Karen Guldberg

• PhD;MEd;MA;PGCE:PGCertTLHE;BA Joint Honours
• Professor (Full) at University of Birmingham

This report is based on a research that was conducted to understand the educational experiences of children on the autism spectrum who belong to a minority ethnic community, or whose first language is not English, or who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, or are in the care systems. The report includes a summary of what their parents...

The project was the first of its kind to take a comprehensive look at some of the causes and impacts of excluding autistic children and young people in England. We conducted a literature review; asked autistic adults, parents and teachers to complete a questionnaire; consulted with the Autism Education Trust Young Person’s Panel; looked at challeng...

A scoping review of studies carried out in the UK and the USA was conducted to explore the perceptions, experiences, and needs of culturally and linguistically diverse families of children with autism. Overall, 32 articles met the inclusion criteria, 25 studies were conducted in the USA and 7 studies in the UK. Four themes emerged including (a) kno...

The current scoping study conducted in Greece aimed to explore the training needs and attitudes held by educationalists on inclusive education for pupils with autism. Whilst educational policies and practice advocate for inclusive education for children with autism, actual provision is segregated between mainstream, special schools and multidiscipl...

Although theories around Communities of Practice have gained significant ground in recent years and have become an important focus for organizational development, there is a gap in studies that investigate what members gain from participation in these communities. This paper explains how the value creation framework was implemented in a transnation...

This paper examines the educational efficacy of a learning environment in which children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) engage in social interactions with an artificially intelligent (AI) virtual agent and where a human practitioner acts in support of the interactions. A multi-site intervention study in schools across the UK was co...

As the first study of its kind in Qatar, this research investigated how to improve autism education by undertaking a contextual enquiry and consultation with stakeholders. Findings highlight the great potential to transform autism education as the country has a knowledgeable community of parents and specialists, and support from the Ruling Family...

This report conducts a rigorous and independent peer-review of the five separate Volumes of the ‘Benchmarking Autism Services Efficacy,’ (BASE) report by Dillenburger, McKerr, and Jordan (2015). The BASE report was produced by Professor Karola Dillenburger, from the School of Education’s Centre for Behaviour Analysis, Queen’s University Belfast, an...

The study examines how far Qatar has come in implementing it's vision of educational inclusion, identifies barriers to achieving this and makes recommendations about improving autism education within Qatar.

Communities of Practice (CoP) are increasingly being nurtured in higher education but there is little literature on how CoP can be used to enable the dissemination and impact of research, to support the academic community to engage with its stakeholders or to encourage knowledge transfer, knowledge exchange or knowledge co-production with the end u...

This study investigated concepts of inclusive education for pupils with autism in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Palestine. The “contextual collaborative enquiry” methodology was rooted in praxis, and drew on social learning theory and communities of practice to gather a community of researchers, parents and practitioners in Palestine to investi...

Introduction Interventions using robot-assisted therapy may be beneficial for the social skills development of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are lacking. The present research aims to assess the feasibility of conducting an RCT evaluating the effectiveness of a social skills intervention u...

Experimental intervention studies constitute the current dominant research designs in the autism education field. Such designs are based on a ‘knowledge transfer’ model of evidence-based practice in which research is conducted by researchers, and is then ‘transferred’ to practitioners to enable them to implement evidence-based interventions. While...

In order to develop deeper and better understandings of what constitutes effective educational practices, and to bridge the gap between research and practice, there is a need for a paradigm shift in autism educational research. The contribution of this paper is to examine the key methodological challenges that stand in the way of autism educational...

Storytelling is a powerful means of expression especially for voices that may be difficult to hear or represent in typical ways. This paper reports and reflects on our experiences of co-creating digital stories with school practitioners in a project focusing on embedding innovative technologies for children on the autism spectrum in classroom pract...

Previous research has demonstrated that the way adults interact with children with autism can have a great impact on their spontaneous communication. However, to date, few studies have focused on modifying adults' behaviour and even fewer have been conducted in school settings which actively involve teaching staff in designing the intervention. The...

This paper reports on a case study of a collaborative research project, in which researchers worked with key individuals in a third sector organisation to identify how the organisation might move forward to accelerate its learning capability. The research used the value creation framework of Wenger, Trayner and de Laat as a diagnostic tool for asse...

This research investigates multidisciplinary teamwork in an English special school located in the West Midlands region of the UK. The research was carried out by Paola Molteni, a PhD student at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Karen Guldberg of the Autism Centre for Education and Research Director at the University of Birmingham School...

