Education experts have raised concerns over inadequate teacher training to support children with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other forms of neurodiversity, warning that the knowledge gap contributes to misdiagnosis, stigma and exclusion in schools.
The experts spoke at the two-day African Neurodiversity Conference 2026, organised by the Association of Nigerian Educational Psychologists at Children’s International School, Lekki, Lagos, which ended on Wednesday.
Delivering the keynote address, a professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Ilorin, Bolanle Olawuyi, said the removal of special education and psychology courses from teacher-training curricula had left many teachers ill-equipped to understand and support neurodivergent learners.
Olawuyi said, “When you remove special needs from the general teaching, then how do you want the teacher to know how to handle some children? So the limited training is there.”
She said teachers sometimes mistook learning differences for laziness, while parents misunderstood children’s behaviour and communication,
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