Field Notes episode 6: Understanding autism and inclusive education with Dr Julie McMillan

Drawing on 3 decades of experience as a teacher, researcher and specialist in special education, Dr McMillan shares insights into her work with children on the autism spectrum and the importance of teacher professional learning.

The conversation unpacks key terms and offers practical advice on language use, identity-first versus person-first approaches, and the role of schools in supporting every learner. Dr McMillan also discusses the critical part school leaders play in embedding inclusive practice, the value of professional learning communities, and the need to bridge policy and day-to-day classroom application.

With a focus on transitions (from early childhood to school, primary to secondary, and school to post-school pathways) Dr McMillan outlines how early preparation, informed decision-making, and strong collaboration between educators, families and students can make all the difference.

Whether you’re a teacher, school leader, parent or student, this episode offers valuable perspectives, resources and encouragement to keep learning and adapting in the journey towards truly inclusive education.

You can stream episode 6 below, through Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Amazon Music, or keep reading for the transcript. 

Transcript

Marc: I have the pleasure of meeting with our guest, Dr. Julie McMillan. Julie is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Education and Research.  Julie, I'd like to begin with you sharing with us more about your background and experiences as a researcher for many years and now research with ACER. Can you tell us a bit more about what work you've previously been engaged in and what you're currently working on now?

Julie: Thanks, Marc. Thanks for having me on today. I began as a teacher, Bachelor in Education in the junior primary area, and then I moved into teaching children with disability. It was a purposeful, I found a job in that area because they needed somebody, and it just took off from there. I've worked with children with disability in early childhood, primary and secondary, so across all sectors. I worked in special and inclusive education for about 10 years, and then while I was doing that, I was studying my PhD at the same time. And then when I completed my PhD in education and particularly in special education, my focus of my PhD research was around autism and teacher professional learning. So that's sort of how my area of interest began, and I particularly focused on children on the autism spectrum who used augmentative and alternative communication and teacher professional learning to support those children to develop their communication. I focused on communication across, you know, the span of my career, which has been probably about 30 years, I'd say. Focused on autism, focused on communication, focused on behaviour, positive behaviour support. All the while, teacher professional learning was always part of that, because for inclusive education, it's really important to focus on the support educators need to support their students to develop those, to develop those skills. Most recently, the most recent project is the Autism Inclusion Teacher Evaluation. That's the program in South Australia where there's an autism inclusion teacher in every primary school in South Australia. I have focused on the evaluation. For that, we've just completed stage two of the evaluation.

Marc: Wow, there's a lot there, Julie. And I think a couple of points that I'd like to make reference to. The first one is, where you came from. Being a classroom teacher yourself. And I think walking in people's shoes is really, really important. You've moved, obviously, from a very high-level practitioner to a researcher, to academia. But I also want to point out what you've just talked about, professional learning, and the importance of developing, understanding that, and our listeners today, I'm hoping there's a lot of teachers and leaders listening today, especially, and our parents, and even students who, you know, are going through adolescence or transitioning from primary to secondary, secondary to tertiary, etc. It's such a journey. So those two points are really critical, especially when you talk about your background. I think what I'd like you to probably make reference to in the next question is, what do we mean by autism or the autism spectrum?  What do we mean when we hear this? And if we're not familiar with this, can you tell us just a bit more about what we mean by autism and autism spectrum?

Julie: The autism spectrum is very diverse. And while they might share some of the similarities, such as social communication and sensory neurodivergence, within that, then everyone's an individual. And the levels of autism are very diverse, or the degree of difference varies quite remarkably. And so do their talent, and so do their strength, and so do their interests. Each individual is quite different.  We also need to think about the levels of support in which they differ. So when we think about autism, typically there's different levels of support required, and there's people who need very little support to no support. And then there might be people who need some support, a moderate level of support. And usually the support that they require will be in completely different areas. But typically there is some support required around sensory supports and social communication supports. And then there are those individuals who require a substantial or significant amount of support or level of support. So when you hear about levels of autism, it's not that you have autism level 1, autism level 2, autism level 3. It's about the supports that the person requires.

