Children’s embodied practices for organizing participation in pretend play in an inclusive kindergarten
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.23705Keywords:
Autism, pretend play, pre-school children, embodied practicesAbstract
This paper uses a microanalysis of naturally occurring interactions to uncover how pre-school-aged autistic and non-autistic children organize their participation in pretend play. The analysis draws on video recordings of children and a teacher during two playing time sessions in an inclusive nursery school. It explores differences in the embodied practices with which the children attempt to gain access to play material and take possession of it. Findings show how children use environmental resources (e.g. space, objects) for their purposes while adapting to relevant situative contingencies; they also suggest that autistic children can be thorough observers of unfolding interactions who possess the ability to transform and adopt their own embodied practices. Comparative analysis thus provides empirical support for the potential achievements of inclusive education.
References
American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSMV (5th ed.), American Psychiatric Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596
Bateman, A. (2011). Huts and heartache: The affordance of playground huts for legal debate in early childhood social organization. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 3111–3121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.07.002
Bateman, A. & Roberts, P. (2018). Morality at play: Pretend play in five-year-old children. Research on Children and Social Interaction, 2(2), 195–212. https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.37388
Bottema-Beutel, K. (2011). The negotiation of footing and participation structure in a social group of teens with and without autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders, 2(1), 61–83. https://doi.org/10.1558/jircd.v2i1.61
Burdelski, M. & Cekaite, A. (2022). Practices of peer inclusion: Recruitments to play in Swedish and Japanese preschools. Research on Children and Social Interaction, 6, 30–64. https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.23286
Butler, C. W., Duncombe, R., Mason, C. & Sandford, R. (2016). Recruitments, engagement, and partitions: Managing participation in play. International Journal of Play, 5(1), 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1080/21594937.2016.1147287
Cekaite, A. (2010). Shepherding the child: Embodied directive sequences in parent–child interactions. Text & Talk, 30(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.2010.001
Cekaite, A. (2020). Subversive compliance and embodiment in remedial inter-changes. Text & Talk, 40(5), 669–693. https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2020-2078
Cekaite, C. & Goodwin, M. H. (2019). Embodied Family Choreography. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315207773
Cobb-Moore, C., Danby, S. & Farrell, A. (2009). Young children as rule-makers. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(8), 1477–1492. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.04.013
Corsaro, W. (1979). ‘We’re friends, right?’ Children’s use of access rituals in a nursery school. Language in Society, 8(3), 315–336. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500007570
Corsaro, W. A. (2000). Early childhood education, children’s peer cultures, and the future of childhood. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 8(2), 89–102, https://doi.org/10.1080/13502930085208591
Danby, S. (2005). Pre-school girls, conflict and repair. In J. Mason & T. Fattore (eds), Theory, Policy and Practice (pp. 172–181). University of Western Sydney.
Danby, S. & Baker, C. (2000). Unravelling the fabric of social order in the block area. In S. Hester & D. Francis (eds), Local Educational Order: Ethnomethodological Studies of Knowledge in Action (pp. 91–104). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.73.05dan
Dickerson, P., Rae, J., Stribling, P., Dautenhahn, K. & Werry, I. (2005). Autistic children’s coordination of gaze and talk: Re-examining the ‘asocial’ autist. In K. Richards & P. Seedhouse (eds), Applying Conversation Analysis (pp. 19–37). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287853_2
Dickerson, P., Stribling, P. & Rae, J. (2007). Tapping into interaction. How children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders design and place tapping in relation to activities in progress. Gesture, 7(3), 271–303. https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.7.3.02dic
Evaldsson, A.-C. & Cekaite, A. (2010). ‘“Schwedis” he can’t even say Swedish’ – Subverting and reproducing institutionalized norms for language use in multilingual peer groups. Pragmatics, 20, 587–604. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.20.4.05eva
Evaldsson, A.-C. & Corsaro, W. (1998). Play and games in the peer cultures of preschool and preadolescent children: An interpretative approach. Childhood, 5(4), 377–402. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568298005004003
Evaldsson, A.-C. & Karlsson, M. (2020). Protecting interactional spaces: collusive alignments and territorial arrangements of two-against-one in girls’ play participation. Journal of Pragmatics, 155, 163–176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.10.014
Fasulo, A. & Fiore, F. (2007). A valid person: Non-competence as a conversational outcome. In A. Hepburn & S. Wiggins (eds), Discursive Research in Practice: New Approaches to Psychology and interaction (pp. 224–246). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611216.012
Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Aldine Transaction.
Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in Public. Harper & Row.
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(10), 1489–1522. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00096-X
Goodwin, C. (2007). Participation, stance and affect in the organization of activities. Discourse and Society, 18(1), 53–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926507069457
Goodwin, C. (2017). Co-operative Action. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139016735
Goodwin, M. (1990). He-Said-She-Said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children. Indiana University Press.
