The lived experiences of primary and secondary education for autistic university students

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

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Ward, M. & Powell, L. (2025). The lived experiences of primary and secondary education for autistic university students. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 30(4), 732-748. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2025.2490596

Journal or book title
International Journal of Inclusive Education
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Volume
30
Issue
4
Pages
732-748
Publication date: 11 Apr 2025 Added to AutiHub: 9 Aug 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) Full text OpenAlex source

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
2
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 2 (50.0%)
  1. Martha Ward
  2. L. Powell *

Abstract

Policy calls for inclusive practices to facilitate the integration of diverse autistic school students into mainstream education. This poses challenges for teachers and autistic students and retrospective accounts can make sense of the experiences of autistic. This study explored experiences of mainstream education in six autistic university students through semi-structured interviews facilitated by images chosen by participants. Three themes and four subthemes were identified through thematic analysis of the data: 1) Inaccessibility; 2) Support (Subthemes: Supportive Teachers; Inadequate Support Provision) and 3) Challenging Peer Relationships (Subthemes: Social Interaction Challenges; Isolation and Difference). Recommendations for improving inclusive support provision for autistic students in mainstream education included appropriate support and training for teachers, reasonable adjustments to the physical environment and inclusion of lived experiences when developing related future policies. Future research should consider a multi-informant approach and other groups such as those who do not progress to higher education for a more holistic understanding of the inclusion of autistic students in mainstream education.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 3 Oct 2026 01:01.

Cited references
52
With a DOI
41
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
11
4 / 52 (7.7%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
7 / 52 (13.5%)
References with detected author names
45 / 52 (86.5%)
Without detected author names
7
Without a structured title
7
Without a stable identifier
10
References with raw author names still to review
0
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
124
From DOI or external metadata
124
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
7
37 / 124 (29.8%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 87 / 124 (70.2%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
5 / 124 (4.0%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 5 / 37 (13.5%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 5 / 114 (4.4%).
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