The power of narrative in the development of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

This text focuses on the relationship between narrating and imagining in the development of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the light of the cultural-historical theory. The research analyzes the narratives of a child with ASD, constructed in remote meetings between the child and the researcher during the pandemic. The data was analyzed in line with the principles of microgenetic analysis. The results indicate that narrating, a language activity, enhances the child’s development-imagination, emotion, will, and concept formation - are intertwined in the systemic dynamics of the psyche, which is fundamental for future research in psychology and education.

Keywords
social-historical-cultural theory; autism; narration; imagination

Resumo

Este texto focaliza a relação entre narrar e imaginar no desenvolvimento das crianças com Transtorno do Espectro Autista (TEA) à luz da teoria histórico-cultural. A pesquisa analisa narrativas de uma criança com TEA construídas em encontros remotos entre criança e pesquisadora durante a pandemia. Os dados foram analisados em consonância com os princípios da análise microgenética. Os resultados indicam que narrar, atividade de linguagem, potencializa o desenvolvimento da criança: imaginação, emoção, vontade, formação de conceito se entrelaçam na dinâmica sistêmica do psiquismo, o que é fundamental para futuras investigações no campo da Psicologia e da Educação.

Palavras-chave
teoria sócio-histórico-cultural; autismo; narração; imaginação

Introduction

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is recognized by the presence of a series of neurodevelopmental symptoms, with characteristics of persistent gaps in communication and social interaction, which may be followed by repetitive behavioral patterns and restricted interests. The diagnosis manuals indicate that children with autism can have difficulties to establish a simple conversation and to begin social interactions. They also describe a language deficit used more commonly to solve everyday demands of practical problems, asking, or labeling something, instead of commenting, sharing feelings, or having conversations (American Psychological Association [APA], 2014). Besides the communicational aspects, some works have pointed out the difficulties or restrictions related to imaginative functioning and the development of imaginary situations (Iandolo et al., 2020; Iltchenco & Ribas, 2022).

Against these arguments, studies in Cultural-Historical Theory (CHT) have been investigating the development conditions and possibilities of children diagnosed with ASD (Cunha, 2023; Martins & Góes, 2013; Oliveira & Victor, 2018; Pereira, 2022; among others). These works approach children’s development and displace the disorder from a perspective restricted to clinical symptoms – through which these children are normally known– towards developmental potentials. This change in the interpretative and analytical key starts from a concern with the understanding of effective ways of children’s social participation and the alternative forms of the semiotic experience that are not evident in theoretical approaches that traditionally study autism, such as Behavioral Psychology and Cognitivist Psychology (Martins, 2009).

In this direction, the studies that focus on the creative activity in the imaginative game deserve attention, which, when analyzing the play in situations of joint interaction – mainly in educational contexts –, find out that children with autism: 1. play by taking on roles; 2. symbolically flexibilize the meaning of toys to guarantee the meaning of the imaginary action; 3. play with peers; 4. develops playful plots (Martins & Góes, 2013; Oliveira & Victor, 2018; Silva, 2017). The studies highlight that the development of imaginary situations does not occur in the same way as observed in the plays of neurotypical children because children with autism reveal their imaginative work through different paths.

Following these discussions, the studies also stress that teachers’ intentional action is essential to create situations that favor the emergence of creation aspects that involve make-believe situations. The pedagogical mediation allows the organization of situations that guide children with autism toward others and the contextualized use of objects and scenarios, which contributes to enlarging the semiotic experience and, therefore, imagination. This aspect undoubtedly corroborates the CHT premise that the imaginative functioning and the creation activities are not born with the children but are built in the social relationships in which they take part (Vigotski, 2009).

In the tradition of the studies on autism, the focus on imaginative function is recent and innovative and, therefore, still needs to be explored more. In this article, we seek to contribute to this research field, investigating the imbrication between narrative and imagination in children with ASD. We question: Can the relationship between narrating and imagining potentialize the development of these children’s psyche? If so, what would be the elements that characterize their powerful condition? To answer these questions, our aim was to understand possible relationships between narrative and imagination articulated in the functioning of the psyche system of children with ASD.

