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Seen and Heard

Exploring Participation, Engagement and Voice for Children with Disabilities

by Miriam Twomey (Volume editor) Clare Carroll (Volume editor)
©2018 Edited Collection XII, 422 Pages

Summary

This volume brings together a range of international contributors to explore new ways of carrying out research with children with disabilities. It also investigates how scholars across a wide variety of disciplines are engaging with one another in innovative research and practice related to children’s engagement, participation, agency and voice. It includes perspectives from fields as diverse as psychology, early childhood studies, speech and language therapy (SLT), occupational science and therapy (OST), law, education and disability studies. A wide range of creative and practical methodologies for eliciting children’s voices are interrogated and articulated in the book, which will be of interest to both professionals and researchers.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author(s)/editor(s)
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Contents
  • Foreword (Michael Shevlin)
  • References
  • Introduction: Why voice and why now? (Miriam Twomey / Clare Carroll)
  • Organization and description of this book
  • Part I: Legislation, policy and theories
  • Part II: Innovative explorations of different forms of voice
  • Part III: Disciplinary illustrations and explorations around voice
  • References
  • Part I Legislation, policy and theories
  • 1 Applying human rights to children’s participation in research (Kay M. Tisdall)
  • Introduction
  • Human rights framework: potential applications to research
  • Communication and ‘voice’
  • Competence and capacity
  • Research ethics
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • 2 ‘I have a lot to say!’: A human rights perspective on recognizing the voices of disabled children globally (Mary Wickenden)
  • Introduction
  • Disabled children – Bringing childhoods and disability arenas together
  • Different voices
  • The way disabled children see themselves
  • Understandings and expectations of disabled children’s participation
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • 3 Beyond childhood, disability and postcolonial theory: young children with disability in developing countries can tell their own story (Elena Jenkin / Erin Wilson / Robert Campain / Matthew Clarke)
  • Introduction
  • Theoretical lenses constructing children with disability in developing countries
  • The theoretical lens of early childhood
  • The theoretical lens of disability
  • The theoretical lens of postcolonialism
  • Methodological implications for conducting research about children with disability in developing countries
  • Partnership approach
  • Decolonizing of concepts: Localizing meaning of disability and childhood
  • Privileging context
  • Enabling children to self-report: young children as ‘present and credible’
  • Commitment to change
  • The priorities of young children with disability in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea
  • Employment and livelihood
  • Cultural life, recreation and leisure
  • Education
  • Adequate standard of living and poverty
  • Family
  • Summary
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
  • 4 Researching among children: Exploring discourses and power in the ‘inclusive’ early childhood classroom (Karen Watson)
  • Introduction
  • Questioning the notion of researching with children
  • Complex power relations
  • Troubling the imperative to ‘build rapport’
  • Researching among children
  • Children’s understandings of difference and the ‘normal’
  • Research ‘tools’ for researching among children
  • Developmental discourses create membership positions
  • Troubling the effects of developmental understandings
  • Using reflexivity
  • Shifting the focus
  • References
  • Part II Innovative explorations of different forms of voice
  • 5 Multimodal listening and attending to children with complex disabilities in educational settings (Melanie Nind)
  • The importance of listening and attending
  • The importance of listening and attending for learning
  • The importance of listening and attending for well-being
  • The importance of listening and attending for research
  • The importance of listening and attending for children’s rights
  • Enacting listening and attending: more and less than pupil voice
  • Enacting listening and attending: a practical project
  • Enacting listening and attending: multimodality
  • Conclusion: attending is everything
  • References
  • 6 The phenomenology of intersubjectivity and research with profoundly disabled children: Developing an experiential framework for analysing lived social experiences (Ben Simmons)
  • Introduction
  • Project
  • Pre-observation focus groups and semi-structured interviews
  • Participatory observation
  • Non-participatory observation and vignette-writing
  • Vignettes
  • Developing a phenomenological framework for understanding intersubjectivity
  • Non-inferential awareness
  • Being-in-the-world
  • Unpredictability and shared control
  • Mutual incorporation
  • Gesture and symbolic communication
  • A/symmetry and the power to reckon with the possible
  • Application of phenomenological framework
  • Concluding discussion
  • References
  • 7 Embodying voice: Children speak through their bodies (Miriam Twomey)
  • Policies of childhood and voice
  • Philosophies of childhood
  • Movement and being moved
  • Sensory motor disruption and social relatedness
  • Movement and bodily expressed experiences
  • A phenomenological perspective on autism
  • Exploring creative methodologies
  • Imitation
  • Puppetry
  • Research project
  • Ethical considerations
  • Discussion of findings
  • Children’s insights and understandings
  • Reconfiguring voice
  • What it means to be included
  • References
  • 8 Accessing the voices of children who use augmentative and alternative communication: Merits and perils of co-construction (Martine M. Smith)
