Animation: children, autism and new possibilities for learning

The aim of this paper is to discover whether and to what extent children with autism can find the production of animations useful for their learning and self‐experience. The study seeks to understand how the participants produce animations and what implications this has had for their learning abilities and social interaction skills.

Through a mixed methods approach, but with participant observation as paramount, the authors worked with two children identified as being on the autistic spectrum to document their understanding and use of animation as a tool for concept development and for narrative and meaning‐making.

The project showed that the two participants in question gained greater learner autonomy through their involvement in animation. Teachers also reported that they understood more about the two students than had previously been the case. One participant has become much more actively involved in learning processes than before and sees herself in a new way, mainly because her anxiety has been reduced; the other participant has learned much about the component parts of a narrative sequence and is now able to assemble these more effectively.

The greatest benefit of animation in the classroom comes from young people becoming producers of it rather than merely consumers. Being able to express themselves through movement opens the possibility of understanding and interpreting emotions, moods and situations in a way that is of great benefit. This case study suggests that being actively involved in the production of an animated story is particularly beneficial for children's emotional, social and verbal development. Combining experienced reality with bodily expressions and subsequently with verbal language is difficult for most children with autism. Creating animated stories can be a useful stepping stone to enable children to transform experienced reality into words. The outcomes described in this paper are essentially linked to the nature of the production task and could not have been achieved through passive absorption of animation.