To do so, we bring data from an empirical study developed remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, which sought to seek evidence about the possibilities for children with handicaps to elaborate knowledge through their narratives. In this article, we selected situations involving a school-aged child with an ASD diagnosis. The data was built through a micro genetics analysis, focusing on moments of narrative production with the participation of the dyad child-researcher.

The narrating child: can narrative potentialize development?

Children’s narratives have been the object of investigation in Brazil and abroad, mainly after the 2010s. According to Passeggi et al. (2018), despite the different epistemological perspectives, the argument that children’s narrative is a space for children’s elaboration involving ways of thinking, feeling, learning, and experiences is a consensus among researchers. Regardless of this general idea, the epistemological differences evidenced the consolidation of a knowledge field that is still challenging, with interpretative nuances connected to the ways to apprehend the object.

For example, inspired in Bakhtinian studies, François (2009) conceives narrative as a discursive genre that has certain regularities in the relationship between content and forma characterized by events, temporality, connecting elements, etc. The author highlights the heterogeneity of children’s narration, pointing out that the differences in narration depend on the social group, culture, and the singularity of each child. He also points out the unpredictability (spontaneity to narrate) and the creation (invention of words, transformation of characters, opinions during the narrative) as characteristics of this type of children’s expression.

Lani-Bayle (2018), from a dialogical clinical perspective, indicates that children, through narrative, encompass the experiences lived. When narrating, they not only reveal the feelings raised by the facts they experience but mostly elaborate ways of dealing with these feelings. Thus, children are understood as subjects that can reflect on their experiences, producing meanings in/from different social practices in which they participate.

Grounded on CHT, Dickel and Sartori (2020), in their turn, argue that, as a language activity, children’s narrative mobilizes psychic functions, such as memory and imagination. In this same direction, Freitas (2019) supports that narrating a sign activity that affects over the subject that narrates and regulates thought, transforming it. Narrating implies an interlocutor; after all, we narrate to someone. Besides implying the person who narrates, the narrative also affects and promotes changes in the other, establishing itself as a mediated and mediating activity. For example, when suggesting a theme, questioning, and incentivizing the child to narrate, the interlocutor opens ways for narrative elaboration. In their turn, in the relationship with the interlocutor, children observe the words said, are guided by their questions, and find possibilities to narrate.

In the present investigation, in consonance with CHT, we understand narrative as a language and sign activity and, therefore, relational. But not just that! Through the narrative, the imaginative functioning, the base of every creative activity, is mobilized, implying qualitative changes in the superior psychological system (Vigotski, 2009). Therefore, what is narrated and how it is narrated reveals the resources each subject has to create, elaborate, know, and interpret reality, the other, and oneself.

Along these lines, the narrative can be a promising path to understand ways to imagine, elaborate concepts, and create, which do not necessarily obey standards or hegemonic developmental experiences, as is the case of children with handicaps. Such ways to elaborate about reality are not naturally mobilized but depend on contexts that favor the narrative emergency, whose genesis is anchored in the cultural practices and, therefore, in the interpersonal relationships. This aspect should be highlighted when the research turns to children with peculiar development.

About this, Freitas (2002) and Camargo (2011) observe that the narrative of children with intellectual handicaps also involves a complex work about and with language but with a greater dependence on the participation of others and the use of technical-semiotic instruments to support the coherence of what one wants to narrate. The other person becomes an essential partner to keep a posture to listen to the children’s words, attribute meanings to the statements, interpreting, and giving meaning to verbal and non-verbal manifestations.

The clues left by these works point out promising ways to think about narrative and the imaginative functioning of children with ASD. Our interest is based on the fact that, despite efforts, there is still a lack of studies about the creative activities within CHT (Ribas, 2021). As previously pointed out, we have observed a prevalence of studies about ASD grounded on behavior and/or cognitive theories that have been emphasizing what the child cannot do – its symptomatology –instead of focusing on the immense areas of qualitative competencies that emerge from the relationship with the cultural surrounding.

