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Aim:This study aimed to investigate the experiences of children and young people being educated in residential special schools, with a particular focus on how their rights and wellbeing were being promoted by their schools.Method:The study was conducted using participatory research principles and aimed to develop techniques and approaches that would support the inclusion of all children.Findings:The findings indicated that the techniques developed during this study helped to provide insight into the experiences of pupils with a wide range of special needs, and facilitated their voices. The piloting of a method that integrated ethnographic observation techniques with checklists adopted from the SCERTS framework (developed by Prizant and colleagues) provided important insights into the experiences and preferences of children with the greatest learning and communication needs, and is an approach worthy of further development.Limitations:The study was conducted over a very short time frame, one academic term, which influenced the time available to refine techniques and work with our young researchers’ group. Whilst every residential special school in England was invited to participate, the sample was based on those schools that volunteered, many with good and outstanding Ofsted ratings. Therefore, the sample may not be fully representative of the range of experiences provided by residential special schools in England.Conclusions:The development of specific techniques to facilitate an understanding of the views and experiences of children who experience significant challenges in communication is possible. The knowledge, skills and expertise of educational psychologists and other professionals can be harnessed to respond creatively to this challenge and it is important to acknowledge the reciprocal value of professional practice and research skills.

All children have the right to shape decisions that influence their lives. Yet, children with severe-to-profound intellectual disabilities and complex communication needs are often marginalized from this process. Here, we examined the utility of a set of tools incorporating ethnographic and structured observational methods with three such children. We specifically examined the communicative behavior that these children used to share their views and the ways in which adults recognized and responded to them. The three case studies illustrate (1) that these children have ways to make their intentions known, even though they may use idiosyncratic ways of doing so; (2) that adults play important roles in supporting their communicative bids; and (3) that this set of tools was sufficiently sensitive to subtle and fine-grained nonverbal cues that might otherwise be overlooked.

This mixed-methods study examined gender differences in the social motivation and friendship experiences of adolescent boys and girls with autism relative to those without autism, all educated within special education settings. Autistic girls showed similar social motivation and friendship quality to non-autistic girls, while autistic boys reported having both qualitatively different friendships and less motivation for social contact relative to boys without autism and to girls with and without autism. Semi-structured interviews with the adolescents corroborated these findings, with one exception: autistic girls reported high levels of relational aggression within their friendships, suggesting that girls on the autism spectrum in particular may struggle with identifying and dealing with conflict in their social lives.