  • Introduction
  • Including children’s voices in decisions about communication systems
  • Including children’s voices in designing communication systems
  • Incorporating children’s perspectives on use of aided communication
  • Co-construction in interactions involving aided communication: Hearing and honouring children’s voices
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • 9 Let me tell you about my rabbit! Listening to the needs and preferences of the child in early intervention (Clare Carroll)
  • Accessing young children with developmental disabilities: An example
  • Development of a protocol to facilitate children with disabilities in the research process
  • Noel: A case study example
  • SenseCam
  • Observation of SLT Home Visit
  • Interview with Noel
  • Findings and conclusions
  • References
  • Appendix 1: Exploring the facilitation of young children with disabilities in research about their early intervention service
  • Abstract
  • Keywords
  • Introduction
  • 1. Involving Children with Disabilities in Research
  • 2. Context of Study
  • 3. Aims of the Study
  • Methods
  • 1. Participants
  • 2. Data Collection
  • 3. Data Analysis
  • 4. Rigour
  • 5. Ethical Considerations
  • Findings
  • 1. Variety of Data Collection Tools
  • 2. Parents’ Knowledge and Skills to Support Engagement
  • 3. Researcher Knowledge and Skills to Support Engagement
  • Discussion
  • References
  • Part III Disciplinary illustrations and explorations around voice
  • 10 Beyond voice: An occupational science perspective on researching through doing (Helen Lynch)
  • Researching with children: A rights-based approach and the International Classification of Function, Disability and Health (ICF): Issues of participation
  • An occupational science perspective
  • Researching childhood occupations
  • Researching with children with disabilities
  • Study One: Participant observation to explore ‘being at play’
  • Study Two: Beyond participant observation: using videography to explore ‘being at play’
  • Considerations for researching through an occupational lens: strengthening strategies
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • 11 Universal Design for social inclusion: Playgrounds for all (Maria Prellwitz / Helen Lynch)
  • Right to play and participation
  • Participation: contexts for play
  • The first author’s reflections from playground research: a story from Sweden
  • Playground design and the architecture of social participation
  • User’s perspective: research evidence on playgrounds from researching with children
  • Enabling play participation through UD: a framework for practical application when designing playspaces for children
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • 12 Seen and heard: The voice of children with speech and developmental language disorders (Rena Lyons)
  • Introduction
  • Children with speech and developmental language disorders have a voice
  • Methods to listen to the voice to children with speech and developmental language disorders
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • 13 Listen to us! The voices of young children with pain (Line Caes / Siobhán O’Higgins)
  • Listening to children
  • Prevalence of acute pain experiences in young children
  • Prevalence of chronic pain experiences in young children
  • PRIME C: Prevalence, impact, and cost of chronic pain among five-to twelve-year-olds living in Ireland
  • The role of the caregiver responses and reliance of parental proxy reports
  • The Social Communication Model of Pain
  • Parent/caregiver reports as a proxy for child pain experiences
  • How can young children share their experiences?
  • Adapted self-report scales
  • Observational assessment
  • Participative Health Research
  • Knowledge Exchange and Dissemination phase of PRIME-C as an example of PHR
  • Creative techniques
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • 14 Young children’s use of private speech in early childhood settings: Moving from a deficit approach to a rights and agency approach (Carolyn Blackburn)
  • Speech, language and communication development
  • Social and private speech
  • Defining private speech
  • Speech, language and communication in early childhood settings
  • Observations
  • Participants
  • Findings
  • Observations
  • Communication analysis: specialist settings
  • Discussion and Conclusion
  • References
  • 15 We are all in this together: Inclusive early childhood education (Nóirín Hayes)
  • The importance of the early years
  • The science of early childhood education
  • Including all children equally
  • Inclusive early childhood education
  • Realizing inclusive early childhood education
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • 16 Participation, engagement and voice: Where do we go from here? (Clare Carroll / Miriam Twomey)
  • Highlights from Part I: Legislation, policy and theories
  • Highlights from Part II: Innovative explorations of different forms of voice
  • Highlights from Part III: Disciplinary illustrations and explorations around voice
  • Implications for research
  • Implications for pedagogy
  • Implications for practice
  • Where do we go from here?
  • References
  • Glossary
  • Acronyms
  • Notes on contributors
  • Index

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Foreword

The movement towards establishing inclusive learning environments has been a long and convoluted journey. Everyone appears to agree that inclusion is a good idea, however, agreement about how inclusive education is to be understood and implemented is elusive. If something such as inclusion appears to be indisputably a good to be strived for why has it taken so long to become embedded in ordinary classroom practice. There is no shortage of international and national policies advocating inclusive education, many of these policies have been mandated through enabling legislation and yet resistance to inclusion is apparent.