Theoretical and methodological support: fieldwork characterization

The emergence of studies that use narratives with children have been leading researchers to be concerned with the delineation of ethical and methodological issues. Listening and interpreting narratives demand knowledge about how children experience the situations and express themselves about them (Sarmento & Oliveira, 2020). The researcher needs to get involved with the children in dialogues, observing them, and participating with them in different situations, creating a playful space that enables the narrative to emerge. The narrator is also expected to carefully listen and accept what the child wants to narrate. In consonance with the theoretical-methodological and historical-cultural reference, the investigation focus is, therefore, in the possible relationships between the study participants, in this case, the relationships between a child with ASD diagnosis and the researcher.

Considering these premises, this article is part of a larger research study, approved by the University Ethics Committee, in which six children with handicaps participated, seeking evidence on these children’s possibilities to elaborate knowledge through narratives.

The empirical work was initially foreseen to occur in person in a K-12 public school. However, it was conducted remotely due to the social distancing demanded by the coronavirus dynamic that devastated the world in 2020 and 2021. The participating children attended the municipal education system, a small town in the South of Minas Gerais, and were enrolled in the early years of elementary school. They were indicated by the pedagogical advisor of the Special Education sector of the city, following the following criteria: have access to the internet and have oral language as the primary communication means.

The online encounters were held through Google Meet, initially with the family members to explain the research objectives and give their consent. After this, there were 4 to 6 meetings lasting on average 50 minutes with each child, always with the presence a guardian. During all these investigation sessions, we used resources mediated by storytelling to get closer to the children. We recorded the meetings and later transcribed them in detail, with regular spelling, though keeping participants’ speech pattern. The children and the researchers’ gestures and actions were also pointed out whenever necessary.

For this article, we bring Inácio’s narratives. He was a nine-year-old boy diagnosed with ASD and enrolled in Year 3. His mother told us that Inácio walked and started to speak when he was one year old and that she perceived that he would line up his toys, separate them by color, and had a certain food selectivity. When he was 3 years old, she noticed that he presented hyperactive behavior and, when he was around four years old, he had some crises when he was contradicted: he would throw and break objects, shout, throw himself on the ground. After the neurological assessment, Inácio was diagnosed with ASD; for a while, he used medication to control the hyperactivity. At this time, Inácio already attended Childhood Education, and the school also complained about his hyperactivity. After the diagnosis, he was followed by a support teacher and attended the Atendimento Educacional Especializado (AEE- Specialized Educational Assistance) after school hours.

Regarding his learning process, his mother said that he always liked to go to school but had difficulties writing, showing a strong resistance, and needed to be helped when doing school activities. AEE provided few information about the learning process: the child follows the class and is literate.

His mother was always present in the online encounters between Inácio and the researcher, one of the authors of this article. He constantly got up from the chair and, sometimes, would circle it; in these moments, his mother made punctual interventions to guide his attention to the video call. When starting the meetings, we asked about his week and his remote school activities. We also proposed some activities, such as storytelling and the creation of imaginary situations. In general, the boy actively participated in what was proposed, showing his enthusiasm. Inácio was very talkative and liked video games and children’s literature.

In consonance with the principles of microgenetic analysis, we choose to analyze two narrative episodes that present evidence of relevant aspects in the relationship between narrative and imaginative functioning, episodes that allowed us to interpret the phenomenon we were interested in. Góes (2000) states that this type of analysis is “guided by indicative details – resulting in the need for cuts in a time that tends to be restricted” (p. 15). After all, the microgenetic analysis focuses on the processes’ movement when relating past and present events, seeking to explore what, in the present, they can glimpse about the future. It was possible to implement a microgenetic analysis of these episodes because the focus of the data built started from face-to-face interactions (researcher-child) mediated by narrative productions. The analysis was “centered in the intersubjectivity and the enunciative-discursive functioning of subjects; and guided by an indicative and interpretative-conjectural view” (Góes, 2000, p. 21).

