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AET Guidance and Recommendations for Examination Boards Increasing accessibility for autistic students within GCSE English and Mathematics exam papers whilst retaining subject challenge.

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Table of Contents 1: Introduction .........................................................................................................3

2: The Autism Education Trust (AET) .........................................................................3

3: SEND Teaching School & Therfield School ..............................................................3

4: Autism ..................................................................................................................4

5: Key challenges for autistic students in English and Maths ......................................4

5.1: Phrasing of exam questions .................................................................................................... 5

5.2: English subject specific difficulties for autistic students ........................................................ 5

5.3: Maths subject specific difficulties for autistic students ......................................................... 7

6: GCSE English and Maths Exams in England and Wales ............................................7

6.1: English GCSE Content .............................................................................................................. 7

6.2: Maths GCSE Content ............................................................................................................... 8

7: GCSE Exam Workshops..........................................................................................9

7.1: GCSE Papers reviewed in the workshops ............................................................................... 9

7.2: Maths GCSE Workshop Outcomes ....................................................................................... 10

7.3: English GCSE Workshop Outcomes ...................................................................................... 11

8: Difficulties experienced by one autistic student when taking these particular exam ............................................................................................. 12

9: Recommendations .............................................................................................. 13

10: References ........................................................................................................ 13

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1: Introduction This guidance was commissioned in response to a concern in relation to fair access to GCSE English and Mathematics examinations in England and Wales for autistic students. This Autism Education Trust (AET) project was funded by the DfE. The SEND Teaching School, in partnership with Therfield School in Surrey, were commissioned to develop the guidance on behalf of the AET.

The focus of this project was to develop guidance for Examination Boards on increasing the accessibility for autistic students within GCSE English and Mathematics exam papers whilst retaining subject challenge. This guidance aims therefore to support Examination Boards to meet their requirement to provide an inclusive design within exam papers whilst raising key issues in relation to the complexity of enabling fair access whilst retaining the integrity of the questioning.

The project involved SEND Teaching School and Therfield School hosting two subject specific workshops involving a total of 30 practitioners. At the GCSE English and Mathematics workshops, particular exam papers (see section 5) were scrutinised in terms of question content, question wording and exam paper layout to analyse where alterations could have been made by examination boards without removing subject challenge that could have increased accessibility for autistic students.

In addition to the practitioner workshops, a literature review of the subject relevant difficulties experienced by autistic students alongside GCSE English and Maths exam content was carried out to determine where testing through GCSE exams might intrinsically be a challenge for autistic students. Following Mock GCSE exams, the views of autistic students taking the particular exam papers were consulted.

2: The Autism Education Trust (AET) The purpose of the Autism Education Trust (AET) is to improve the education of children and young people with autism.

The Autism Education Trust (AET) is a partnership between Ambitious about Autism and the National Autistic Society (NAS). It is funded and supported by the Department for Education (DfE) and hosted on behalf of the partnership by the NAS.

The AET is a partnership of a wide range of individuals and organisations focused on improving the education of children and young people with autism from the voluntary, public and private sectors. It also actively engages with young people, parents/carers and practitioners to inform its work.

3: SEND Teaching School & Therfield School SEND Teaching School is part of the LIFT Partnership, which is a special school multi-academy trust in Surrey. Therfield School is a secondary comprehensive school in Surrey with a communication and interaction needs specialist centre. Other Surrey secondary schools involved in the practitioner workshops included: Glyn School, The Ashcombe School, The Priory School and Woking High School.

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4: Autism According to the NHS Information Centre (2012), there are around 700,000 people on the autism spectrum in the UK which is more than 1 in 100. Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people. It also affects how they make sense of the world around them. It is a spectrum condition, which means that, while all people with autism share three main areas of difficulty, their condition will affect them in different ways.

There are four key areas of difference in autism that are particularly important for staff in schools and educational settings to understand because most autistic students will have individual educational needs to be met in these areas: interaction; processing information; sensory processing and communication.

