‘I can’t understand a word he says’: a personal exploration of autistic dysfluency in film

Abstract

This article describes a cooperative venture by an autistic individual and a visual artist to articulate autistic dysfluency, using the medium of a short film. This employs a first-person narrative supported by collage and computer-generated imagery to depict an example of failed communication as experienced through the eyes of an autistic pupil. The combination of visuals and audio aids in depicting the autistic individual's consciousness whilst in a challenging classroom situation. Articulating the dysfluency experienced by the individual required the finding of ways to overcome that dysfluency, and it is this process that is explored in this paper. The potential for the film to be used to facilitate teacher understanding and teacher/pupil communication is also discussed.

Keywords:

• autism
• communication
• fluency
• multimodality

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all those who have watched, discussed and fed back on the film discussed in this paper.

Disclosure statement

The authors have declared no conflict of interest and this research did not receive any funding.