From these theoretical-methodological considerations, we aim to understand possible relationships between the narrative and the imaginative functioning of the child investigated, answering the questions previously raised. From the dyad researcher-child, the first episode, entitled “The narrative power: ways to elaborate reality,” focuses on Inácio’s engagement in the activity by including original elements in the narrative that show characteristics of his imaginative functioning. The second episode analyzed “The narrative power: indissociability emotion-imagination,” centers on narrative production as the suitable place to understand the relationships between imagination-emotion and aspects of conceptual formation through the work done with what is narrated.

Results and discussion

In the first episode, Inácio narrates a “made up´” story in which reality elements are combined and transformed by imagination.

Episode 1 - The narrative power: ways to elaborate reality

Inácio asks the researcher to play a videogame available online. However, the access to the game was not free and they could not access it. So, the researcher proposes to Inácio to create a story, something he had never done. As a strategy to start the story, the researcher uses the narrative marks “once upon a time” and “one day”, inserting an element that interests Inácio: the videogame.

Researcher. (storytelling intonation): Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved videogames and, one day…

Inácio interrupts her: One day, the boy didn’t like it, he didn’t want to go to school any longer! [Inácio is sitting down, moving his body on the chair, sits down and stands up while speaking]

Res. (smiles because she identifies a reference to his own story): Doesn’t the boy want to go back to school? And so? What happened?

Inácio: He, the boy [pauses], the boy decided to sleep, yeah…not sleep, he, he, he [repeats as if looking for the word]... sing, do something. Then, then, then… he didn’t want to go to school [continues moving on the chair]... Ok, now the next [calls upon the researcher to continue the activity].

Res.: And he kept playing videogame.

Inácio (stands up, gets his face close to the camera, makes a surprised face): Did he want to play videogame?

Res.: I don’t know, I’m just making it up...

Inácio (sits down again): He wanted to play videogames and skip classes.

Res.: Skip classes? And, what happened to him?

Inácio: Ah, I’ll change a little something. Then, he rode a skate on the street, playing.

Res. (in confirmatory tone): He rode on the street playing.

Inácio: Then he returned home and there was a flying car. Just kidding [smiling]. Just in 2022! [Suggest that the flying car would only be created in the future]

The researcher does not understand what he says and asks again:

Res.: Ah! He returned home and what was there?

Inácio: What?

Mother: He returned home and there was a flying car?

Inácio: Not a flying car. Not a flying car [shakes the head negatively].

Inácio, noticing that his interlocutors did not understand about the flying car, connects with the researcher’s question and resumes the idea of the boy that reaches home, inserting new elements.

Inácio: Then, he reached home and his mom... she [referring to the character of the mother] calls: “Ronaldo: “Rooooonaldo!!!” [intensifies the voice like a mother calling the son, moving in the chair, shaking his body]... Go to school!

Res. (in an affirmative tone, confirming what Inácio had already narrated): He is Ronaldo. And his mother sent him to school.

Inácio: And then... the galactic cat… just kidding!

The boy inserts a new content. He seems to want to anarchize the story, but the researcher perceives Inácio’s attempt and returns to the previous story.

Res..: And suddenly someone knocked at his door. Tum, tum, tum. [The researcher knocks on the table].

Inácio: Then, another person…

Res..: Who was it?

Inácio: His teacher appeared.

Res.. (smiles): Did his teacher appear? Did his teacher pick him up to go to the class?

Inácio (shakes his head negatively): No. Not like this... The teacher said: “If you miss one more class, you’ll be expelled. Ôooo!” [Places his hands over her mouth as if he were scared]

Res.. (with a surprised face and intonation): Wow!

Inácio: Because he missed the class a hundred times… wow! [Widens his eyes, once again, opens his mouth and places his hands over it, making a surprised face, and continues to shake the body on the chair]

Res.. (with a scared intonation): All this?!

Inácio: But, then, he didn’t care. [Inácio places the hand over his lips again and shakes his head negatively]

Res..: Didn’t he mind being expelled?