Most autistic students find social interaction with adults and peers effortful. They cannot easily understand commonly used implicit social messages and may find it hard to understand or relate to how social rules change due to context, or what is considered socially ‘appropriate’ (i.e. what is appropriate to say and do in some situations is inappropriate in other situations). It is difficult for autistic students to read easily and quickly and to understand the emotional intentions of staff and peers. It is important to remember that this can be a ‘two-way’ difficulty; the actions of autistic students are often misinterpreted as intentionally insensitive or defiant.

This may affect students in exam situations when responding to instructions during an exam from an invigilator or understanding colloquialisms and hidden and subtle meanings within exam questions. It may also affect how they answer certain exam questions that require a response that involves inference and empathy.

Autistic students have an uneven profile of abilities, which can also coincide with other factors such as age, personality, or the existence of other developmental differences or impairments. It is therefore of paramount importance to assess each student as an individual to gain an overall profile of their strengths and needs.

Differences in how information is processed may make it difficult for a student to answer exam questions that involve understanding another person’s perspective or responding to a question that is presented in a different context to how they have been taught about a concept.

5: Key challenges for autistic students in English and Maths Autism is a spectrum condition and as such there are a wide range of abilities and difficulties that autistic students experience. For the purpose of this guidance we are considering how GCSE exam papers can be more accessible to autistic students who have the academic ability to take the particular exam and have relevant access arrangements in place. (See AET Exam Accommodations Guide for further details.)

We have therefore considered the key challenges for autistic students who are academically able to sit English and Maths GCSE exams to include:

• Specific phrasing of exam questions

• Layout of questions within an exam paper

• Where the subject content that is being tested in the exam is intrinsically difficult for autistic students

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5.1: Phrasing of exam questions

According to Beardon (2014) many autistic students will process language accurately (or literally). If a question is not absolutely clear, or if there are ambiguities, then there is an increased risk of the autistic student answering the question in an incorrect manner. It is important, therefore, to make sure that the student has a fair opportunity to ascertain the meaning of the questions and what is required of them in terms of answers.

Ambiguity within questions, diagrams or pictures can distract autistic students or prevent them from completing a correct answer.

For example, a picture in an English paper that doesn’t accurately capture the intent of the writing objective.

In addition, teachers can spend a considerable amount of time teaching students with autism to anticipate possible narrative scenarios they might encounter to prepare for exams, aware that a new scenario might prevent them from decoding the intention behind questions.

For example, a trigonometry question that asked for the calculation of the angle of a boat to a cliff. An autistic student, who was capable of doing the trigonometry, said they couldn’t answer the question, as they hadn’t yet learned about boats.

Therefore, even with the current access arrangements that can be awarded for autistic students, these issues cannot be mitigated unless Exam Boards are careful to avoid ambiguity when setting exam questions. For example, extra time in an exam will not enable an autistic student to decode the intention behind a question if it requires social imagination in order to be answered.

For this reason, the wording of questions in particular exam papers was scrutinised within the English and Mathematics GCSE workshops as part of this project.

5.2: English subject specific difficulties for autistic students

a. Reading Comprehension

According to Canavan (2013), autism is a spectrum condition and as such it can be difficult to make generalisations. However, reading comprehension difficulties are often experienced by autistic students due to the key features of autism in terms of social imagination, communication and interaction, and reading without attaching appropriate meaning to the text.

Research carried out by Ricketts et al (2013) indicates that impairments in social interaction and communication and difficulties with theory of mind or “mentalising” (mental state understanding) limit reading comprehension beyond the influence of word recognition and oral language deficits. This may mean that autistic students taking exams may struggle to decode the meaning behind questions that require social imagination to be successfully understood.

Autistic students may interpret questions literally or not make inferences implied by the questions. Therefore for some exam questions, the wording cannot be altered to support access to the question for autistic students because changing it would undermine the integrity of the assessment. Therefore, when looking at specific wording of questions in the workshops, care was taken to ensure that an analysis of whether altering the question would reduce challenge in the question or the integrity of the purpose of the exam question.

