different settings: home, school, and the community. To avoid an inflated Type I error resulting from the fact that six regression analyses were being carried out, a Bonferroni adjustment was applied. The new p-value for establishing statistical significance was set to 0.05/6 = 0.008. The findings of this study indicated that there were no statistically significant relationships between the amount of time spent in resource rooms and participation frequency and participation involvement at home, at school, and in the community for children with ASDs in inclusive settings. None of the predictors contributed statistically significant differences to the variations in participation frequency in the three settings.

CONCLUSION: To the best of the researcher's knowledge, this study represents the first one to examine the relationships between the participation levels of children with ASDs and the time they spend in resource rooms in inclusive settings in Taiwan. The results indicate that resource rooms could be more effective. There are three common barriers to their effectiveness in inclusive schooling: (1) an incomplete team of special education professionals, (2) a lack of professional knowledge, and (3) limited instructional strategies. The findings suggest that professionals should work together to identify the barriers, learn how to optimize resource room to successful participation, and develop specific support strategies.

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