Inácio: Then… He was a dummy! [Raises tone of voice] Look, look what happened? [Inácio moves back and forth on the chair]. Then, he was playing….And, then, when he was reaching home, then he said that the teacher grabbed his hand and said: “You’ re expelled! Expelled!” [Inácio in na exclamative tone, very emphatic]

Res..: Ah! And what happened? [The researcher places her hand on her head, in a surprised gesture]

Inácio: But the boy doesn’t care, he returned home [still moving on the chair]… But, wow, teacher, everything has gone wrong! [In an exclamative tone, shaking his head negatively]. He is a dummy! Do you know what happened? And now, do you know what happened? [it seems he wanted to organize the sense of the narative] If he didn’t go to school to study [speaks in an increasing tone, places his hand on the arms of the chair, stands up, and raises the plastic chair from the ground], but she was going to talk to the teacher [returns the chair to the floor, places his hand on his waist, as if imitating someone who speaks like a mother]. But, as if he would be fired, the teacher...he would tell his mother that he would be fired and now, what does the teacher do? Then, he returns to school to make everything again...

Res. [in an exclamation tone]: Wow!

Inácio wants to play videogame but is invited by the researcher to start a story. The researcher adds the theme that moves the students’ interest: videogame. Then, Inácio inserts into the narrative a component that is not easy for him: the school in a pandemic context. In previous encounters, Inácio said he was bored, and the mother complained about the difficulty of making him do the activities sent by the school in the online context. After all, it had been almost a year since Inácio had had any contact with the classroom, his classmates, or his teacher. In his narrative, he talks about a boy who wanted to do things: sleep, sing, skateboard, play video games, and skip classes. The question remains: Is this about skipping remote activities? Or skipping the distant in-person class? We will analyze this question later on.

First, we are interested to highlight that, in a way, the boy resists in the beginning of this narrative and warns us that he will “change a little something” the plot of the story. He presents imaginative elements: riding a skate on the street playing, the flying car, and the galactic cat. But soon, he says that he was just kidding. It seems that Inácio knows that he is inserting aspects in the narrative that are not well adjusted to what he thinks is his interlocutor’s expectation when faced with the narrated situation: skip classes. A detailed analysis of this situation gives us some evidence that, for instance, Inácio perceives that the researcher and his mother do not understand the imaginative elements he adds in the narrative. Hence, he focuses again on the school and states that the boy Ronaldo (a character he created) arrived home, and his mother (another character) told him to go to school.

The researcher then adds another element: someone knocks at the door. Immediately, Inácio replies that it was the teacher. The narrative is intercrossed; several elements overlap: the boy will be expelled, will be fired, Ronaldo feels guilty, and he is a dummy. Ronaldo returns to school and will have to do everything again.

In the dynamic of the narrated situation, we perceive evidence of how Ronaldo, the character created by Inácio, dialectically intertwines the aspects experienced by the boys in his concrete life. Being a dummy, being expelled, or repeating a school year were probably elements directly (or indirectly) experienced by Inácio in his educational relationships. The unchaining of the ideas narrated is, in a way, confusing. Inácio summarizes all the information in short phrases that merge imprecisely. This often hinder the coherence of the story but does not disqualify it. On the contrary! Inácio’s narrative reveals: 1) a way to elaborate reality; 2) the characteristics of how his imagination works.

As we pointed out at the beginning of the analysis of this episode, another point that deserves attention refers to the fact that Inácio has chosen to narrate about an in-person school that was impossible to experience at that moment, due to the pandemic context, which precluded his school life and that of so many other children but that could be imagined. We often imagine situations that are not directly accessible. Through fantasy, we elaborate on contexts that are not distant or even forbidden. Through imagination, we subvert the conditions typical of our reality. For example, blind people play that they can see (Costa, 2018) and the deaf that they can hear (Silva, 2002).

However, this subversion is not a denial of reality. On the contrary, it is a way to elaborate aspects of the surrounding reality through the resources of imagination. We know that the displacement of the limits imposed by the perceptive field allowed humans to guide their behavior toward freedom, emancipating us from situational ties and potentializing development (Vigotski, 2009). This would not be possible outside the imaginative work. It is the central element of everything that refers to the specificity of human development, what differentiates us from animals, for example.

The emancipation of situational ties enacted by imagination brings to this analysis the possibility we have when narrating to re-elaborate and create about what is lived and, by doing so, resignify ourselves and reality itself. It is a complex reality related to the potentials of human development and, because it is specific, it is not absent in children with autism.