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b. English literature texts

Often texts are full of language that has several meanings and is highly dependent on context according to Canavan (2013). Reading well is not related to words written on the page but to their context and authors may also use idioms, metaphors, similes and dialect, which need to be interpreted correctly for the meaning to be correctly understood. Canavan (2013) argues that examination accommodations for autistic students are ‘generic and do not recognise the particular language problems associated with autism’.

Some autistic students have weak central coherence and as such, focus on details rather than the general themes in a story (Baren-Cohen, 2008). Some autistic students may lack theory of mind, which affects their ability to imagine another person’s thoughts and feelings in order to make sense of their actions and to predict what they may do next.

According to Vermeulen (2012), autistic students may take both spoken language and written language literally and can be ‘context blind’ to the context of the story, picture or event and so interpret these differently. Therefore, when reviewing exam papers in the workshops we also considered context specific issues that might cause barriers to autistic students successfully answering particular exam questions within English GCSE exam papers.

c. Challenges for autistic students in English GCSE exams

According to Wiltshire County Council’s Secondary Teacher’s Toolkit, the challenges for autistic students in English GCSE exams can include:

• Resolution of semantic ambiguity found in the use of idiomatic language, metaphors, interpretation of jokes, understanding similes, colloquialism and homophones

• Difficulty following themes and sorting events into sequences

• Difficulty drawing inference and detecting inconsistencies in texts

• Poor working memory

• Difficulty inferring an experience of life and recognising the significance of the use of particular words and a lack of intuitive understanding of things from different points of view

• Difficulties with dialogue including literal interpretation of idiomatic language in dialogue, difficulty understanding figures of speech, ambiguity and literal interpretation of these, homonyms

• Tendency to focus on details

• Narrow range of interests, fixed and rigid thought structures

• Literal interpretation of words and failure to understand differences between fact and fiction, fact and opinion

• Fluent de-coding but have challenges gaining meaning from what they have read (hyperlexia)

• Difficulty understanding concepts of time, changes over time and therefore understanding texts set in the past, future or in other cultures

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Therefore in English GCSE examinations the very nature of the texts selected could pose difficulties for autistic students, but examination boards could consider the wording of their questions as to whether abstract terms are necessary or whether they can be removed or altered without reducing the challenge of the questions.

5.3: Maths subject specific difficulties for autistic students

Some autistic students can demonstrate strengths in mathematical computational skills including rapid mental calculations, attention to detail and methodical calculations and conformity to mathematical rules. However, in addition to the difficulties outlined in English above, in mathematics autistic students can have the following challenges:

• Difficulties generalising mathematical concepts into practical and real life situations

• Understanding estimation and approximation (Hass, 2010)

• Making abstract predictions and mathematical comparisons

• Understanding hypothetical situations and problem solving

• Understanding the purpose of demonstrating steps in a calculation when they can obtain the correct answer

• Use of symbolism in algebra due to the abstract requirement to make one symbol stand for another

• Applying and communicating mathematical concepts to a variety of situations

• Perceptual difficulties in shape, space and measure

In GCSE Maths in particular, there is a focus on application of mathematical knowledge and therefore autistic students are not always able to show their potential in exams due to the way questions were worded in GCSEs.

6: GCSE English and Maths Exams in England and Wales The current GCSE courses for maths and English have been taught since September 2015 and students first sat the new exams in June 2017. The new specifications are based on content and assessment objectives laid out by the DfE in 2013. We have looked at the exam papers from Summer and Autumn 2018 by the two main boards, AQA and Edexcel.