Gary Thomas (2013) observes that the movements advocating inclusion originated in the social and political spheres rather than within education. He argues very cogently that inclusive education was not based on egalitarian perspectives but had emerged from special education. As a result, it can be argued that in many school environments inclusive education is special education dressed up in new clothes more appropriate for a twenty-first-century audience. Inclusive education is still shackled to the notions of difference and disability that characterized special educational thinking and practice. As educators, our understanding of what constitutes learning has evolved to realize that all learning is social and that failure in learning is attributable to many factors including school culture, pedagogical practice and understanding of difference. As a society, there is a growing awareness that failure in learning has immediate and long-term consequences for the individual concerned, their families and communities and society itself. Young people considered to be failures are likely to be ‘excluded from the expectations, the activities, the resources, the worlds of their peers’ (Thomas 2013: 480).

Establishing inclusive school environments is multi-faceted, involving the development of a responsive school culture, principled leadership, informed and knowledgeable educators and a willingness to reshape how support for all learners is conceptualized. However, it is also critical that ← ix | x → the voice of children and young people is respected and acted upon. In recent years there has been a growing recognition of the importance of the voice of children and young people, particularly those from traditionally marginalized communities, in decision making processes that affect their lives. Children and young people identified as having special educational needs are well able to articulate their opinions on educational provision, as demonstrated in Rose and Shevlin’s (2015) report. These children and young people particularly appreciated a supportive school ethos characterized by positive relationships with their teachers and the availability of personalized support to address their specific learning and social needs. Children and young people identified how a non-judgemental, encouraging approach by teachers enabled them to tackle the challenges they experienced in learning.

Early childhood education encounters many of the challenges experienced by primary and post-primary schools in establishing inclusive learning environments. Inclusive early childhood education needs to enable all children, including those who are vulnerable to exclusion, to belong, to become active participants and to learn alongside each other in their local community (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (EASNIE) 2017). Inclusive early childhood environments are characterized by how they value each child within a supportive learning community where positive relationships are the norm and everyone is focused on the individual child’s progress in stark contrast to a slavish adherence to attaining national standards of competence (EASNIE 2017).

This book, edited by Miriam Twomey and Clare Carroll, offers a unique opportunity to access the voice of children within early childhood settings who are receiving early intervention supports. These children are often the most marginalized and vulnerable within our society and many are voiceless in shaping their lives. The international interdisciplinary perspectives presented in this book are focused on enabling these children to begin to have agency in their lives. Current support mechanisms for these children are usually characterized by an emphasis on eligibility and identification which often obscures the need to develop innovative interventions designed to enable these children to become active participants in their learning, belong within their peer group and become recognized within ← x | xi → their local communities. The insights developed through the interdisciplinary perspective presented in this book will be essential in establishing viable, sustainable inclusive early education environments that welcome and value every child.

We all need to interrogate our own assumptions and beliefs about how we as educators, health professionals and researchers value and support our most vulnerable children in their early years. Prepare to be challenged and energized through engaging with the ideas and innovative practices documented in this book and we can begin together to implement these insights in establishing the inclusive learning environments in early childhood education that will benefit all children including our most vulnerable.

Michael Shevlin
(Professor in Inclusive Education, Trinity College Dublin)

References

European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (EASNIE) (2017). Inclusive Early Childhood Education: New Insights and Tools. Brussels: EASNIE.

Rose, R., and Shevlin, M. (2015). This is what works for me: students reflect on their experiences of special needs provision in Irish mainstream schools. In E. West (ed.), Including Learners with Low-Incidence Disabilities, pp. 183–202. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.

Thomas, G. (2013). A review of the thinking and research about inclusive education policy, with suggestions for a new kind of inclusive thinking. British Educational Research Journal, 39(3), 473–490.

