Playing A/Part: investigating the experiences of autistic girls through drama, interactive media and participatory arts.

play A/Part是一项跨学科合作（戏剧、媒体艺术、心理学），与自闭症女孩（11-18岁）和女性合作，通过研究团队成员开创的创新、创造性和参与性方法，研究自闭症的女性面孔。即兴表演和互动媒体被用作表达女性自闭症群体生活经验的创造性工具。该项目响应了对更多研究和新方法的呼吁，以记录这一未被充分代表的群体的独特经历和特征。正如林姆斯菲尔德格兰奇（Limpsfield Grange，英国唯一一所自闭症女孩专科学校，也是项目合作伙伴）的校长莎拉·威尔德（Sarah Wild）所说：“我们正试图让政治家们明白，这是一个严重未被诊断的群体，但也没有为她们提供合适的服务或意识，包括不了解女性自闭症的全科医生。”“自闭症女性描述了自己被忽视的经历，她们掩盖了自己的身份，并‘假装’适应社会。”这导致高度焦虑，影响心理健康、自信和自我价值，导致抑郁、自残和饮食失调的发生率增加。因此，有必要支持自闭症女性的自我发展和幸福，特别是在青春期；这是身份形成的关键时期，在此期间，面对日益增加的社会情感压力，自闭症患者的困难和差异会变得更加明显。通过跨学科和参与性的方法，该项目将产生关于女性孤独症经历的新知识，这将对孤独症社区、创意产业、教育、保健和社会护理有价值。这有可能为制定更多对女性敏感的诊断措施和服务提供信息，突出该社区的创造性贡献，并挑战现有的陈规定型观念。该项目旨在让女性自闭症群体充分参与到对她们的研究中来，并改变公众对她们的理解和认识。为此，我们将：1。共同创建一个参与性艺术讲习班和创意工具包计划，使自闭症女性青少年能够表达自己的生活经历和身份；2. 在a)自闭症女性和b)自闭症专家之间进行一项特别设计的调查，以就女性自闭症的共同特征达成共识。在不同的教育环境中推行和试行参与性艺术工作坊计划；4. 利用新的和现有的措施，评估参与性艺术工作坊在提高自我认知、心理健康和自尊方面的效果；5. 在教育和社区环境中共同制定和测试参与式艺术同伴指导模式的可行性，让自闭症女孩和妇女参与合作和创造性活动；6. 让女性自闭症群体参与研究和传播；7. 创建一个国际跨学科的参与性研究网络通过影响和公众参与计划，向利益相关者和广大公众传播研究成果。该项目建立在团队之前探索自闭症身份，感知和创造力的工作基础上，以及在参与式艺术研讨会试点项目中成功试用的方法，该项目使用戏剧和互动媒体来探索女性自闭症学生如何感知和参与环境和彼此。公众参与计划包括专题讨论会、圆桌会议、电影、教育资源、媒体装置、表演和互动网站。通过这种跨学科的合作，使用现有的和新颖的方法，我们将产生超过其部分总和的结果，通过女性自闭症的声音改变自闭症研究的面貌。

Playing A/Part is an interdisciplinary collaboration (drama, media arts, psychology) working with autistic girls (aged 11-18) and women to investigate the female face of autism through innovative, creative and participatory approaches pioneered by members of the research team. Improvisatory performance and interactive media are used as creative tools for articulating the lived experience of the female autistic community. The project responds to calls for more research and novel methods to document the distinctive experiences and characteristics of this under-represented group. As Sarah Wild states, headteacher at Limpsfield Grange (the only UK specialist school for autistic girls and a project partner):'We're trying to get politicians to understand that this is a group who are massively under-diagnosed, but also that there are not the right services out there for them or the awareness, including GPs who don't understand what female autism looks like.'Autistic women describe experiences of invisibility, masking their identities and "faking it" to be socially compliant. This results in high levels of anxiety, which impact on mental well-being, self-confidence and self-worth, leading to increased rates of depression, self-harm and eating disorders. There is, therefore, a need to support self-development and well-being in autistic females, especially during adolescence; a crucial time for identity formation during which autistic difficulties and differences can become more pronounced in the face of increasing socio-emotional pressures. Through its interdisciplinary and participatory approach, the project will produce new knowledge about the female autistic experience that will be of value to the autism community, the creative industries, education, health and social care. This has the potential to inform the development of more female-sensitive diagnostic measures and services, highlighting the creative contribution of this community and challenging existing stereotypes. The project aims to fully engage the female autistic community in the research about them and to transform public understanding and awareness. To achieve this we will: 1. Co-create a programme of participatory arts workshops and creative toolkit, enabling autistic female adolescents to articulate their lived experiences and identities; 2. Conduct a specially designed survey amongst a) autistic women and b) autism experts to achieve consensus on commonly shared features of female autism.3. Deliver and trial a programme of participatory arts workshops in different educational settings; 4. Evaluate the efficacy of participatory arts workshops to enhance self-perception, mental well-being and self-esteem using new and established measures; 5. Co-produce and test the feasibility of a participatory arts peer mentoring model in educational and community settings, involving autistic girls and women in collaborative and creative activities; 6. Engage the female autistic community in participatory research and dissemination; 7. Create an international interdisciplinary participatory research network 8.Disseminate research findings to stakeholders and the wider public through a programme of impact and public engagement. The project builds on the team's previous work exploring autistic identities, perception and creativity, and on methods successfully trialled in a pilot programme of participatory arts workshops using drama and interactive media to explore how female autistic students perceived and engaged with their environments and each other. A public engagement programme includes symposia, roundtables, films, educational resources, a media installation, performances and interactive website. Through this collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, using established and novel methods, we will produce outcomes that are more than the sum of their parts, transforming the face of autism research through female autistic voices.