6.1: English GCSE Content

The English GCSE is designed so that students ‘should read and be assessed on high-quality, challenging texts from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries’. (p4 of DfE Subject Content). These texts will not have been studied before the exam. Students are expected to write clear and coherent text and to write for impact. There is a spoken language element, which should be taught, assessed and reported on but is not part of the final mark. Assessment objectives:

Reading

1. Identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas. Select and synthesis evidence from different texts

2. Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views

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3. Compare writers’ ideas and perspectives, as well as how they are conveyed, across two or more texts

4. Evaluate texts critically and support this with appropriate textual references

Writing

5. Communicate clearly, effectively and imaginatively, selecting and adapting tone, style and register for different forms, purposes and audiences. Organise information and ideas, using structural and grammatical features to support coherence and cohesion of texts

6. Use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation. (This must constitute 20% of the marks)

Spoken language (not focused on in this guidance)

7. Demonstrate presentational skills in a formal setting

8. Listen and respond appropriately to spoken language, including to questions and feedback to presentations

9. Use spoken Standard English effectively in speeches and presentations

Therefore, the content of English GCSE includes a number of aspects that would be expected to be particularly difficult for autistic students. The only aspects of English GCSE that would not typically pose as a challenge for autistic students are:

• Select and synthesise evidence from different texts

• Use relevant subject terminology to support their views.

6.2: Maths GCSE Content

‘GCSE specifications in mathematics should provide a broad coherent, satisfying and worthwhile course of study. They should encourage students to develop confidence in, and a positive attitude towards mathematics and to recognise the importance of mathematics in their own lives and to society.’ (p3 DfE Subject Content)

Learning outcomes:

• Develop fluent knowledge, skills and understanding of mathematical methods and concepts

• Acquire, select and apply mathematical techniques to solve problems

• Reason mathematically, make deductions and inferences and draw conclusions

• Comprehend, interpret and communicate mathematical information in a variety of forms appropriate to the information and context.

Therefore, in Maths, GCSE content also includes a number of aspects that would be expected to be particularly difficult for autistic students. The only aspects of Maths GCSE that would not typically pose as a challenge for autistic students are:

• Develop fluent knowledge, skills and understanding of mathematical methods and concepts.

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It is therefore apparent that there are a number of areas of English and Maths GCSE subject content within the examinations that by their very nature will be a challenge to autistic students. However, there are ways that academically able autistic students can be taught and prepared through skilled teaching to overcome these difficulties and to apply their knowledge and skills in these areas. It is therefore important that exam questioning is as straightforward as possible in order not to present additional barriers to achieving their potential in GCSE exams for autistic students.

7: GCSE Exam Workshops The GCSE English and Maths Exam Workshops were each attended by 15 secondary school English or Maths teachers and special educational needs teachers experienced in working with secondary aged autistic students.

In order to focus the discussions within the workshops it was necessary to consider particular exam papers and the outcomes of the discussions have been generalised. Practitioners were asked to consider:

• Where there could potentially be ambiguity within specific wording of exam questions and where there were examples of wording that would be helpful for autistic students.

• Where there could be confusion in relation to the layout of questions within the exam paper and where there were positive attempts to support students in completing the exam paper appropriately.

• Where the content/picture/diagram within an exam question was misleading or superfluous to what was being tested and therefore could be unnecessarily challenging for autistic students.

• General points that would have made the exam paper more accessible without removing subject challenge.

7.1: GCSE Papers reviewed in the workshops

GCSE papers that were reviewed within the workshops were:

Maths GCSE Workshop:

• AQA GCSE Mathematics, Foundation Tier, Paper 2: Calculator, Thursday 8th November 2018

• AQA GCSE Mathematics, Higher Tier, Paper 1: Non-Calculator, Tuesday 6th November 2018

• Pearson Edexcel, Higher Tier: Calculator, Thursday 8th November 2018

English GCSE Workshop:

• AQA English Language, Paper 1: Exploration in Creative reading and writing, Monday 5th

November 2018

• AQA English Language, Paper 2: Writers’ viewpoints and perspectives, Wednesday 7th November 2018