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MIRIAM TWOMEY AND CLARE CARROLL

Introduction: Why voice and why now?

This book endeavours to explore new thinking around children’s participation, engagement and voice in initiating collaborations with national and international authors from a range of disciplines committed to this field of research. This book emerged following the editors’ doctoral and postdoctoral work on listening to young children’s voices. The editors recognized the need to share and understand how researchers are currently exploring children’s voice from hard-to-reach groups in an authentic manner. The editors also sought to disentangle myths associated with participation, engagement and impairment and to legitimize voice in all its forms. This book will explore innovative approaches to researching with children who previously may have not been listened to, sharing various interpretations of ‘voice’ and what is known about voice. It explores children’s voice from a number of philosophical, methodological and interpretive orientations (including but not limited to psychological, sociological, anthropological, medical, legal, therapeutic, and educational). This book aims to engage with a community that are particularly interested in researching with children who have a disability (or are at risk of a disability) and who may be eligible for Early Intervention or education services. The editors are committed to a rights-based approach and hope to support and extend the increasing view that we need to learn and understand through children’s eyes (using environmental, visual, tactile, movement-based supports), or other innovative ways of encouraging their participation and engagement. This highlights children’s participation and engagement as pre-requisites to voice, or possibly manifesting voice itself, and also draws on a culture of listening, encouraging research with children who would historically have been without voice or agency. We are mindful of Charles Dickens’ representations of childhood and the much-used aphorism ‘children should be seen and not heard’. Children were identified as lesser human beings and ← 1 | 2 → experienced a long history of not being seen or heard. Having a voice may be integral to a process of becoming more human or as a means towards self-actualization. Accessing the worlds of children with disabilities will explore critical questions framing this dialogue. It will appraise the use of innovative approaches to voice other than spoken language and how we can address the challenges to our perceptions of competence when researching with children with disabilities.

The importance of researching with children with disabilities has received considerable attention, but little has been written about the particular challenges of researching with children with disabilities from a range of disciplinary perspectives. International policy frameworks orchestrate a policy agenda for this book and have vehemently encouraged children’s rights. A vast range of sociological, developmental, anthropological, economic and political research underpins modern definitions of the child. Theorizing about childhood in this book reflects childhood not wholly as a biological state but in terms of who the child is, or will be, as a state of being that is self-determining, legitimate and influenced by rights. This book will draw on theories that are child first, understanding that a person is not defined by their disability, but will also include such descriptions as the disabled child in the sense of being disabled by society. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) states that the best interests of the child must be the primary consideration and that the child’s views must be given due weight in accordance with the child’s age and maturity. In Ireland the National Children’s Strategy (2000: 6), states that ‘children will have a voice in matters which affect them and their views will be given due weight in accordance with their age and maturity’. Drawing on international and national policy, this book focuses on an area worthy of deep exploration. Representing a range of countries, cultures and contexts, adopting a rights-based approach, contributing authors will explore participation, engagement, and voice from hard to reach groups using a range of innovative methods. We want this book to move ‘beyond voice’, as in the search for children’s voice or giving them a voice, to acknowledging the changing and different positions from which children speak. We believe that this newer discourse is a central feature and a common thread underpinning this book. This collection of chapters ← 2 | 3 → adds to this newer paradigm and will contribute significantly to this area of research.

The UNCRC (1989) has promoted the rights of children guiding the central tenets of this book: participation, engagement and voice. This Convention contains fifty-two standards setting out the Rights of a Child. Most countries are signatories to the Convention. Many countries adopt the use of the standards wholly or in part to promote children and young people’s participation. Deemed specifically to promote children’s participation are the following articles: Article 12: Children and young people have the right to say what they think should happen, when adults are making decisions that affect them, and to have their opinions taken into account; Article 13: Children and young people have the right to get and to share information, as long as the information is not damaging to them or others; and Article 23: Children and young people who have any kind of disability have to receive care and support as well as all the rights in the Convention so that they can live full and independent lives. Acknowledging these rights, this book will address the contested issues of participation, engagement and voice for children with disabilities, where challenges exist due to the nature or degree of disability or impairment and the impact of the environment. The benefits of the UNCRC (1989) are now represented as the explicit presence of the child’s voice. While present, this voice is understated and occasionally silent (Lewis 2010). In the absence of voice, a different form of expression is required. A child’s ability to communicate, grow, develop and learn should not be confined to normative expectations. It is important as Kelly (2005) reminds us to consider the child as experiencing agent – a site of meaning and knowledge in the world (2005: 182). More recently, there is evidence of shifts in thinking about childhood and disability. Childhood and disability are now increasingly reconceptualized in terms of voice, agency, competency and rights. We need to extend a discourse that recognizes the child as an experiencing agent, listening to their voice as a source of understanding. We are hoping to explore innovative and creative methods of accessing the voice of the child, who may have a range of difficulties, looking at research ‘with’ rather than ‘on’ children as a priority and enabling children with cognitive, communication, social, physical or medical difficulties to have a voice, in whatever way that may be represented. McLeod (2018: 4) stresses that ‘the ← 3 | 4 → importance of communication rights goes beyond just enabling freedom of opinion, expression and language. Once these rights are realized, people are more readily able to realize other human rights’.

