The social acceptance of neurodiverse children in Irish primary schools
Martin H. Jones, Jennifer Symonds, Sinead Downey, Seaneen Sloan, Dympna Devine, William Kinsella
Abstract
Being socially included in childhood is important for children’s academic, social, and emotional functioning, but neurodiverse children often struggle with their social acceptance in school. In comparison, children in more rural and smaller schools often have greater social cohesion. The current study, therefore, examined whether neurodiverse children, here represented by autistic children and children with specific learning difficulties, are socially integrated in more rural and smaller schools. In a study of 2225 Irish primary school children (84 children with SpLD and 53 autistic children), results suggest that neurodiverse children in smaller schools are more socially integrated regardless of urbanicity. This varied by whether children had SpLD or were autistic. This provides a strong message for policy makers and educators that school size matters for enhancing social acceptance of neurodiverse learners.