• Pearson Edexcel English Language, Paper 1: Fiction & Imaginative Writing, Thursday 5th June 2018

• Pearson Edexcel English Language, Paper 2: Non-Fiction & Transactional Writing, Friday 8th June 2018

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7.2: Maths GCSE Workshop Outcomes:

Use of ambiguous language in exam questions could be a barrier to an autistic student completing a maths question correctly and therefore using wording in exam questions that is more literal would increase access without reducing the challenge. For example:

• If the term used has alternative meanings such as the use of ‘change’ instead of ‘convert’, which has one clear meaning

• If the term used has an alternative mathematical meaning such as the use of ‘average’ as in ‘on average’

• Use of names could detract from the question intent

• ‘Calculate the average’ doesn’t specify which average (e.g. mean)

• ‘Make two different criticisms of his graph’ may prompt responses not related to mathematical relevance, ie a type of font, colour used, etc

• ‘Assume’ presents a hypothetical language barrier that may be difficult, ie for students who deal with, and respond to, fact

• Use of the word ‘should’ expresses opinion rather than fact; if a student selects ‘should’ this may be based on their own opinion to the context of the question rather than their factual mathematical answer

• ‘The airport was affected by fog on one of the days. Which day do you think it was?’ – this question could prompt an inferential response along the lines of ‘it could be/could also be foggy on days that didn’t affect the running of the airport’. A more specific factor should be used that would suggest why an airport may be busier/quieter.

Although these are subtle differences of turns of phrase or use of language, the language difficulties that autistic students experience are related to interpretation and they will find it a barrier in an exam if the literal translation of questions is not consistent with the true meaning of a question because they might not be able to draw parallels. It was felt that possibly examination boards had made efforts to reduce the complexity of questions in order to increase fair access by design, but sometimes using turns of phrase or words that are simpler, can change the integrity of an exam question.

In terms of lay out, it was felt that the following exam paper protocols are beneficial to autistic students:

• Where the information needed to answer the question is on the same page as the question

• Instructions to ‘turn over for the next question’ and ‘Do not write outside the box’

• ‘2 marks’ after each question rather than [2]

• Avoiding dividing questions into several subparts 5b then i), ii) and iii), for example

• Listing instructions on a new line

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7.3: English GCSE Workshop Outcomes:

The workshop recognised that many of the skills autistic students struggle with are the very skills being tested by the English language papers; reading comprehension for example relies on inference, deduction, recognising context and understanding ambiguous language. Having acknowledged this central difficulty, the professionals present identified examples where the wording of questions themselves created extra challenge for autistic students. The requirement to infer where inference is not being assessed adds unnecessary complexity within an exam question. Where the skill being tested is retrieval of information from text, it disadvantages autistic students to require the candidate to make inferences in order to demonstrate that skill. The command word ‘list’ is helpful in identifying that this is a retrieval question.

The use of multi-meaning words can be avoided without reducing subject challenge. For example, ‘appearance’ can refer to how someone looks or to how someone arrives. An autistic student might spend too long trying to decide which meaning of the word is intended where the word ‘appearance’ is one chosen by the examiners for the question and not taken from the source. Another example of possible confusion and anxiety caused by the wording of a question is where the requirement to write a piece of fiction is presented as a ‘local newspaper running a creative writing competition’. Ambiguity would be reduced by re-phrasing the question as ‘Imagine you are entering a newspaper creative writing competition…’

The use of consistent language relating to the same request would alleviate ambiguity: ‘You need to refer to Source A and Source B’ then ‘You need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B’ could result in a feeling that the prior instruction somehow means less ‘than the whole’ as indicated in the latter instruction.

The use of’ you should’ rather than ‘you are advised to’ removes ambiguity. ‘You should plan your answer’ rather than ‘You are reminded to plan your answer’ is a clear instruction.

Good practice identified through looking at the chosen exam papers included:

• Where photographs are used, clear images are helpful as are images of situations that the majority of students are likely to have seen first-hand such as a school playground.

