PhD project aims to help children with autism

Maryrose Hall, who has a background in English language teaching and education and an MA in Applied Linguistics, was working on a PhD project in literary studies when her son was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). That research was put on the backburner and when she returned to her PhD studies she decided on a new topic, ‘Psychological Tools for a Child with Autism: A Vygotsky-Lurian Approach’.

Although her child had been receiving excellent early intervention from allied health professionals, Maryrose became interested in seeing whether an educationally oriented approach informed by principles and ideas drawn from the work of the Russian theorist L.S. Vygotsky and his collaborator A.R. Luria, might prove effective in addressing particular problems. She had observed significant progress after her child used a device she made to assist him master the coordination of eye-contact in conversation. As difficulties in learning in other domains came to the fore, she began to make devices based on similar principles to those that had been applied in the original device.

Here she talks about how the tools she created for her son became the topic of her PhD project and her hope that other children with ASD could benefit from her research.

Describe your project and why you chose this topic

When I was making the tools for my son, my primary role was that of mother to my child. Only retrospectively did my position shift to that of researcher engaged in theoretical analysis of the tools.

The devices, which are considered as examples of what Vygotsky classed as psychological tools, address learning difficulties in four broad domains: spoken interaction (eye-contact, volume modulation, conversational turn-taking), handwriting, writing (the composition of written discourse) and understanding the concept of time (including learning to read a clock and tell the time).

After having found the initial devices effective I delved further into the neuropsychology literature and became particularly interested in the concept of the ‘psychological tool’. At around the same time I had begun reading the autism literature and was struck by the absence of discussion of the development of what Vygotsky and Luria identified as the regulatory function of speech among language-enabled children with ASD. This was particularly striking given that encouraging the development of the regulatory function of speech was a key element in the first of the tools I had made, and which had proven effective when used by my child.

That is why I decided to examine these tools in my thesis. My project involved a critical examination of the devices I had made to address specific learning difficulties experienced by my child. The aim was to explain their efficacy. Although the tools were designed for my son, they could potentially address problems experienced by many (though not necessarily all) language-enabled children with ASD.

What were you hoping to achieve?

The research was intended to contribute towards a more accurate understanding of the impairments the tools were designed to address as the basis for using them with other children with similar forms of learning difficulty.

I thought it was essential to provide a theoretically informed account of how and why the tools work before making them available for use with other children.

I was also hoping to develop and promote the use of a Vygotsky-Lurian approach in the field of autism research where it has not previously been systematically applied.

Why did you decide to do your PhD at Deakin?

I was originally interested in the option of a PhD that was structured as the critical exegesis of a folio of creative work. Although, as the research evolved I did not use that format, thinking about the set of tools as a folio of creative work which could be subject to critical analysis within an educational framework was an option that only Deakin offered. In addition, I had professional links with Deakin having been employed as an academic at the Rusden campus prior to starting my family. The person who had been my senior colleague there later became one of the principal supervisors of my thesis.

How was your PhD experience?

I faced considerable challenges in the course of completing the project. There were unexpected life circumstances such as illness and death of family and friends, and a lack of funding to complete this research. Managing family responsibilities, maintaining a household, while continuing to parent a child (and then young adult) with a disability and bearing the cost of completing my research was very challenging. However, the marvellous support of my supervisors and the flexibility of senior staff in the Faculty enabled me to complete the research project. Although considerably delayed beyond the original deadline, I think that their confidence in me and the project has been completely vindicated by the examiner’s reports.

I received calm and wise support from the three members of the supervision panel, Professor Louise Paatsch, Professor Dianne Toe and Dr Ron Goodrich. They each brought different kinds of experience to the project and I benefitted from the range of perspectives and approaches. They raised probing questions in the course of the research and provided thorough feedback in the course of the writing of the thesis itself.

I have often felt that my supervisors had a kind of foresight about the value of the research that I did not always see, particularly during challenging times.

What was a highlight of your PhD?

Finding that the tools were effective in ameliorating what had frequently been considered intractable and indeed syndrome-defining difficulties was a highlight. Discovering ideas in the course of reading of the earlier ‘archival’ literature in conjunction with the more recent/contemporary autism literature, which could be used to explain aspects of impairment in autism in language-enabled children was also a highlight.

What are your next steps?

My next steps are to explore avenues for publication and to find ways to distribute and possibly commercialise the tools and their accompanying theoretical framework for use by other children.

Maryrose Hall