Professor Sarah Parsons and Dr Hanna Kovshoff have been awarded £135k funding from the ESRC as part of a call for projects to develop innovative methods.
‘Our Stories…’: co-constructing Digital Storytelling methodologies for supporting the transitions of autistic children is a collaboration with Professor Nicola Yuill at the University of Sussex, and local community partners including New Forest School, Hill House School, and Springwell School.
This project will apply and extend our participatory Digital Storytelling methodology to explore the methodological challenge of gathering a range of views from autistic children, families, and practice in authentic ways. Digital Storytelling is an accessible and inclusive methodology that supports the sharing of views and experiences in visual, video form. This project will focus on applying and extending this methodology to the transitions of autistic children and families in a range of contexts and through piloting a range of digital video technologies (e.g. 360 degree virtual tours, Virtual Reality, Wearcams) across four projects, focusing on (1) the transition between primary and secondary school (2) the transition into further education, training, or employment (3) transitions into healthcare and assessment and (4) the micro-transitions that take place in the classroom every day. Our project will develop practical and scalable digital methods, with practice settings, that will inform inclusive research practices and can also be used in the long-term by children, families, schools, and organisations.
The project will start in February 2021 and run for 12 months. There will be research posts advertised for the project and we hope to be able to share more information about those very soon!