This paper introduces the SHARE-IT project, which leverages serious games paradigm to motivate and engage children with autism diagnosis in interactive activities, based on the state-of-the-art autism intervention practices. The aim of SHARE-IT is to formulate, in partnership with schools, parents and industry, the requirements for a robust, intell...

This paper introduces the SHARE-IT project, which leverages serious games paradigm to motivate and engage children with autism diagnosis in interactive activities, based on the state-of-the-art autism intervention practices. The aim of SHARE-IT is to formulate, in partnership with schools, parents and industry, the requirements for a robust, intell...

Relatively little is known about the effect of adult interactive style on children’s communication. The aim of this study, written by Lila Kossyvaki, Glenys Jones and Karen Guldberg, all from the University of Birmingham, was to explore the effects of adult interactive style on children’s spontaneous communication. The study used an action research...

Background: ECHOES is a technology-enhanced learning environment for young children on the autism spectrum, set in a virtual “Magic Garden”, with a programme of learning activities that are presented on a large, multi-touch screen. Within the ECHOES environment the child collaborates with a virtual character (VC) to complete different activities th...

We present an interdisciplinary methodology for designing interactive technology for young children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). In line with many other researchers in the field, we believe that the key to developing technology in this context is to embrace perspectives from diverse disciplines to arrive at a methodology that delivers sati...

We present an interdisciplinary methodology for designing interactive multi-modal technology for young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). In line with many other researchers in the field, we believe that the key to developing technology in this context is to embrace perspectives from diverse disciplines to arrive at a methodology that...

This paper summarises the implications for practice arising from the ‘International review of the evidence on best practice in educational provision for children on the autism spectrum’ and it focuses on key priorities for policy makers, families, practitioners and researchers. Findings highlight that there is little evidence to indicate how differ...

This article draws together findings from expert evidence and empirical studies to identify the preconditions for developing inclusive learning environments for young children on the autism spectrum. It concludes that in order to develop ‘best practice’, practitioners need to adapt interventions to the unique needs of the individual child, work in...

This paper describes how researchers from diverse research disciplines are working together with design teams of children, carers and practitioners to create an exploratory multimodal environment for children. This learning environment, entitled ECHOES II, aims to be both an educational intervention and an environment through which we research chil...

This research used socio-cultural and activity theory as lenses for understanding the conditions for productive learning in a particular learning environment. The context was an online learning community in which practitioners and carers in the field of autism were undertaking a professional development qualification by distance learning. Socio cul...

This research draws upon community of practice theory to explore the factors that enabled or hindered participation in an online ‘Foundations of Communities of Practice’ workshop – a course that is designed to align with Wenger's communities of practice perspective. The research used a mixed methods approach, drawing upon log-on and posting data, q...

This research draws upon community of practice theory to explore the factors that enabled or hindered participation in an online 'Foundations of Communities of Practice' workshop-a course that is designed to align with Wenger's communities of practice perspective. The research used a mixed methods approach, drawing upon log-on and posting data, que...

The aims of this programme on the autism spectrum are to: • improve outcomes for pupils on the autism spectrum • increase knowledge and understanding among professionals about the autism spectrum • share good practice so that professionals in mainstream schools can make adjustments to their policies, practices, procedures and curriculum that will e...

Inclusion Development Programme for staff working in mainstream early years settings with children on the autism spectrum.

This paper analyses how adult learners on a professional development course learn and develop through online dialogue. The research uses Wenger’s community of practice framework, and assesses whether the concept of ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ is useful in relation to this specific case study in which the students are practitioners and par...

This paper is concerned with teaching and learning in a blended e-learning course that supports students in reflecting on and transforming their practice. In this paper we focus on two key aspects of the online learning environment: (i) the selection of the topic of discussion (the discussion question) by the tutor and how this influences the quali...

This paper analyses a sample of online discussions to evaluate the development of adult learners as reflective practitioners within a networked learning community. The context for our study is a blended learning course offering post-experience professional training to non-traditional university students. These students are parents and carers of peo...

This project is set within the context of a networked learning course that offers post-experience professional training to non-traditional university students - parents and carers of people with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The course is offered as a flexible and blended course with online module activities supported by face-to-face workshops...

A networked learning programme offering post-experience professional training to non- traditional university students - parents and carers of people with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) - provides the context for our study which uses discourse analysis to evaluate: learner appropriation of the professional discourse of the ASD carer (one measure...