A notable shift has taken place when considering research on the participation and engagement of the child with a disability, where the impact of context, environment and the challenges in everyday life are prioritized. To this end, regarded as an international benchmark in documenting children and young person’s participation and wellbeing, The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health for Children and Youth (ICF-CY) (WHO 2007) which is derived from the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) (WHO 2001) is significant in terms of a move away from the binary and dualist presentation of a medical or social model to its emphasis on the person’s functioning in terms of body structures, activity, participation and the environment. This framework is designed to record the characteristics of the developing child and the influence of the environment. The ICF (WHO 2001) and ICF-CY (WHO 2007) provide a framework to document functions and structures of the body, activity limitations and participation restrictions manifested in infancy, childhood and adolescence. They provide a holistic presentation accounting for the biopsychosocial perspectives that may contribute to overall health and well-being. Bjorck-Akesson et al. (2010) confirm that the ICF model and ICF-CY may provide a common language and framework which are feasible for use in early childhood intervention. Their findings are based on several studies including those involving young children. Importantly, the children’s findings indicate that a child’s perception of engagement and motivation needs to be considered in the participation component. Bjorck-Akesson et al. (2010) indicate that the ICF-CY could also effectively support interdisciplinary profiling of a child’s functioning across culturally diverse contexts. Researchers contend that capturing the multidimensional nature of participation in everyday activities is challenging and highlight that the subjective experience of involvement of the child in activities and participation is important (Granlund et al. 2012; Hammel et al. 2008; Lyons, Brennan and Carroll 2016).

This book contends that perspectives of the child need to be facilitated when considering the factors that support and hinder research and ← 4 | 5 → practice. While participation has received intense attention as an outcome based on the ICF-CY, participation of children with disabilities is generally inconsistent and lacks clarity (Imms et al. 2016). The authors argue that while participation appears to comprise a family of constructs [including engagement] it includes attendance and involvement, preferences, activity competence and sense of self. A restriction or failure to participate can be observed as low engagement. While engagement is considered an essential component in a child’s participation, there is no clear definition of child engagement. Definitions vary according to their use and are dependent on the context or field of enquiry. Drawing on research from an Early Childhood Care and Education [ECCE] perspective, research on the quality of Swedish preschool interventions and children’s longitudinal outcomes in terms of engagement was conducted by Castro et al. (2015). Notably a strong correlation between quality preschool environments and engagement was observed in ECEC settings in Swedish preschools over time. In a scoping review of articles on predictors of engagement, the effectiveness of engagement interventions, and interpersonal aspects of care within mental health interventions, authors King, Currie, and Petersen (2014) highlight some of the complexities and considerations. For example, in their review, articles varied on how engagement was conceptualized and whether it was an outcome, an event, or a process.

Imms et al. (2016) also see a strong association between these approaches and how the concepts associated with ‘quality of life’ (QOL) have been developed by Ronen and colleagues over the past decade or more. The degree to which the child pays attention, is involved, or is motivated has been referred to as engagement. Engagement has been defined by Maxwell et al. (2012) and Ronen and Rosenbaum (2013) for children with neurological and developmental conditions. Ronen and Rosenbaum’s (2013) conceptualization builds on the World Health Organization’s concepts of ‘health’, ‘functioning’ and ‘quality of life’ for young people with neurodisabilities by emphasizing the importance of engaging with patients in the identification of both treatment goals and their evaluation. Therefore, participation is necessary for an intervention to have a positive effect on a child. According to Maxwell (2012: iii), proposed relationships exist between the participation construct and five ← 5 | 6 → central dimensions of the environment described as: ‘availability, accessibility, affordability, accommodability and acceptability’. Di Marino et al. (2018) emphasize the effect of the child’s family and environmental factors on the participation of the child and the role of the environment in supporting children with disabilities. The authors note that participation includes frequency, involvement and desire for change in activities and may be strongly influenced or dependent on practitioners’ ability to modify the environment to help children participate.

