This article reports on the results of a survey distributed in April 2007 to government special education schools and settings throughout Australia. The survey collected information about the age and special education qualifications of teaching staff. It followed a similar survey that was distributed in May 2006 to Victorian special schools that found that 44.9% of teachers and principals were aged 50 years or more, and 68.9% had a special education qualification. In the current survey, the percentage of principals and teachers aged 50 years or more in the responding schools ranged from 37.5% in New South Wales to 51.0% in the Australian Capital Territory. The percentage of special education qualified staff varied from 53.1% in the Australian Capital Territory to 86.6% in Western Australia. These results are examined in further detail and possible implications discussed.

Ashared understanding of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and a coordinated approach to teaching diagnosed students is essential because of the complex learning needs of this cohort. This research examines the ways in which special educators used wiki technology to create a working document and to share and develop their perspectives about fundamental autism constructs. The teachers appreciated the flexibility and convenience of wikis in a postgraduate course and collaboratively authored a working document. This suggested the wiki facilitated the development of a community of practice. Analysis of wiki comments further showed that, despite considerable experience in face-to-face communication, the teachers did not construct transparent protocols to guide the online decision-making process so did not fully exploit the capacity of this technology. Teachers had confidence in the privacy of a password-protected site but did not consider that the collaborative e-learning tool would be gainfully used by students on the spectrum because of their social and communication deficits. Nevertheless, teachers envisaged potential benefits if wikis were to be adopted by school staff.

Early engagement with the world around us provides opportunities for learning and practising new skills and acquiring knowledge critical to cognitive and social development. Children with autism typically display low levels of engagement, particularly in their social world, which limits the opportunities for learning that occur for their typically developing peers. An investigation of the literature on engagement suggests a lack of consensus about definition and measurement that may undermine the usefulness of this construct to educators. This article argues that the engagement construct can assist educators in the development and implementation of effective teaching interventions for children with autism.

This article reports on the development of an interpersonal measure for students with additional learning needs. A questionnaire and learning continuum were constructed using a methodology devised by Griffin (2007a) for creating criterion-referenced frameworks. Teachers reported on 1619 students, ranging in age from 3 to 18 years. Analysis of the data, using item response modelling, found the questionnaire was able to measure interpersonal capacity reliably over a large ability range. The interpersonal domain is an imprecise and multifaceted area, so how teachers should support the learning needs of students within it is not always apparent. The devised measures offer the prospect of a more systematic and evidence-based approach to educating students within this domain.

The aim of the research described in this article was to build a protocol for describing students' development of emotional knowledge and understanding, and to tailor this to the requirements of assessing the progress of students with additional needs. The paper reports the establishment of such a developmental profile, using procedures for defining standards-referenced frameworks (Griffin, 2007) to create an observation questionnaire of students' emotional skills. This approach relies on the knowledge and collaboration of experienced teachers and researchers in the fields of special education and emotional development to establish an hypothesised framework of critical skills, observable behaviour statements, and developmental criteria that map qualitative transitions in student performance. The framework was subsequently validated against observation data gathered by teachers in 2007, from 77 Victorian government schools (21 mainstream, 56 special education) on 1597 students (3 to 18 years) with additional needs. Their responses were calibrated using partial credit item response modelling to empirically identify major transitions in students' emotional development and to establish the construct validity of the profile. In the area of students' emotional development, teachers have limited access to information that supports their assessment of progress and underpins decisions about setting goals for learning and appraising teaching strategies. The proposed article describes early stages of a research program that attempts to redress this situation by working with teachers to develop an appropriate and inclusive profile of emotional development for students with additional needs.