“Howling at the scrabble-board”: exploring classroom literature from an autistic viewpoint

ABSTRACT

There has, to date, been little discussion of how autism may affect the experience of the reading of fiction for pupils in the classroom, other than through a deficit model. One of the researchers in this study (“Celia”) is training to be a secondary school English teacher and identifies as autistic. Her experience provides an enriched understanding of the subject and enables the study to be undertaken in line with best practice for autism research. Her experiences are explored within the concepts of Theory of Mind, empathic regulation, language awareness and local rather than global processing bias. Impact on managing authentic engagement with texts for all pupils is discussed, together with specific questions for teachers regarding appropriate support for – and celebration of – autistic pupils’ reactions to fiction.

KEYWORDS:

• Autism
• literature
• empathy
• authentic engagement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Clare Lawrence

Dr Clare Lawrence is the English subject PGCE lead at Bishop Grosseteste University. 

Celia *

‘Celia’ (a pseudonym) was a PGCE English subject trainee at the time of this article and is now a qualified teacher.

Edward Collyer

Edward Collyer and Melissa Poulson are both qualified, currently working English teachers.