Public Engagement with Research is key to the ground breaking ‘Playing A/Part’ work with girls undertaken by Professor Nicola Shaughnessy and Dr Melissa Trimingham from the School of Arts. In this fascinating Q&A Nicola and Melissa talk about their research and explain how determination and perseverance are essential factors for effective engagement.
Written by Evie Goodwin, School of Journalism.
How did the idea for Imagining Autism come about?
Melissa: “Nicola and I have two autistic children ourselves. We both got talking about playing with our children, and the different kinds of play in which they engaged. I spoke about using puppetry with my son, and Nicola told me that she’d also used similar techniques with her son. So, we applied for some internal funding from the University to work in St Nicholas’ School, a special needs school in Canterbury, and utilise some of the techniques we’d discussed with the autistic children there.
At first, we were working in a very busy playroom, and it was chaos; the children were in the cupboards eating the playdough, climbing the walls, and we just weren’t getting anything done. So, over three weeks we built some special environments with black curtains covering all the distractions. We used UV lights and carboard puppets to create different themes, and it worked tremendously well. That project was the basis for making a bigger funding application to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and this is how Imagining Autism started”.
What is Playing A/ Part?
Melissa: “During Imagining Autism, we noticed that there were very few girls. And the girls that were in the workshops were very quiet and engaged with the environment in very different ways [to boys]. We realised we needed to develop new techniques and invest more into research specifically for girls, and that started Playing A/Part. We began to look for funding from elsewhere and working with psychologists.“
Nicola: “It’s important to emphasise failure; by the time we got the AHRC funding, we’d already tried three times to secure some funding from elsewhere and initially been rejected. But we didn’t give up, as we knew how important this work is, and that’s when we went for internal, arts-based funding. Imagining Autism and Playing A/ Part came from Melissa and I’s lived experience, so we felt passionately about not giving up on making it happen.”
What is it about drama and theatre-based techniques that are so effective in engaging children with autism?
Nicola: “We work with a pod which is a black pop-up tent which we take into schools- there’s something about the embodied engagement, being in the room with these children that creates an immersive experience. They’re very multi-sensory and high arousal, which often comes as a surprise to parents and teachers, as the educational rationale for working with autistic children is to keep everything low arousal; quiet, calm, and predictable. Then we’ll go into schools with these very exciting, chaotic performance tools and techniques, and we allow the choice to engage with it.”
Melissa: “Yes, the important thing is that they can choose. Sensory elements are really important for autistic children, and people didn’t know it at that time. They’re not forced to engage, they can come in and out of the pod, and that element of choice is essential.”
What part did public engagement with research play in developing these projects?
Melissa: “By engaging with parents, we were able to engage with schools. We set up workshops for parents to allow them to explore the best way to engage with their autistic child. So, alongside every residency project we established, we ran extra workshops or sessions to maximise every opportunity. We would think, who can we invite? Then we’d make sure to get local councillors and influential people along to get the most out of every project.”
Nicola– “It’s all about utilising the contacts and opportunities you have. For us, schools were essential, so speaking with any teachers or teaching assistants at the schools we wanted to work with was helpful. I was very persistent in getting our workshops into schools and perseverance was important. I’d say with any research that you think is important and will benefit people, determination and perseverance are what you’ll need.”
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