Using Margaret Carr's Learning Stories for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Parental and Teacher Feedback

This study explored the potential of Margaret Carr’s (2001) learning stories framework to assess the learning of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Parents of four children with ASD who were enrolled in a pre-school program undertook writing learning stories of their children at home over a two-week period. During the same time period, a teacher who is also the researcher in this study, created learning stories for these children in the pre-school classroom. At the end of the two-week period, the parents and the teacher/researcher met to compare and discuss their stories and use the information to create individual program planning (IPP) goals for the four children. Findings indicate that these discussions helped to clarify the children’s behaviours and actions resulting in the development of more meaningful IPP goals. All the parents felt their participation in the process to have greatly benefited their child’s programming. However, questions arose regarding whether it was the actual format of the learning stories themselves, or whether it was the dispositional attributes in Carr’s framework which resulted in rich discussions.