From Neuroaffirming Intentions to Proceduralised Practice: Policy Enactment and Practice Drift in Autism Education

Introduction: Autism is one of the most commonly identified neurodevelopmental conditions in childhood, contributing to sustained growth in demand for specialised educational supports. Although inclusive education policy increasingly promotes neuroaffirming, individualised approaches, the organisational conditions required to realise these commitments remain uneven, shaping how autism-informed programmes are interpreted and taken up in practice (Pellicano & Houting, 2022).

Methods: This study examined how autistic students and autism-specific programming were represented in provincial policy and interpreted alongside educators’ responses to piloted and refined qualitative vignette tasks (Braun et al., 2017). Guided by an ecological framework and Critical Discourse Analysis, datasets were compared to identify similarities, differences, and omissions, examining where policy expectations aligned with or diverged from educators’ professional reasoning and highlighting gaps between policy intentions and classroom practice (Bowen, 2009).

Results: Provincial policy describes autism-informed programming as relational, flexible, and responsive to students' needs. Educators’ vignette responses indicated that in practice this work is shaped by organisational conditions, including time pressures, documentation requirements, staffing arrangements, and competing classroom responsibilities. As a result, relational supports may be organised through procedural routines that align with existing administrative and accountability structures. This highlights how organisational systems shape the forms autism-informed support can take in everyday classrooms.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that challenges in sustaining neuroaffirming practice are not primarily a matter of individual educator implementation but reflect how school systems organise time, documentation, and support structures for inclusive education. Strengthening autism-informed programming may therefore require greater attention to the organisational and relational conditions that enable educators to sustain responsive supports in everyday classrooms.