Covid-19 and the impact on families with autistic children
The Autism Centre for Education and Research
2020 saw the education of children around the world change as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic. Through our exclusion research we were already hearing about the increasing numbers of parents choosing to home educate their children but with the pandemic, this was suddenly forced upon most families in the UK
Summary of the research
We produced a set of videos, which you can find links to below, to capture the personal experiences of some families. The films cover various topics:
- Autism, Covid-19 lockdown and school support
- Positives from the Covid-19 lockdown
- Struggles during lockdown and managing home education
- Transitioning back to school after lockdown
- Learning points for teachers post-lockdown
As well as the videos, we also produced a factsheet for teachers called The Good, the Bad and the Helpful to summarise what families told us. This has a number of recommendations and resources that teaching staff can use. Please feel free to share it and/or print it out.
Thank you to all those parents who contributed to this research. Particular thanks go to those parents who gave up additional time for us to film them and for sharing their personal experiences on camera.