‘Seeing is believing’: Exploring the perspectives of young autistic children through Digital Stories

Abstract

Young autistic children are amongst the most scrutinised and assessed in their everyday lives, often leading to characterisations and descriptions that focus on their difficulties and challenges rather than on their abilities, strengths and positive experiences. Consequently, much discussion about autistic children tends to forget that they are children first. While research has considered the transitions of autistic children from primary to secondary school, and from secondary to post-compulsory contexts, there is almost no research focusing on transitions for young autistic children from nursery to primary schools. There is also very limited representation of their voices and experiences being explored, promoted, and valued directly as evidence in their own right. We aimed to address this gap through a project funded by the Froebel Trust and co-constructed with practitioners and families. The project used an innovative Digital Storytelling methodology to explore the experiences and perspectives of five 4-year-old autistic children, and their families, as the children prepared to make the transition from an inclusive day nursery to primary school. This paper provides an overview of the rationale, methodology, and findings of the project to address two related questions: How do we listen to those children who ‘have no words’?; and what do we learn from them when we do?

Everyday experiences of inclusion in Primary resourced provision: the voices of autistic pupils and their teachers

“…This small-scale study provides insights into how one resourced provision is experienced by primary-aged autistic children and their teachers, using a simple visual, storyboard methodology. Children's voices, especially younger children, are substantially underrepresented in autism research (Cascio, Weiss, and Racine 2020;Parsons et al 2020) and so this study makes a valuable contribution by demonstrating how younger children's voices can be explored and used to inform practice. The storyboard activity was easily understood by children and can be readily adapted with symbols and other visual materials.…”

Digital stories for transition: co-constructing an evidence base in the early years with autistic children, families and practitioners

“…More details about our specific methodology in the Froebel Trust project can be found in Parsons et al (2020). Five children, all boys and aged 4 years, were the focal participants in the project along with their parents and Aviary staff members.…”

“…. " Digital Story framework that focuses on children's personalities, preferences, agency and capabilities; it is a framework that aims to get closer to understanding who the children are rather than assessing what they cannot do (Parsons et al, 2020).…”

“…Inevitably, the use of the Wearcams opened a range of ethical issues for consideration, not least in terms of countering critiques that we could be placing the children and their peers under surveillance and, therefore, making unwelcome intrusions into their lives. As we discuss in Parsons et al (2020), the Digital Stories need to be viewed directly for us to convincingly demonstrate that we were on the side of the children and that what was revealed about them is powerful and enlightening rather than intrusive or exploitative. The Stories are in the public domain on our website (autismtransitions.org) and so we would always encourage readers to view them to make up their own minds.…”

“…Not only is this approach important in terms of according autistic children the same rights and respect as non-autistic children to be "active co-constructors of meaning in their own lives" (Pascal & Bertram, 2009, p. 255), but seeking children's views directly about their educational provision is mandated in England through the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice (Department for Education/Department of Health, 2015). Thus, there are moral (social justice) and legal obligations for developing methodologies that position young autistic children as knowers in their own lives (see Parsons et al, 2020, for a project overview).…”