And also, sometimes the support is also related to co-occurring disability, such as intellectual disability. So a person on the autism spectrum who needs a significant amount of support, so they might be identified as needing level 3 supports, they might also have a co-occurring intellectual disability. And in the past, students either had to have an intellectual disability or autism. They couldn't be co-occurring, but now they can be co-occurring, and that's why we see students on the autism spectrum who may have an intellectual disability. And then we see students on the autism spectrum who don't have intellectual disability, but still require some level of support, less so potentially around their communication and more so around social supports.However, keeping that in mind, still everybody is an individual, and even if someone doesn't require as many supports around autism, they may have another co-occurring condition or disability or area requiring support. It could be any number of things, it could be ADHD, it could be mental illness or a mental health condition. There's a whole range. And so it really is very diverse and the supports are highly individually based.

Marc: Look, I really empathise with what you've just said, particularly when you talked about a student or an individual having autism or being on the autism spectrum, but maybe having another area of support required.But I also thought about students I've worked with in the past, Julie, students who have been on the autism spectrum have come in the school, but they have been of non-English speaking background. So communication is being emphasised even more in terms of trying to make a connection. And just a quick story, I had one student who came in from Italy, the parents spoke very little English, and the student who was five years old was on the spectrum, but could not speak a word of English.  And thank goodness we had an Italian speaking language teacher in the school who was able to support and communicate that.

Julie: Sometimes, you know, it's really complex, but depending on student and family's backgrounds and their experiences, that also has an impact. And Australia is really quite diverse in terms of our cultural diversity as well and so all of that comes into play.

Marc: One thing that's come up in conversation, this is a lot around language, the term neurodivergence. What do we mean when we talk about when we hear this? Because I think there's a lot of people hearing different language that they may not be familiar with, and I think that's important that we understand the language, not just the things that connect it. Can you explain a bit more about what do we mean by neurodivergence?

Julie: Yeah, so most people are probably familiar with the term neurodiverse or neurodiversity, and so we want to think about, okay, well, what's neurodiversity as opposed to neurodivergence? And neurodiversity is just really an acceptance that there are natural differences that occur in every human being, you know, that's the nature of being human, everybody's different. So we're all different, and that's what neurodiversity is. The diversity of the human condition. And so when we think about, as opposed to neurodivergence, what we mean is when we're talking about neurodivergence is within neurodiversity, there are neurotypical people, and there are neurodivergent people. Neurotypical people are more what we think of as people who think, learn, communicate, process things typically.

Whereas if you're neurodivergent, the way you think, learn, communicate, process is different to what neurotypical people or how they would process the world, whether it's communication or information or including sensory information. So neurodiversity is the umbrella or overall term of everybody. And then within neurodiversity, there are neurotypical people and there are neurodivergent people. And so when we think about neurodivergence, we think about people on the autism spectrum or autistic people, people with ADHD, people with, potentially with learning disability. And that's sort of changing and evolving. It's a little bit tricky, but that's the difference between neurodiverse and neurodivergent.

Marc: We keep learning, don't we? You know, we keep learning. I think that's really quite critical. And part of today's discussion is simply about ensuring we understand what we mean by terminology. And I think what we also mean by communication, which leads me to asking you a bit about how we communicate and that thinking in terms of how we identify first versus person first. And I know that came up when we chatted earlier, but can you also give us a bit more information so that we think about more about what do we mean by identity first versus person first?

Julie: Within the autism and autistic communities, and I've used that term purposefully, because there are people who use identity first language and they prefer to be identified as autistic because they see the autism as part of their identity. They are autistic. So I'm an autistic person rather than I have autism. And then there are those who prefer to use their person first language. So they see themselves as just a person first who happens to have autism. So they're a person with autism. So that's person first as opposed to identity first. So if you're not sure about what to say or how people prefer to be referred to, a couple of things you can do. What I tend to do is talk to people a little bit first and then see how they refer to themselves and get clues from them. But it's okay to ask if you're not sure. If you're not quite sure and you don't feel comfortable about asking, then you can just simply use on the autism spectrum. That's the safe way to go.

Marc: Julie, what great advice.I think sometimes when we work with a number of people who are whether on the autism spectrum or they have some identified, assessed disability in some way, we get a little nervous and I think we get a little unsure as if we're not familiar. And I think that simple advice about listen first and then ask and don't assume. And I think that's really fantastic advice. And I think that helps make anyone who's having that conversation a little bit more comfortable and accessible in that way.  So great advice. Thank you.

