Autismeforskning og brukermedvirkning

I løpet av de siste tiårene har det som går under betegnelsene «deltakende forskning», «inkluderende forskning» og «brukermedvirkning», fått større oppmerksomhet innenfor autismeforskningen. Med slagordet 'Ingenting om oss, uten oss' stiller nå forskningsfinansierende institusjoner, forskere og interesseorganisasjoner klare krav til at forskning på autisme skal være i tråd med autistiske personers interesser, og at den samtidig skal bidra til økt livskvalitet. Til tross for at deltakende forskning, inkluderende forskning og brukermedvirkning i teorien har fått økt oppmerksomhet, fins det få spor av slik forskning i praksis (Pellicano et al. 2022). Særlig innenfor et etnometodologisk samtaleanalytisk (EMCA) rammeverk (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson, 1974), vet vi svært lite om erfaringer med å involvere autistiske medforskere. Innenfor EMCA vil det å involvere-, eller ikke involvere-, autistiske medforskere i innsamling og analyse av interaksjonsdata få metodologiske konsekvenser. Hvordan kan for eksempel EMCA, som har en emisk og induktiv tilnærming til analyse av interaksjon, bli informert av erfaringer fra autistiske medforskere? Hvilken innsikt går tapt når autistiske medforskere ekskluderes fra EMCA-autismeforskning? Og hvordan kan de metodologiske prinsippene for «deltakerperspektiv» forstås i sammenheng med (den ofte problematiserte) forestillingen om «dobbelt empatiproblem» (Milton, 2012)? I dette seminaret inviterer vi EMCA-autismeforskere til å presentere pågående forskning, dele erfaringer fra inkluderende forskningsdesign og diskutere fremtidige perspektiver og utvikling innen feltet.

Working at the Intersection of EMCA and Participatory Methods: Challenging Ableism in Autism Research

In this lecture, I point to the generative possibilities of situating autism research at the intersection of ethnomethodological conversation analysis (EMCA), participatory methods, and anti-ableism. Drawing upon examples from the autism research literature, I illustrate how working at this intersection can serve to challenge ableist interpretations of interactional data involving autistic individuals. Moreover, I point to how engaging autistic individuals as co-researchers in the analysis of their own communicative practices, may promote empirically grounded and locally situated understandings of communicative practices. Throughout, I aim to demonstrate how engaging at this intersection can support EMCA autism researchers committed to the pursuit of disability justice.

Whose categories, whose analysis, and whose co-production? The implications of conversation analysis for research impact

The aim of this talk is to consider co-production practices – also referred to as, say, “user involvement”, “socially engaged research”, “knowledge mobilization”, or “co-design” – in the contexts both of conversation analytic research and of impact from communication training based on its findings (through, for instance, CARM). I will map out some of the complexities in this domain, unpacking, on the one hand, considerations that may be general to all researchers (e.g., extending beyond linear research ethics processes to focus on achieving ethical, inclusive, equitable benefit and impact) and those that are raised in and through conducting specifically conversation analytic research. When partners, users, or beneficiaries are category members, whose categories, whose analysis, and whose co-production counts (cf. Schegloff, 1997)? And how do we consider the challenge of working ethically and impactfully in the field of human communication?

Reference:
Schegloff, E. A. (1997). Whose text? Whose context? Discourse & society, 8(2), 165-187.

Forms of participation in inclusive peer groups in school-age educare centres – engaging and managing social interactions

School-age educare (SAEC) centres are institutions where children socialize with other children, which generates peer cultures. This is done through shared experiences and insights (Corsaro, 1992). Peer culture can be seen as a unique and complex social world that children have created (Wolfberg et al., 1999). This study examines how children in peer groups in SAEC engage and manage intersubjectivity in relational work with their peers. The data is on naturally occurring social interaction, the concerned extract focuses on play activities. The data is in Swedish. The data collection consists of 56 hours of video ethnography, captured in three SAECs and is analyzed using conversation analysis. It involves 123 children aged 5-11 (of whom four were children with autism) and 23 teachers. The initial results indicate different forms of participation in play activity, where children do and do not take others' perspectives. In the concerned extract, one child focuses on “telling your surname, meanwhile another child is telling a joke. We anticipate that this study will enhance the understanding of children's social engagement and their arguments in SAEC. 

Peer interactions involving autistic children in educational and clinical settings

In this presentation, I will present data and share methodological insights from our participatory conversation analytic research projects involving autistic children and their peers. Here, our focus will be on two research projects involving so-called mixed-neurotype (i.e., autistic-non-autistic) interaction data from inclusive classrooms and same-neurotype (i.e., autistic-autistic) interaction data from a neuropsychological clinical setting. We follow participatory research practices at different stages of our research. Yet, the integration of the autistic lived experiences as an integral part of the CA analytical practice has remained as an area of development. I will reflect on our current developments in this area.

Interaction of Finnish-Speaking Autistic Preadolescents in a Clinical Setting:

This data session draws on naturally-occurring face-to-face conversation from a group therapy session with Finnish-speaking autistic preadolescents. The session is part of a therapeutic program for boys aged 11–13, aimed at supporting the development of interactional and life management skills and fostering the ability to participate in group activities. The session, led by two neurotypical therapists (one man, one woman), took place in a hospital setting in southern Finland and followed a two-hour structure.

The session begins with a “sharing news” round, where each boy reports on recent activities, school experiences, and other personally relevant matters. After each boy’s report, the others are invited to ask questions and engage with what they have heard, offering opportunities for peer interaction and the practice of conversational skills in a supported context. The session is organized around a predetermined topic—in this case, bullying at school.

The excerpt that this data session will focus on is drawn from the “sharing news” phase of this session. It features three boys interacting with the two therapists, as they collaboratively manage turn-taking, topic progression, and epistemic and affective stances. The data provide a window into how participants negotiate participation frameworks, display orientation to one another’s contributions, and manage the demands of this semi-institutional, peer-group setting.

Professor of Qualitative Research in the School of Education at Indiana University Bloomington. She is a qualitative methodologist and interdisciplinary scholar who publishes in areas related to discourse and conversation analysis methods, digital tools/spaces in qualitative research, and disability in critical qualitative inquiry. Much of her research has focused on autism, examining how language—both in everyday interactions and institutional contexts—constructs and reinforces notions of normality and abnormality. Through her analyses, she has highlighted how individuals, particularly autistic bodyminds, are discursively positioned within or outside the boundaries of what is often taken for granted as "normal," shedding light on the social consequences of such categorizations.

Professor in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at The London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, where she is also Academic Director of Impact. She is a conversation analyst and her current interests are in where and how ‘conversation’ is leveraged into products of all kinds, from research methods to communication training and guidance to ‘conversational’ technologies. Her latest book is Categories in Social Interaction (2025, Routledge), co-authored by Kevin Whitehead and Geoff Raymond, which is also a culmination of many years of research on categorial matters in conversation.