Purpose: To examine autism knowledge and attitudes among early childhood educators.
Method: A self-administered paper-pencil survey was conducted in five public universities in the Southeastern US after an IRB approval was obtained. A 24-item Autism Knowledge and Attitude Survey was developed, pilot-tested, and obtained 0.61~0.86 Cronbach alphas for all subscales. Data were collected among a convenient sample of 148 pre-service teachers specialized in Birth through Five (response rate: 95%).
Result: The participants' mean age was 32 years and 138 (93.9%) were females. The majority of respondents (75.0%) reported having limited experience in interacting with autistic children, nearly half (48.6%) reported having below the average knowledge of autism, and 68.2% indicated learning about autisms from school studies. Chi-square analyses revealed that respondents who reported having a greater amount of autism knowledge scored significantly higher in the autism knowledge items. Participants who had more experience in working with autistic children felt significantly more confident in dealing with autistic children and had a significantly more positive attitude towards autism.
Translation to Health Education: This study revealed that the majority of the participants lacks autism knowledge, indicating the need for including autism in the health education content course that birth-five pre-service teachers receive.