Creation and freedom are sources of development (Sawaia & Silva, 2015). As it is connected to creative production, the development brings to the center of the debate the subjective power of appropriating and transforming reality. That is what Inácio does: he creates narrative that allows him to appropriate reality, elaborate it, and, at the same time, transform it (the reality and himself). The action is certainly not deliberately guided toward this end, but the cultural dimension of narrating places Inácio in this place: he tells one (his) story to someone.

The conversion of experiences lived in imaginative elements is one principle that rules the relationship between imagination and reality in CHT. After all, “every imagination work is always built of elements taken from reality and present in the person’s previous experience” (Vigotski, 2009, p. 20). This contribution actually shows the aspects of Inácio’s imaginative functioning that bring to the narrative what he wishes to tell others but that also wants to re-elaborate for himself: his life in the desired school, but closed due to COVID-19.

The base of his imaginative content also has an emotional element that characterizes the content narrated and the ways of narrating. The characters are created, the story is developed in a plot of fantastic events (but not illusory) that mobilize Inácio’s affections: the body moves, the expressive resources gain power, the voice tone changes, and shows how the narrative involves the boy. After all, Ronaldo will be expelled: a true tragedy from the perspective of Inácio and his character.” As explained above, fiction and reality (con)fuse to make the wish to tell the story about the school that Inácio can no longer objectively have emerge.

Inácio’s narrative brings elements of unpredictability and creativity, as pointed out by François (2009). After all, he: 1. changes the direction of the story; 2. inserts new characters; 3. creates fictional scenarios (street, school, and home).

However, at first, Inácio has singularities when narrating that seem atypical: his history is intercrossed with insertions. These singularities are often connected to the autism diagnosis, a negative aspect of the development of children with ASD, which refers to what they cannot do and what is missing.

We know that the ASD diagnosis has been the object of concern by CHT researchers, due to an emphasis on the prognostics that tends to biological determinism. Authors have been critically arguing about how clinical diagnosis impacts the school context and the teaching relationships. After all, the diagnosis starts to be seen as an end, not as a process, which approximates children from labels that mark and restrict their development possibilities (Novaes & Freitas, 2024; Schlindwein et al., 2024).

According to Pereira (2022), the specificity of children with autism is not in the diagnosis itself but in the social and pedagogical practices. Often, the teacher (or an adult) justifies children’s behavior as inadequate behavior based on the diagnosis. Most times, this justification is an explanation permeated by judgments and preconceptions about what being a person with a handicap means. For the author, these secondary effects – of social genesis, as Vygotsky would say (2021) – are more serious and produce more negative barriers than the diagnosis itself because they mark children in their impossibilities.

However, in the episode, it is possible to notice how the narrative was built in the interlocution between Inácio and the researchers, who is attentive to the children’s words, follows his narrative, takes on the new elements he adds to the story, and makes comments and questions seeking to maintain the narrative. Children are constituted in the relationship with the other, taking from themselves what is socially shared. New developmental possibilities are opened in the relationship with the other. The other person can paralyze or mobilize developmental cycles. Thus, the quality of pedagogical mediation is fundamental to think the Vygotskyan idea that the “environment presents itself in the role of developmental source” (Vigotski, 2018, p. 87).

In this direction, the researcher kept a differentiated view of the possibilities of children’s narration. When proposing the joint construction of a narrative and bringing elements that mark the text as a narrative (once upon a time, one day, suddenly, among others), she creates a collaborative environment with Inácio, suitable to: 1. engage the boy in the narrative; 2. elaborate original elements; 3. make the imaginative functioning emerge.

According to Vygotsky (2018), the collective forms of collaboration open ways for children’s development. That is: “from the collective behavior, the collaboration of the child with the surrounding people and their social experience emerge the higher functions of intellectual activity” (Vigotski, 2018, p. 210). In the case of children with atypical development, such precept is even more compelling because possibilities for development are created in the collective. Outside the collective space, intentionally planned, the psychic organization is limited.

