RGS students praised for their role in award-winning research

RGS students added their voices to an award-winning research project which is set to realise long-term benefits for autistic young people

RIPON Grammar School students played a major role in a PhD project about the experiences of loneliness for autistic young people which has won a prestigious international award.

Luciana Lisboa White from York St John University, who collected the ‘Best student-led project’ award at the Asia Pacific Autism Conference in Perth, praised the students as co-producers of the award-winning research.

“This award is theirs too,” said Luciana, who led the project involving eight autistic RGS students, includingLlewelyn Greenwell, Luke l'Anson and Bethany Stockdale.

The project was aimed at understanding the experiences of loneliness for autistic young people and the RGS students, aged 14 to 17, who took part helped by sharing some of their experiences.

“Some of them chose to do this by talking to me, others chose to post comments on a virtual wall of thoughts, and some chose to create a piece of art that served as a conversation starter,"said Luciana

Once all the data was collected, students were invited to help with the analysis, giving them the opportunity to have first-hand experience of the research process by qualitatively analysing codes, themes and preliminary results.

“This analysis identified that loneliness can be nuanced and complex. The results of this study helped us to extend the concept of loneliness to include experiences of existential, experiential and positive loneliness,” said Luciana.

RGS special educational needs and inclusion manager Samina O’Brien said she was delighted to see how the experience had helped pupils gain a deeper understanding of themselves and the unique contributions they make to our school community.

“RGS pupils have been incredibly generous and thoughtful throughout this process, and our parent community has been wonderfully supportive every step of the way. This research is particularly important in shedding light on an often-misunderstood area of neurodiversity, helping to foster greater understanding and appreciation,” she added.

With the new conceptualisation of loneliness, the research team created a loneliness scale for autistic young people.

A focus group made up of an RGS staff member, parent and two students then gave feedback on the scale.

“The group discussion held at RGS was very rich, with students voicing their views and helping to shape the scale items. Examples of what they have done include pointing out ambiguity, suggesting word changes to aid interpretation and weighing how important each item was to measure loneliness for autistic young people,” said Luciana.

She worked with four RGS students aged 12 to 16 to test the scale.

“One of their suggestions was to make the range of responses wider so it could be more representative of their experiences. They also gave advice on how this scale should be administered in future and made some comments on the overall layout,” said Luciana.

Luciana also thanked staff and parents for the key role they played: “Co-production is essential to produce meaningful outcomes for the autistic community, and it is only possible when researchers are lucky enough to find committed partners, including schools, parents and autistic people who are willing to engage in research. It was an absolute pleasure working with the RGS community!

“I'd like to thank you for opening the doors at RGS and for enabling autistic participation despite your very busy routine.”

The award was presented by Autism CRC, the world’s first national cooperative research effort focused on autism, which said it had received a high number of applications both nationally and internationally, withaward winners demonstrating high levels of engagement with the autistic community.