ACoRNS

What is ACoRNS?

The Autism Community Research Network @ Southampton [ACoRNS] is a research-practice partnership that aims to improve the lives of autistic children and young people within education through addressing the marginalisation and underrepresentation of their views and experiences.

Working together with special and mainstream educational settings from early years through to Higher Education we:

focus on the transitions and trajectories of autistic children and young people
decide what questions can be addressed by research and that matter to practitioners and the autism community
put children’s voices and experiences at the centre of our work through using collaborative, creative and participatory methods (see iamdigitalstories.org.uk)
make a difference to practice

Of course, we would not be able to do this work without our generous funders: University of Southampton (Impact Acceleration Fund), Froebel Trust, UKRI (ESRC), and the ESRC Festival of Social Science.

We know that the language and terminology we use matters and say more about that here.

Find out more about our sister organisation - ACoRNS Sussex.

We really welcome your interest and ideas so please do get in contact with us

Research Themes

Co-constructing the evidence base

This focuses on participatory approaches to research that respect the diverse knowledges needed for informing and co-creating the autism research evidence base.

Examples include working with Aviary Nursery in our Froebel Trust funded research to develop the powerful and innovative approach of ‘I am’ Digital Stories for enabling the voices of young autistic children in their transitions to primary school, and extending this methodology to other groups and transitions in our ESRC-funded ‘Our Stories’ project.

We have also created a comic book with students from New Forest School

This approach is embedded throughout many of our projects. Methods include the use of photovoice, storyboards, and Digital Storytelling.

Undergraduate student Amber Warren collaborated with Springwell School to develop a storyboard method for understanding primary-aged autistic children’s everyday experiences of inclusion in resourced provision.

Outputs include the work of our Doctoral student Chloe East who collaborated with a group of six autistic girls over many months to develop awareness-raising resources for schools about the distinctive needs and experiences of autistic girls.

These groups are substantially under-researched in the autism field.

Our work has included collaborating with a parent on using Freedom of Information requests to Local Authorities to find out about the numbers and awareness of autism diagnoses amongst looked-after children and young people.

Our Educational Psychology Doctoral students Dr Jennifer Pickles and Dr Lynn DeLaFosse have focused their research on the experiences of Virtual School Heads and Designated Teachers.

An overarching theme in which we recognise the range of transitions that impact on children, young people and adults including everyday (‘horizontal’) transitions and major (‘vertical’) transitions that occur at key life stages.

This includes things such as moving to a new school or finishing compulsory education. We are interested in transitions across the lifespan.

Who We Are

ACoRNS began in November 2016 with initial funding from the University of Southampton’s Public Engagement with Research Unit and is co-directed by Professor Sarah Parsons, from the University’s Education School, and Professor Hanna Kovshoff from the School of Psychology. We work in partnership with a Steering Group of experienced education professionals with expertise in supporting autistic children and young people.

ACoRNS research brings together academics, educators, experts by experience, speech and language practitioners, educational psychologists, researchers, and students.