Goodwin, M. H. (2002). Exclusion in girls’ peer groups: Ethnographic analysis of language practices on the playground. Human Development, 45, 392–415. https://doi.org/10.1159/000066260
Goodwin, M. H. (2006). The Hidden Life of Girls: Games of Stance, Status, and Exclusion. Oxford: Blackwell.
Goodwin, M. H. (2007). Participation and embodied action in preadolescent girls’ assessment activity. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 40(4), 353–375. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351810701471344
Goodwin, M., Cekaite, A. & Goodwin, C. (2012). Emotion as stance. In A. Perakyla & M.-L. Sorjonen (eds), Emotion in Interaction (pp. 16–41). Oxford University Press. https://academic.oup.com/book/2280/chapter-abstract/142390319?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
Goodwin, M. H. and Kyratzis, A. (2011). Peer language socialization. In A. Duranti, E. Ochs & B. B. Schieffelin (eds), The Handbook of Language Socialization. John Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444342901.ch16
Heller, V. & Kern, F. (2021). The co-construction of competence: Trusting autistic children’s abilities in interactions with peers and teacher. Linguistics and Education, 65, 100975. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2021.100975
Humphrey, N. & Symes, W. (2011). Peer interaction patterns among adolescents with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs) in mainstream school settings. Autism, 15(4), 397–419. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361310387804
Kenny, L., Hattersley, C. & Pellicano, E. (2015). Which terms should be used to describe autism? Perspectives from the UK autism community. Autism, 20(4), 442–462. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361315588200
Kern, F. (2018). Mastering the body: Correcting bodily conduct in adult–child interaction. Research on Children in Social Interaction, 2(2), 213–234. https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.37389
Kyratzis, A. & Johnson, S. J. (2017). Multimodal and multilingual resources in children’s framing of situated learning activities: An introduction. Linguistics and Education, 41, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2017.07.002
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815355
Maynard, D. W. & Turowetz, J. J. (2017). Doing testing: How concrete competence can facilitate or inhibit performances of children with autism spectrum disorder. Qualitative Sociology, 40(4), 467–491. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-017-9368-5
Mondada, L. (2014). The local constitution of multimodal resources for social interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 65, 137–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.04.004
Muskett, T., Body, R. & Perkins, M. (2012). Uncovering the dynamic in static assessment interaction. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 28(1), 87–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265659011428966
Niemi, K. & Katila, J. (2022). Embodied and affective negotiation over spatial and epistemic group territories among schoolchildren: (Re)producing moral orders in open learning environments. Journal of Pragmatics, 191, 7–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2022.01.009
Ochs, E. (2015). Corporeal reflexivity and autism. Integrative Psychological & Behavioural Science, 49(2), 275–287. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-015-9306-6
Ochs, E., Graesch, A. P., Mittmann, A., Bradbury, T. & Repetti, R. (2006). Video-ethnography and ethnoarcheological tracking. In M. Pitts-Catsouphes, E.E. Kossek & S. Sweet (eds), The Work and Family Handbook: Multi-disciplinary Perspectives and Approaches (pp. 387–410). Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ochs, E., Kremer-Sadlik, T., Sirota, G. K. & Solomon, O. (2004). Autism and the social world: An anthropological perspective. Discourse Studies, 6(2), 147–183. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445604041766
Ochs, E. Kremer-Sadlik, T., Solomon, O. & Sirota, G. K. (2001). Inclusion as social practice: Views of children with autism. Social Development, 10(3), 399–419. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9507.00172
Rendle-Short, J., Cobb-Moore, C. & Danby, S. (2014). Aligning in and through interaction: Children getting in and out of spontaneous activity. Discourse Studies, 16(6), 792–815. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445614546248
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791208
Selting, M. et al. (2009). Gesprächsanalytisches Transkriptionssystem (GAT 2). Gesprächsforschung: Online-Zeitschrift zur verbalen Interaktion, 10, 353–402.
Sterponi, L. (2017). Language socialization and autism. In P. A. Duff & S. May (eds), Language Socialization: Encyclopedia of Language and Education (pp. 411–424). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02255-0_28
Sterponi, L. & Shankey, J. (2014). Rethinking echolalia: Repetition as interactional resource in the communication of a child with autism. Journal of Child Language, 41, 275–304. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000912000682
Stribling, P., Rae, J. & Dickerson, P. (2009). Using conversation analysis to explore the recurrence of a topic in the talk of a boy with an autism spectrum disorder. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 23(8), 555–582. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699200802491165
Svahn, J. & Evaldsson, A.-C. (2011). ‘You could just ignore me’: Situating peer exclusion within the contingencies of girls’ everyday interactional practices. Childhood, 18(4), 491–508. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568211402859
Tulbert, E. & Goodwin, M. (2011). Choreographies of attention: Multimodality in a routine activity. In J. Streeck, C. Goodwin & C. LeBaron (eds), Multimodality in Communication (pp. 79–92). Cambridge University Press.
Vivanti, G. (2020). Ask the editor: What is the most appropriate way to talk about individuals with a diagnosis of autism? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 50, 691–693. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04280-x
