Autism and Classical Myth: ACCLAIM: Autism Connecting with CLAssically Inspired Myth

Why classical myth and autism?

Why classical myth and autism?

The idea for this project started to take shape at a meeting in 2008 with a special needs teacher, who mentioned that, in her experience and those of her colleagues, autistic children often enjoy classical myth. I began to wonder why this might be the case, and whether – as a classicist who researches, and loves, classical myth – there was anything I could contribute. I started this blog to report on my progress which was often sporadic until the launch of the Warsaw-based European Research Council-funded project Our Mythical Childhood (2016-22) to trace the role of classics in children’s culture.

My key contribution to the project is an exploration of classics in autistic children’s culture, above all by producing myth-themed activities for autistic children. This blog shares my progress, often along Herculean paths, including to a book of lessons for autistic children focusing on the Choice of Hercules between two very different paths in life. The image above, illustrating the homepage of this blog, is one of the drawings by Steve K. Simons, the book's illustrator, of a chimneypiece panel in a neoclassical villa at Roehampton in South West London. The lessons centre on this panel.

Saturday 25 May 2019

ACCLAIM: Autism Connecting with CLAssically Inspired Myth - revealing a mythical surprise

At the end of the previous posting, I mentioned that a ‘mythical surprise; linked with my project on autism and classical myth was going to be launched in Warsaw. This happened a couple of days ago, on Wednesday, at the start of the conference Our Mythical History.

The surprise was this: Lisa Maurice and I announced the establishment of something we thought of doing when we met up in London in April. We decided to start a network for anyone interested in some aspect of the potential for myth as a source of inspiration for autistic children. This initiative grows out of the work we are each producing towards producing activities for autistic children – me in the UK, and Lisa in Israel along with Ayelet Peer.

In the weeks between our meeting and the announcement, we decided on a name: ACCLAIM: Autism Connecting with CLAssically Inspired Myth. As I said on Wednesday, and am happy to repeat here, our choice of the forward-looking 'acclaim' reflects the spirit of what we envisage the network to be, namely to engage and empower autistic children - as opposed to solely seeking to help autistic children negotiate the various challenges they might experience.

Our plans include setting up a website which will include links to autism associations around the world and links for teachers, therapists, and anyone interested – professionally or otherwise – in autism. We shall also include here a list of relevant secondary literature. We are planning a conference, ideally in collaboration with the Cluster The Past for the Present. We are envisaging producing a book, or a series of books.

The image heading this posting shows Lisa and me at the launch. The other image shows the slide which Lisa prepared to announce our formation. There are currently four logos – and space for more...

If you would like to hear more about ACCLAIM, or indeed join us, please email Lisa (lisa.maurice@biu.ac.il) or myself (s.deacy@roehampton.ac.uk). And do pass on the details to anyone you know who might be interested.

As well as launching ACCLAIM, I have conducted two workshops presenting my Choice of Hercules activities. I shall blog about them soon, hopefully while I am still in Warsaw: I’m here until Monday (27 May).