Neurodiversity and education

Dr Tze Peng Wong, Assistant Professor, School of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences, UNMC.

Dr Wong’s research aims to improve on the well-being of children who are neurodevelopmentally diverse in communities that lack resources to equally include these children in schools and societies. By investigating the influence of local factors such as cultural differences, social-economic status and bilingualism in their developmental trajectory, she gathers an understanding of how intervention and teaching methods can be enhanced to support their learning of key skills, such as language, social-communication and literacy. Dr Wong has studied the impact of culture on the effectiveness of the family-centred and child-centred approach for early language intervention among the Malay families of children with autism in Malaysia. Although the literature has cautioned the suitability of the family- and child-centred intervention for non-mainstream Western families, her findings showed that parents’ acceptance of the approach was not predicted by their cultural differences but by the level of language facilitation skills that they possess. In another study that was led by Dr Loh Hui Min from Universiti Sains Malaysia, and in collaboration with local researchers from Luang Prabang, Laos, Dr Wong and her colleagues developed 20-unit video-based modules after a grassroots needs analysis, to help the teachers access locally-suitable materials about effective social communication and inclusion for young children with autism. The result was that the teachers’ awareness and understanding about autism increased, while their stigma about children with diverse needs decreased. The findings of her research imply an urgent need for access to skill training as well as innovative ways to impart skill training, in efforts to improve the wellbeing of children who are neurodevelopmentally diverse.