Education systems and sectors, schools, early years, primary and secondary, as well as universities support and educate the learning and learning outcomes of all students to be able to achieve, be successful, to be able to manage and cope in a world that is really diverse, it's becoming more identified as diverse, more complex and challenging in so many ways. As we discuss autism, what is currently being done in supporting it? I'm probably thinking more about supporting students, families and educators in schools and universities. I know there's a lot there, but I thought maybe if you could break that down in terms of that simple thing around support.

Julie: The support that someone requires is dependent on many factors. It depends on individual experiences and the types of support that people need to participate in education equitably. On the whole, acceptance of autism and neurodivergence has really seen a pretty substantial shift over the years across all levels of education, including at the tertiary sector as well. Understanding and putting supports in place that students are able to access. However, I think although acceptance and inclusion have come a long way, we still have work to do in terms of our practices.

So we've come a long way in terms of philosophy and principles, particularly around inclusive education across all sectors. But we've still got a lot of work to do around what that looks like in practice and inclusive practice and making sure that what we have in our policies actually play out in practice on the ground to support learners. I think that's still where the challenge lies and where we still have quite a bit of work to do around how those are applied in practice.

So there are lots of support available to educators in particular around developing their knowledge about inclusive practice, about autism, about what some of those inclusive practices look like. But the challenge continues around how to apply that in practice. And it's quite variable in terms of how those practices are applied in different settings. Not across sectors, it's really highly individualised in terms of the place or the setting. Some places are doing it really well, and other places are just beginning their journey as their knowledge is further developed in terms of their practices. And that occurs for a number of reasons. It could be based on other challenges that that setting is having to work through as well.

Marc: In terms of being successful, how can leaders in schools best support so that those teachers who are working in the classroom, about how they can access different forms of professional learning? Why is it important for leaders to probably address the importance of professional learning and the work we do in across schools?

Julie: Leaders are critical. They're the ones who can make it happen. Teachers can develop all the knowledge and skill and apply that practice in their own classroom. However, for it to be embedded across the school and across several classrooms, including not just in the classroom, but outside the classroom, the playground, the gym, all of those things that happen outside of the classroom. That's where leaders really drive inclusive practice. Even very highly skilled educators who are doing amazing work in their own classrooms, to be able to sustain that and continue that, they need the support of their leadership. They need to be recognised, they need to be valued, but they can also be a great resource for other educators as well.

And one of the ways that that is often done is through leadership setting up professional learning communities within schools, so that educators have the space, the time to support each other, because everybody has different talents, everybody has different strengths, and some educators have real strengths in terms of their understanding around autism and applying those inclusive practices. And there's likely to be more than one person in a school that has those various strengths and talents. There might be someone who's got a lot of skill and knowledge around inclusive education overall, and so they will know how to work with a whole number of students, regardless of what, you know, their diversity is and what their challenges are. And so when we work together as teams, that's where we can make the most change and we can make the most benefit and supporting each other in schools. So that's why professional learning communities are a really effective way to do that, because that allows us to put some of those principles into practice through sustained, ongoing and embedded professional learning opportunities.It's sustained, it's continued, not to say that we can't keep continue to develop new knowledge, because things change and evolve over time.

And there are a lot of outside, amazing resources that we have access to now, particularly around inclusive education, the Autism CRC or Autism Collaborative Research Centre has some great resources around inclusive practice and learners on the autism spectrum, from very young learners to like tertiary level or university level, transition support, but they have amazing resources. Similarly with the Positive Partnerships, all of their stuff is free online. They have amazing resources as well. And they also do two day, face to face, professional learning, two day professional learning. And it's amazing. And all teachers who attend Positive Partnerships, they rate it very highly. But that's not enough to see change. We need to apply that in practice.

And leaders can support that by allowing educators to attend those, find the time to attend those professional learning workshops and online learning, etc. Whether they're done at your school or outside of school. So that's one way. But also allowing teachers to work together either through professional learning communities or other ways that teachers find time to collaborate and work together. Because it really is a team. It's not the responsibility of one person. It's the responsibility of everybody in the school to support learners. Someone might have more knowledge and expertise and you can draw from them and get support from them. But it's the responsibility of everybody. And that's why leaders are so important because they drive that message about inclusive education and inclusive practice. They drive that message that it's everybody's responsibility to support every student in our school and we work together to do that.

