Imagine a child who does not communicate verbally, does not engage in eye contact with their environment and family, and who apparently displays no imagination – these are some of the characteristics associated with autism.

However, a new research project launched today brings together drama and psychology to explore how drama-based activities may play a key role in helping autistic children communicate, socialise and play imaginatively.

Based at the University of Kent Imagining Autism is a collaboration that seeks to remediate the difficulties autistic children have with communication, social interaction and imagination.

The Imagining Autism project will see performers working with three different special schools in Kent to create magical sensory environments using puppetry, objects, light, sound and digital media. Children at the schools will be encouraged to dream, play and explore and hopefully find new ways of connecting with the world around them.

The study will include psychology and autism experts from the University, who will evaluate the impact of the drama interventions on 18 children during the 30-month project.

The research, which has received £350k in grant funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), will see collaboration between the University’s schools of Arts and Psychology as well as its Tizard Centre and Gulbenkian Theatre.

Results from the research could lead to a full-scale trial and may also prompt changes in approaches to other communication disorders in children.

Principal researcher Dr Nicola Shaughnessy, of the University’s School of Arts, said: ‘Autism affects as many as one in 100 people in the UK but there is no cure and no single effective intervention.

‘Imagining Autism is a scientific and systematic evaluation of whether drama interventions can have positive effects on autistic children.

‘The aim is for this research to have future benefits for related conditions and I’m sure its results will be of interest to those working in a range of areas including Theatre, Health, Education and Social Services, as well families and carers with experience of autism.’

Senior lecturers in Drama Dr Shaughnessy and Dr Melissa Trimingham will lead the project, together with autism expert Dr Julie Beadle-Brown, of the University’s Tizard Centre, and cognitive psychologist Dr David Wilkinson, of the School of Psychology.

The project team will make use of a range of measures to evaluate the impact of the performance activities on three groups of six primary school children, all with a diagnosis of autism.

http://www.imaginingautism.org/

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AHRC Media contact: Jake Gilmore, Communications Manager, 0117 9876 773; j.gilmore@ahrc.ac.uk  

Notes to Editor:

Imagining Autism: Drama, Performance and Intermediality as Interventions for Autistic Spectrum Condition is a £430,000 project, a figure that includes £344,187 in research grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Imagining autism was one of only 19 projects to receive funding from the AHRC’s current large research grant allocation.
http://www.imaginingautism.org/

Arts & Humanities Research Council: Each year the AHRC provides approximately £100 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from languages and law, archaeology and English literature to design and creative and performing arts. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,100 postgraduate awards. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.