The construct of participation within an activity and whether the environment is accommodated to the child and accepted by the child is also important. Kemp, Kishido, Carter and Sweller (2013) found that children with disabilities engaged more in free-play and meal-routine activities. These activities provided better opportunities for active engagement than did group activities. The authors also found that children were more actively engaged during meal-routine activities than during free play. However, children with Autism Spectrum Disorders [ASD] did not actively engage in free play activities. Bearing this in mind there are a range of children with disabilities who experience difficulties in terms of participation and engagement. In short, many children with disabilities have not had their experiences documented nor voices heard. This demonstrates the need for researchers to be innovative within and sensitive to the complex challenges of researching with children with disabilities and accessing their meaning. Bjorck-Akesson et al. (2010) highlight that when considering a child’s participation, motivation and engagement also need to be considered. Furthermore, participation of a heterogeneous group of young children with neurodevelopmental disabilities requires the researcher to be creative and to use an open and flexible approach in the development of research tools to facilitate communication (Carroll and Sixsmith 2016; Franklin and Sloper 2009; Kelly 2007; Mitchell and Sloper 2011; Paige-Smith and Rix 2011). Juxtaposition of the subjective experiences of families and children themselves (WHO 2007) with professionals’ views is necessary when positioning individual child factors alongside environmental factors, such as opportunities for participation in intervention planning for children with disabilities (Lyons et al. 2016).

International and national perspectives on voice will interrogate Fielding’s (2007) contention that previously silenced voices have yet to be heard. This book is also mindful of the complex power imbalances that ← 6 | 7 → shape the ideological contexts of research on children’s voice and its representation. Komulainen (2007) claims that the concept of children’s voice is socially constructed. Spyrou (2011) suggests that as critical, reflective researchers we need to move beyond claims of authenticity and account for the complexity involved in children’s voice research by exploring its messy, multi-layered and non-normative character. For children who communicate differently and challenge our assumptions about voice, allowing their voices to remain unheard may be easier. Implications drawn from this collection of voices will be used to inform us about the experiences of children in Early Intervention or school settings. In the search for identity, the voices of these children will be foregrounded. Due to their explicit difficulties engaging with the world around them and inherent difficulties differentiating and authoring self and other, children with multiple and complex difficulties may experience obstructions in expressing their voice. The need to listen to children’s voices has been echoed by researchers (Kellet 2006; Kelly 2005; Lewis 2002). Increasingly the participation of disabled children has been prioritized through the following:

Organization and description of this book

This book presents empirically based international research representing the lives of children with additional needs or disabilities, including children with neurodevelopmental disorders or at risk of developing them. We have endeavoured to reflect a diverse group of children with differing needs; however, we have considered their need to be heard as an overarching need, ← 7 | 8 → something all children have in common, from infancy to later childhood. While children with disabilities are a significant focus of this book, we are also cognisant of new initiatives in Ireland and internationally which prioritize inclusion and which prompt us to consider that the diversity of need may be present in all childhood environments, where children need to have a voice. Reflecting the diversity of interest in research with children, this book contains a broad range of contributions reflecting a wide range of research and practice internationally focusing on themes of participation, engagement, agency and voice. This book includes:

Details

Pages
XII, 422
Publication Year
2018
ISBN (PDF)
9781787075177
ISBN (ePUB)
9781787075184
ISBN (MOBI)
9781787075191
ISBN (Softcover)
9781787075160
DOI
10.3726/b11084
Language
English
Publication date
2018 (December)
Keywords
Children’s Engagement Voice Participation Research
Published
Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Wien, 2018. XII, 422 pp., 28 fig. b/w, 14 tables

Biographical notes

Miriam Twomey (Volume editor) Clare Carroll (Volume editor)

Miriam Twomey is Assistant Professor in Early Intervention at the Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID), at the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin. She has a background in teaching and research in the fields of early intervention, autism spectrum disorders and intellectual and neurodevelopmental disabilities. Clare Carroll is Lecturer in Speech and Language Therapy at NUI Galway. Before entering academia, she worked as a speech and language therapist, where she established her interest in early intervention disability services. Her other research interests include integrated care, team working, and the participation of children with disabilities in research.

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Title: Seen and Heard