Marc: Julie, if you want something to work, you need to put the mechanisms in place. And I think you've hit every nail on the head, not just one, but in terms of how we need to think about what we plan, what we put in place, what we guide, direct our educators in. And I think sometimes we need to listen more about the opportunities that are there and that are in our grasp, just simply to be able to do and take in place. And I'm really glad. Thank you for sharing all those extra things about what people can access, because I'm sure we know some of them, but I think we need to think a bit more broadly about what we do in determining being good learners and good educators to be able to fit that end product. We need to make it work.

Julie: And one of the things that systems can do is when we think about school improvement, is give schools, leaders, leadership teams, the flexibility to focus on inclusive practice and inclusive education in their school improvement planning. Give schools permission to focus on, yes, the academics are important, you know, literacy and numeracy, but inclusive education and inclusive practice is good for everybody, everybody in the school.

Marc: Absolutely. What a great message. Thank you. The other thing we talk about often is wellbeing. Identity and building student agency are both incredibly important. In this space, how can schools, with parents and caregivers, organise a better approach and best support students and young adults as they transition to simply transition in life?

Julie: Well, it depends what transition point we're referring to. And what we do know is transitions, especially big transition from early childhood education and care to school, from primary school to secondary, and then from secondary to post-secondary transition. They're really all really big challenges for students and families, for autistic students and their families, but for many students and many students with disability as well. They're the three really big transition points.

And so the types of supports will vary depending on the transition. But one of the things that we can think about is early preparation. That's the key, is start to think about it early, in terms of preparing for that transition, so that families and children are able to have a sense of what is coming next, rather than this anxiety about what's going to happen, things are going to change. The change can be very anxiety provoking when you can't predict what's going to happen next.

So preparing for that change early and giving families when children are very young, ensuring that families have all the information they need to make an informed decision. When they have all the information they need to make an informed decision, they get to make some choices about where their child goes, or what their preferences are in terms of their child's education. Without that information, they can't make informed choices and make decisions. And then related to that as well is self-advocacy. So you can't advocate for yourself if you don't know what you're advocating for. So it's really important to make sure that families do have all that information. If you want an inclusive education, make sure they have all the information about their rights and their responsibilities, about where they can go. They don't have to go to a disability unit or a special class or a special site.

They have choices. They can make decisions. And the choice is really up to them in terms of family transitioning, transitioning from early childhood education and care into the schooling sector.

And making sure that there are visits and getting to know the new location and the people before and preparing them for that transition as much as possible. And schools and early childhood education and care, they already do things like that. But I think making sure that families have all the information so that they can have a choice and they can make informed decisions. Similarly, the transition to secondary school is a big one. Preparing in advance for that, making sure there are transition visits, making sure they have choices, they know what their options are, and they should have all options available to them.

The complexity of the disability and the needs shouldn't determine the placement. It often does, but it shouldn't. There should be choices. Families can make decisions and students can make decisions about where they want to go. The thing is, if it doesn't work out, it's okay. They can still transition to another school if it doesn't work out.  But making sure that families and students have the information they need to be able to make that decision about where they want to go next.

And then transitioning post school is a really, really big one because service has changed so significantly once students finished school. So I would say, I think for post school transition, starting really early. Starting earlier in terms of making sure that we identify what students' interests are, what their strengths are as early as possible, and focus on developing those strengths around their interests. Because potentially that's going to be a good place to go in terms of a future career. So whether that's going on to university and what their interests are going to be around study. It could be around the interests around going to TAFE. It could be around their interests in terms of their vocational education, or where they're going to go and what type of work they might want to do.

Thinking about that sooner and really planning ahead for that with families and with students together. So for example, if they're going to go to university, well, what do I need to do? Who do I need to talk to? What do I need to plan for? Will I get support at university? Yes, you'll have an access plan. The disability service and supports at the university level. What do I need to do if I go to work for an employer? TAFE has all of those access supports as well. Should I tell them? Should I disclose that I'm autistic or not? Those are the conversations that really need to be had.

