International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
Nola Stephen a *
ª University of Massachusetts, Amherst (retired)
Abstract
Over the past decade, colleges and universities across the United States have increasingly accommodated
students with moderate to severe special needs. These students, particularly those on the autism spectrum,
would previously have been judged as being unteachable in post- secondary education. Are these students
adequately prepared for higher education learning and the workplace environment they will soon encounter? In
order for them to be able to successfully negotiate the outside world, there must be a shift in teacher education,
from an emphasis on the development of discrete academic skills to one which includes a process-oriented
approach targeting social skills, time and stress management, organizational skills, opportunities for “outside of
school” experiences which will allow them to have a “life of preference” and the use of technological aids
which will facilitate the development of new ways of learning outside the classroom.
Keywords.
E-mail address: nolastep@gmail.com
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