Medical teachers' opinions about students with neurodevelopmental disorders and their management

Abstract

Background: Some students have neurodevelopmental disorders that might affect their academic and professional careers if they are not identified and addressed by specific pedagogic adaptations. The objective of this work was to describe medical teachers' opinions of students with neurodevelopmental disorders and their management of these students.

Methods: An anonymous cross-sectional electronic survey was performed to describe medical teachers' opinions about the impact of neurodevelopmental disorders on the student's life and on the medical teachers' management. aThe survey was created, including visual analogic scales and free text, to assess teachers' opinions from identification and assessment of neurodevelopemental burden on students and teachers, to their own knowledge about neurodevelopemental disorders and the specific pedagogic management available. The survey was sent to 175 medical teachers in 2019, of whom 67 responded. Quantitative descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis of free text were reported.

Results: Many medical teachers report having encountered students who might have had neurodevelopmental disorders (dyspraxia 33%; dyslexia 46%; autism spectrum disorders 68%; attention deficit hyperactivity disorders 75%). Impact on students and on teachers was considered as important (mean VAS score for impact over 60/100 for all syndromes except for dyspraxia). Medical teachers' self-reported knowledge about neurodevelopmental disorders (mean VAS score 43.9/100) and available pedagogical adaptations (mean VAS score 19.0/100) was limited. The teachers were concerned about ethical issues (mean VAS score 72.2/100) but were interested in receiving specialized training (mean VAS score 64.4/100).

Conclusion: Medical teachers feel unprepared to manage students with neurodevelopmental disorders. They would be interested in specific training and procedures about the pedagogic management of these students.

Keywords: Mainstreaming (education); Neurodevelopmental disorders; Staff development.

Fig. 1

Examples of classification into meaning units, condensed meaning units, sub-themes and themes from content analysis of free text

Fig. 2

Pseudo-SWOT wordcloud showing perceptions and thematic topics related to NDD as reported by medical teachers (frequency ≥ 5). Green = Strengths (positive perception of NDD), Red = Weaknesses (negative representations of NDD), Blue = Opportunities (pedagogical adaptation described), and Orange = Threats (ethical questions)