turned out to be a talented artist and natural animator. We were very impressed with the pupils’
inspirational skills and their ability to work together during the production of the first film and in
the second one we also left the creative process largely to them. One extra task was added:
the children were to take pictures of each other and use them in the film. They practiced
getting the different facial expressions right, took pictures, cut out the faces and used them in
the animation film – an exercise which was to some extent barrier-breaking for both of them.
There have been many projects in which participants have been identified as on the autism
spectrum, for example, Golan (2007) and Silver and Oakes (2001). In the project:
‘‘The transporters’’ Golan et al. designed a study to enhance emotion comprehension in
children with autism spectrum conditions. The study showed that using animated vehicles with
real emotional faces significantly improved the children’s emotional vocabulary and emotion
recognition (Golan and Baron-Cohen, 2006). The aspects that distinguish this project from,
for example, the ‘‘transporters’’ project include the focus on the moving image; the creative
nature of the process with students not passively looking upon animations but actively making
their own animations; the key role of teamwork alongside self-determination; and that we aim to
create a means of working which can be transferred into a more everyday experience.
We used a mix of methodologies including participant observation, pre- and post-tests,
analysis of the affordances of animation tools, interviews and teacher notes and memos.
Before and after the Animated Learning project, the two children were tested on their
language level with the tell me a story (TEMAS) test (Constantino, 1986) and their cognitive
abilities were assessed by the WISC IQ test the most frequently used test for identifying
children’s cognitive functions. These tests were taken because one of the test parts is about
the ability to tell stories, and we would like to see if the animation project had any influence
on this. We also wanted to ensure that our educational work was done among typically
developing children who were challenged by their autism-spectrum disorder and not a
combination of autism and cognitive impairments