‘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?