Sharing EP Practice: EBSA and Autism - What Can Schools Do?

Dr Mollie Higgins, Educational Psychologist, shares the key themes and outcomes of her doctoral research around Autistic Young People experiencing Emotional Based School Avoidance (EBSA). Mollie has been working alongside Dr Jerricah Holder to create a new chapter for the EBSA Horizons EP Course - Supporting Autistic CYP experiencing EBSA. To be released early next year. Sign up here to access the course.

The Ideal School: EBSA and Autism

In addition to the risk factors for EBSA, autistic young people experience a number of differences which further increase their feelings of anxiety within the school environment. These include:

• Differences in identifying and describing their own and others’ emotions
• Emotional regulation difficulties
• Differences in sensory processing and finding the sensory environment overwhelming e.g. loud corridors, different smells, busy classrooms
• Difficulties understanding and predicting social situations and managing interactions with others
• Worries around change or transitions e.g. moving between classrooms, changes to timetables, supply teachers
• Executive functioning and organisation difficulties – remembering books, homework, equipment
• Masking - try to ‘fit in’ or attempting to appear more neurotypical by changing their behaviour and internalising any anxiety
• Experiencing performance anxiety related to the schoolwork or exams

These challenges mean that some autistic students try and manage their anxiety by avoiding school altogether. This is reflected in statistics which show higher levels of EBSA amongst autistic students (Department for Education, 2021). I felt it was important to speak with students directly to hear their views and opinions about what might help them attend school.

I asked ten autistic secondary-age students to describe the best school ever and the worst school ever. This technique is known as The Ideal School [1] and is based on Personal Construct Psychology. By asking students to describe their ideal and non-ideal schools, I was able to understand the type of adjustments that would help these students feel more able to attend school.

Five key themes were identified from the data and the key points are summarised below:

So What Can Schools Do?

[1] This technique was adapted by Williams and Hanke (2005) using Moran’s (2001) Drawing the Ideal Self.

EBSA Horizons School Staff Training

EBSA Horizons School Training is a comprehensive CPD course for School Staff, which develops understanding and skills (alongside a lot of resources) to support children and young people experiencing difficulties attending school. This course has been updated for 2023 with a new chapter -

Chapter 6:  The Systemic Change Model of EBSA

Find out more about EBSA Horizons School Training here and register your interest to receive 3 FREE resources from this course.

EBSA Horizons Educational Psychologist CPD

EBSA Horizons is a comprehensive CPD course for EPs, which develops understanding and skills (alongside a lot of resources) to support children and young people experiencing difficulties attending school. This course has been recently updated for 2023 with two new chapters -

Chapter 6:  Supporting Autistic CYP Experiencing EBSA

Chapter 7:  Entrenched EBSA

Find out more about EBSA Horizons here and register your interest to receive 3 FREE resources from this course.