Conceptualisations of neurodiversity and barriers to inclusive pedagogy for early career teachers
Welcome to the ConNECT project
This project seeks to understand how Early Career Teachers (ECTs) conceptualise neurodiversity, what influences these conceptualisations, how these evolve during their professional training and early teaching experience and how they affect ways of working.
Funded by: ESRC New Investigator Grant
Contact: Anna Cook - anna.cook@surrey.ac.uk
Overview
Every classroom is neurodiverse. Children think, learn and communicate in many different ways – and when teachers recognise this diversity as the norm (rather than a deviation), more pupils can thrive. This project investigates how Early Career Teachers (ECTs) understand neurodiversity, what shapes those understandings, and how this influences their day-to-day inclusive practice in Key Stage 2 (ages 7–11). Our goal is to move beyond reliance on diagnostic labels and deficit language, and to strengthen teacher confidence, reflection and agency so that inclusion is built into everyday teaching.
What we’re studying
We’re following a large cohort of ECTs from the start of their training through the end of their second year in school, combining surveys and interviews to track how their ideas and practices evolve. We’re also conducting in-depth case studies with ECTs working in contrasting school contexts, and interviewing teacher educators across England to understand how programmes prepare new teachers for neurodiverse classrooms. Co-production groups (teachers, leaders, and neurodivergent voices) help shape the questions we ask and the resources we build.
Why it matters
Much guidance focuses on strategies and checklists. We’re complementing this with an approach that centres beliefs, reflective thinking and professional judgement – key ingredients for sustainable, whole-class inclusion. Findings will inform teacher education and the Early Career Framework, highlighting practical ways to design lessons, environments and assessment so all learners are supported.
What we’ll deliver
We’ll co-create a free, one-hour online self-study resource (with discussion and implementation guides) that translates our findings into UDL-aligned strategies and reflection prompts teachers can use immediately. In parallel, we’ll publish peer-reviewed papers and present at leading international conferences to advance theory on teachers’ conceptualisations of neurodiversity and contribute to wider conceptual impact.
Principal Investigator
Dr Anna Cook
Anna Cook