Don't leave until their last year. It might take a bit of trial and error in terms of trying out different things and deciding, that's not for me. Maybe that's not the direction I want to go to. There's a lot of great transition programs now, particularly through vocational education, even private providers. And with schools, they can sort of try out different things. As early as year 10, try out different things and start to identify where their interests lie. And I think doing that will help children or students and families to make decisions about post-school transition.

But there's so much information out there. There's quite a few programs out there. There are organisations like Purple Orange. They have a lot of great information for young people with disability. And inclusive education, there's a lot to look at.

But one of the things that I think is really important is that's often kind of left by the wayside is if you talk to young people who are autistic, I worked with a PhD student, a couple of PhD students, actually, who focused on this area of transition. And they talked to young autistic people who were still in senior secondary. And then they talked to young autistic people who were, who had completed school and who were either at university or who were working or at TAFE or who weren't working. And asked them, you know, what's really important for you to think about, what would have been a really big support for you to think about and educators to think about while you were still at school. And the social communication came up as really critical because social communication is so critical for self-advocacy.

So, in order to be able to self-advocate and be self-determined and really be part of that learning journey and making decisions for yourself is around social communication. How to communicate is essential for both self-advocacy, being able to maintain employment and also for further study. You really do, they really do have to know how to communicate with people so that people are aware of what their needs are and to be able to self-advocate in terms of feeling confident to say what you need and to say what you need support with when you're at work and when you're at university. 

Marc: It's a real team effort, isn't it? I'm thinking we talk a lot about identifying the different programs and so many resources out there and I'm aware of them as well in the line of work that I've done previously. But I think about the lens and I think about the lens of the parent, I think about the lens of the student and how they move through their journey and their educational life and their careers. I think then also about the lens of educators in schools and how they cope and work through how they're able to access. You've pointed out so many wonderful different access points for them to be able to look for resources, develop professional learning, develop their learning and not just in one class or just with one student, but across across a whole school community as well to build and develop that understanding of what we mean by supporting and by transition. What I'm really hearing to Julie is the importance of being informed. And I think not just for the student and the parent, the caregiver to be informed, but also the schools to be informed so that they know that there are resources out there to support them to be able to work through transition. What do they put in place? You talked about school visits, but what resources are developed?

I also think about the plans that we have for our individual students, individual learning plans, program, negotiated education plans. They're called all sorts of things in different states and territories and across the world, but they all have one meaning, and that is to have a plan in place. And stick to the plan and work through it and be flexible as you've mentioned before, and think about the ways that we address individuals, not just whole groups, but different individuals, and they're all different individuals. So for teachers and leaders out there, yes, you're still learning, and I think that's really important that you grasp knowledge such as Julie's shared with us today. And as we probably finish off today, Julie, is just some simple advice about how we think, how we work through, how we learn about what we mean by autism.

Julie: Biggest thing is to think about is really to be open, to be flexible, to be willing to learn. We can all learn. I'm still learning. What I knew about autism 20 years ago, 10 years ago, it's changed so much. And so, I'm continuously learning. If we think about it in that way, you might think, oh, I've done that. You know, I did that 10 years ago. Well, it's not the same as it was 10 years ago. Things do change, things evolve. And just be open to working with families, ask questions, and you don't have to know everything. I think sometimes we feel as teachers or as educators, you know, if you get a student in your classroom and you think, oh, I should know this, I should be able to do this, I should be able to support this person, or I'm a professional, I've been teaching for this many years, I should have all the answers, but nobody has all the answers. It's okay to ask for help. Be open to accepting help. You, I'm sure, as educators, you've provided support and help to other people. We all have different strengths, we all have different talents, so be open to asking for help when you need it.

Marc: That's brilliant, Julie. That's great advice. You know, Julie, I was about to say, I hope, but I'm going to say, I know, that if you are a parent, if you are a teacher, an educator, in no matter what sphere or level of entry point of education, you've listened today, that you probably would have learnt so much around the depth of knowledge that she's shared today, the depth of advice, resources, and probably also know that it's not just Julie's knowledge, it's the knowledge that you go and search out for. And you need to be able to search that kind of information that you will need to make those informed decisions that Julie's talked about today. I'd like to thank Dr Julie McMillan today as our guest, and I wish everyone their success in their own journey as they work with students, individuals, a friend, a family member of autism. Thank you very much, Julie.