• Additional information can provide a useful starting point and framework, such as bullet points under the phrase ‘In your answer’. This was agreed with the proviso that the additional information can become overwhelming if too detailed. For example there is a clear instruction in a question requiring retrieval ‘Chose four statements below that are true’. This is followed by four bullet points that include ‘that you think are true’ and ‘a maximum of four statements’ which do not clarify but add the potential for misunderstanding.

• It is helpful to use consistent terminology for example ‘source’ rather than a mixture of ‘text’ and ‘source’.

• Consistent use of line numbers on the sources

• Sources laid out, where possible, so that all the content can be seen at once.

• It is helpful to say explicitly that a student’s response can be real or imagined.

• It is helpful to provide additional information at the bottom of the page of text using a * to provide context or define specific vocabulary

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8: Difficulties experienced by one autistic student when taking these particular exam papers in mock GCSE conditions:

One year 11 student was observed by his reader/scribe sitting these papers as mocks. The adult provided the following feedback:

“In the English mock, he used his scribe effectively to answer the questions in the reading section. For the writing section, I was then allowed to read the question and proceeded to read out the narrative about a local newspaper and a creative writing competition. The student was upset and confused by the situation and how it related to the instruction to describe a picture or write a story about two people from different backgrounds. He asked me to read the question several times but was unable to write or dictate anything in response, leaving the entire writing section blank.

During his maths mock, the same student was working calmly and methodically through the maths calculator paper making good use of his access arrangements of a reader, scribe, prompter and 25% extra time. He came to a worded question about average speed and successfully tackled the maths involved in the first part of the question. I then read the second part which included a named person making a statement and then ‘If X is correct….’ Although he had shown he could do the maths required he could not work out what was being asked, making several attempts and crossing them out. In the end he said in frustration, ‘They don’t seem to word the question in a way I can understand it’”.

It would be helpful to extend this work in order to determine further whether difficulties experienced by autistic students taking these particular English and Maths GCSE papers correlated with the subject specialist teacher views shared in the workshops.

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9: Recommendations • Post exam question analysis to include the views of autistic students or analysis of exam

papers completed by autistic students in order to gain a wider profile of where access could be increased by altering questioning without reducing subject challenge.

• Exam boards to be mindful of the selection of terminology, phrasing and use of diagrams and pictures to ensure that for autistic students there is a reduction of ambiguity.

• Exam boards to remove inference from questions where inference is not specifically being tested.

• For exam boards to ensure they have sufficient autism expertise when reviewing exam papers.

10: References

AQA: http://www.aqa.org.uk

Baren-Cohen (2008) Autism and Asperger syndrome: the facts Oxford: Oxford University Press

Canavan, C, (2013) Of Mice and Men: issues for students on the autism spectrum when studying GCSE English Literature Good Autism Practice Vol. 14 Issue 2, 51-58.

Edexcel: https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/home.html

Hass, S. (2010) Differences in Estimation and Mathematical Problem Solving Between Autistic Children and Neurotypical Children) Carnegie Mellon University. Research Showcase. Dietrich College Honors Theses

NAS Exams: Guidelines for parents and teachers of young people with autism spectrum disorders (leaflet/guide)

Ricketts, J., Jones, C. R. G., Happé, F. and Charman, T. (2013) Reading comprehension in autism spectrum disorders: The role of oral language and social functioning. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 43 (4). pp. 807-816.

The NHS Information Centre, Community and Mental Health Team, Brugha, T. et al (2012). Estimating the prevalence of autism spectrum conditions in adults: extending the 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey. Leeds: NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care

Vermeulen, P (2012) Autism as context blindness Shawnee Mission, Kansas: AAPC Publishing

Wiltshire County Council (September 2006) The Secondary Teacher’s Toolkit for Including Young People with Social Communication Difficulties (including Autism Spectrum Disorders & Aspergers Syndrome)

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