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My research was about how learners in mainstream settings represent people with a learning disability, in comparison to those in special schools. To capture their views, I used pictures of body parts created especially for the study, which the participants used to build self-portraits and portraits of people they knew. They produced an intriguing collection of images showing how they perceived people with a learning disability.

From my conversations with these young people, I wrote a fictionalised story and included it in my thesis. I created fictional characters based on the participants; and I used the transcripts from interviews to build the narrative. I used their portraits combined with their verbal and nonverbal cues to create two short graphic episodes inside the story. Next, I introduce the young people who inspired the story. I gave them nicknames to protect their identity. Immediately after introducing the participants, I share the fictionalised episode, Encounters, which is an abridged extract from my thesis.

The young people behind the fictional characters

Carl

he/him/his

Carl was fourteen and attended a special school when I met him. He was autistic and described himself as an artist. Carl told me he did not like copying anyone’s creations, preferring to produce his own. All pictures that Carl created of himself with the paper body parts had only a head and legs. However, when picturing other people, Carl included other body parts.

Lynne

she/her/hers

Lynne was also fourteen and was Carl’s best friend. They attended the same special school. Lynne was not autistic and had speech, language and communication difficulties, yet she was talkative.

Lynne was always accompanied by her teaching assistant Mrs Bell. Mrs Bell constantly interrupted Lynne to correct her posture, the placement of her hands or what she was saying. Fortunately, on the occasions that Mrs Bell left the room for a brief period, Lynne would make the most of the time and speak freely. All of Lynne’s self-portraits had separated parts (except the ones Mrs Bell ‘corrected’). Even when asked to hand draw herself, Lynne drew a body with disconnected parts. Only when picturing other people did Lynne join the body parts together.

Alicia

she/her/hers

Alicia was autistic and was thirteen at the time. She attended a mainstream school, while her younger sister who was also autistic attended a special school. I interviewed both sisters and their mother. The younger sister did not engage much in the interviews, only saying she wanted to have friends, but the other children were unkind to her. Alicia in contrast, spoke profusely about school and her pictures were realistic.

Jay

she/her/hers

Jay represents a child with Down syndrome who attended the same special school as Alicia’s sister; she visited the family during one of my interviews. Jay was not part of the study but I created a character to represent Jay because of the disturbing names the younger sister called her.

A glimpse of the fictionalised story

Encounters is a shortened version of that fictionalised story. Through the narrative I told the stories of what those young people shared in the interviews and included some interactions I had with the adults working with them, such as Lynne’s teaching assistant. The fictionalised device allowed me to bring to light some of my feelings, impressions and thought processes, which in a formal research report are typically expected to be left out. The fictionalised story also permitted me to keep the tradition of including my brother. He appears as the visitor to whom I introduce my fictional neighbours (the young people in my research) and I also share some of the emotions that emerged from my conversations with them.