IDEAL

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by alterations in social communication and repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). ASD affecting a growing number of children: the actual prevalence is about 1 in every 150 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). According to the European charter of fundamental rights, the French law (2005) protects the rights of children with a disability to be included in schools and to have the same chances as children without disability. As a result more and more children with ASD have access to schooling (“National Disability Conference [Conférence nationale du handicap],” 2016). However, negative beliefs and attitudes of students toward their peers suggest that the challenge of inclusive school is still far from being achieved (e.g. Humphrey & Hebron, 2015). Fear of difference fuels very early prejudice and exclusion behaviors (not always consciously), within the school and then throughout life (Corrigan, Markowitz, & Watson, 2004). To our knowledge, only one study in France has tested a school intervention to improve attitudes toward children with disabilities but results did not showed any difference on attitudes compared to the control group (Godeau et al., 2010). However, the intervention did not take into account the prejudice-reduction literature that is a field in its own. Indeed, exclusionary behaviors can be reduced through the development of empathy among young children toward their peers with ASD by promoting contact, experience and perspective change (Schachter et al., 2008). The IDEAL project considers this limitation by associating, on the one hand, the skills of researchers with different expertise (in ASD, educational interventions, and prejudice and discrimination) behaviors and, on the other hand, association with ground expertise (association of parents). The main objective of the project is to evaluate (at short and midterm) the effectiveness of a school-based anti-stigma intervention aimed at improving children and teachers’ attitudes toward students with ASD. A second objective is to evaluate the social validity of the intervention. Participants will be students from 1st grade to 5th grade and their teaching staff. The planned sample is 20 classes (4 classes per grade level) in the intervention group and 20 classes in the control group. Our measurements will be carried out during one school year at three different times: T0 (before the intervention), T1 (after the intervention) and T2 (4 months after the end of the intervention). Children and teachers’ attitudes toward children with ASD will be assessed with explicit measures but also with implicit measures to circumvent a social desirability bias rarely considered in research on prejudice-reduction interventions toward disabled. Moreover, implicit measures predict more subtle and passive discriminatory behaviors which are closer to reality. For that purpose, the first year of the project will be dedicated to the elaboration and to the pre-testing of explicit and implicit measures as those currently available in the literature (particularly implicit measures) are not fully suitable for children. By considering the critical absence of program aimed at reducing prejudice against students with ASD, the IDEAL project combines an innovative intervention based on the theoretical contributions of research in psychology of prejudice and discrimination, as well as a rigorous scientific method (e.g., control group, pre/post intervention measures, explicit and implicit measures) to evaluate the short- and mid-term effects of our intervention. In longer-term context, we plan to disseminate our intervention at national or international level. Finally, the IDEAL program not only aims at establishing an 'autism-friendly climate' in schools, but also will contribute to the education of children on tolerance toward differences.