Maria Bella, Zoi Sipsa
Jan 30, 2020
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Quality indicators
Journal
Pedagogy of Learning
Abstract
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders often have difficulties communicating, such as social interactions, social cognition, pragmatics, and language processing. A number of effective instructional strategies and methods have been used for teaching these children who need extra attention. This paper focuses on physical education teachers’ perceptions of using role-playing approach as a teaching strategy to help children who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders to increase social interaction skills with their peers. The qualitative approach focused on the analysis of fifty-eight teachers’ (M=45.7 years) perceptions with a major in adapted physical education of northern and western Greece who are selected by purposive sampling and participated in semi-structured interviews. The interview protocol included 10 open-closed questions. Each interview lasted approximately 30 to 45 minutes. Responses were collected through a recording device. A depth-analysis of teacher’s responses was used to analyze their patterns and relationships. Physical education teachers’ agree that role-playing strategies with appropriate curricular decisions and knowledge can hold an essential place in their class and developing social interaction skills to children with autism spectrum disorders.