IPDA Prize awarded to two recipients at IPDA 2018

The IPDA prize is awarded annually at our International Conference. Winners demonstrate innovative and creative thinking in workplace-based enquiry. In 2018 the IPDA Prize was awarded to Dr Tish Balfe and Dr Vince Clarke. The following was published in the IPDA 2018 conference programme about the winners.

Dr Tish Balfe

The research undertaken by Tish Balfe focused on enhancing, through a professional development programme, adults’ knowledge and use of social communication strategies for the purpose of improving the social interactions between classroom staff and infrequent communicators on the autism spectrum.

By investigating this topic in relation to developments in the Republic of Ireland, where enrolment of children on the autism spectrum in the education system has seen a steady but substantial increase annually over the last decade and where teachers have expressed concerns regarding their professional preparedness to teach these children, this thesis is timely and has potential to make a significant contribution with local and national implications. Additionally, given the particular challenges associated with the development of the communicative competencies of young children on the autism spectrum, the expertise of teachers and support staff to address these challenges, and the professional learning for developing such expertise are issues of global relevance. While research internationally has focused on caregiver interactions with young children on the autism spectrum, this study leads in its focus on the interactions of adults in the classroom (teachers and special needs assistants) in the development of the social communication of young children on the autism spectrum. As such, this thesis has potential to make an equally significant contribution to the international research literature on professional development and learning related to the social-communication development of young children on the autism spectrum.

In terms of specific contribution to professional development, to the extent that adult strategy use influenced pupil language use, this thesis adds to current knowledge in so far as specific adult interaction strategies are identified as enhancing the children’s communication and increasing their language. This highlights a pedagogical content focus for professional learning programmes. Moreover, data analysis of adult-child interactions led to the development of a framework for establishing causal connections between adult strategies and child responses and initiations. This framework has potential for use by teachers to analyse adult interactions with young children with autism spectrum, with a view to auditing strengths and earmarking developments in adult-interactional strategy use.

Dr Vince Clarke

Dr Vince Clarke is a paramedic educator at the University of Hertfordshire. His EdD submission (July 2018) was of extremely high quality, addressing a classic issue, the relationship between theory and professional practice in a context of paramedic practice which has only been professionalised this century when entry has required undergraduate study.

Vince’s experience as a paramedic informed this research, grounding it in practice and enhancing its validity as well as its doctoral level contribution to knowledge and practice. The advance to practice and CPD is based on Vince’s thesis that the relationship between theory and practice is best represented as praxis, while showing that established paramedic practitioners invariably equate ‘theory’ with universities and book learning, not recognising it is a dimension of professional and practice-based knowledge. This, as research in teaching and in nursing show, is a deprofessionalising, constraining, view of practice and how it can be developed. Vince’s view of the relationship between theory and practice as one of praxis is of huge importance in enabling new entrants to the profession to establish a basis for lifelong learning and development of professional practice. This is particularly important in the new profession of paramedicine because new entrants to the profession work in teams with colleagues with a constrained view of the nature of professional knowledge. Recognising the interrelationship between theory and practice as one of praxis makes it less likely that theory-informed practice will be ‘washed out’ by working with colleagues as, experience and research show, happens in teaching and nursing.

The pathway to impact of Vince’s contributions to practice has been strengthened by his recent employment by the University of Hertfordshire, and his teaching there. The BSc (Hons) Paramedic Science degree is the first full-time degree programme