Next, the second episode – “The narrative power: indissociability emotion-imagination” – presents a fiction narrative permeated by a dialogical behavior. Inácio dialogues with the narrative text and the researcher, his interlocutor.

Episode 2 - The narrative power: indissociability emotion-imagination

In a previous meeting, the researcher had read the story “Menina Bonita do Laço de Fita” [Pretty Girl with a Boy] (Machado, 2011) to Inácio. On this day, he joined the video call with a storybook to tell her, “O menino pêssego” (Yuko, 2016) [The Peach Boy]. Inácio and his mother were in the living room, one beside the other; the mother was sitting down and Inácio was standing up in front of his chair.

Inácio: I have something secret.

Res.: Do you have something secret? So tell me.

[Inácio shows a book].

Res.: Ah, you brought a book! I can’t believe it! [Smiles in a exclamatory tone]

Inácio: The peach boy. [Reads the title and turns the book upside down]

Mother: It’s upside down.

Res.: Yes, it’s upside down. Will you tell me? I don’t know this story!

Mother: Will you tell the story?

Inácio (sits on the chair): It is a Chinese story. That is a tale. I’ll tell you.

Inácio turns the book to himself and starts reading. He reads some parts and, in others, he uses the illustrations as support, showing that he knows the story well.

Inácio continues: One day, a man, a lady...goes to the forest. She has an axe. She is cutting wood, she is cutting wood [Makes a cutting gesture with his hands], the wood to make fire. She listens the birds singing in the clouds. Next page. [Turns page] A man goes to the river, he has a basket and, and, is washing clothes. He finds fish that are jumping in the river. [Raises from the chair and makes a movement with the body as if jumping, as a fish] Previous page, let’s change [Inácio turns to the next page].

Res.: Turn the page, I’m listening...

Inácio: Peach boy. Can you see why this is a peach? [Shows the image of a peach to the researcher, raising the body forward but not standing up from the chair]

Res.: Hummmm… delicious!

Inácio (resumes the story): Ah, You’re thinking about the same thing as him! Hum, hum... and the giant peach comes from... floating from the river. Floating, like, oh…in the river [makes a wave gesture with the right hand] Then, will he live until 100 years old? I hope not! Because he grew up very fast. How did he survive [says something unintelligible for the recording]... not once, but let’s continue … The man is very surprised: “What a huge peach!” [Shows the book to the researcher] Look, here?! This small buble here [Stands up from the chair to show the illustration and indicates]... Yeah, yeah…of the story, like Mônica! [famous Brazilian comics]

Res.: Ah, like Mônica!

Inácio (sits again and tells the researcher): Are you thinking the same as him? He wants to eat the peach. Do you wanna see it? Look! [Resumes reading] The man carries the peach home. The man gets very surprised: “ And what is this?” (reads “senhor” [man], but it should be “senhora”[lady]) – she asks. “It’s a big peach!” – says the man. Peach, wait [Turns the page and continues]... And, now, comes the part more... [Explains to the researcher] “Let’s eat it!” – says the man. He was thinking about eating it [Explains to the researcher]. The lady takes her axe... This will be the most surprising part [looks again at the researcher, making an indicative gesture with the finger, with a tone of suspense]... Cuts the peach and a baby jumps from within. [looks again at the researcher and explains]... That’s why he is called peach boy. That is his origin. A giant peach. And, then, the man cut it, and a child came [While speaking, he makes a cutting gesture with his hands].

Res. (in a surprise tone): From within the peach? Born from the peach?

Inácio: Yes, he was born from the peach [Stands up again and looks at the researcher]. Do you think a peach tree will grow? A bunch of babies grow in this story... [sits again].

Res.: I don’t know, let’s see! How does the story continue after the peach boy was born?

Inácio (resumes reading): They were very surprised... The boy, the young boy starts to live, to live with the man and the lady, the lady and the man. He grows up and gets big and strong and brave. [Inácio looks at the researcher and later to the mother] Imagine if he wasn’t brave?! He would pee in his pants! Me and the silliest stories. His name is peach boy, this is his origin [while speaking, he raises the book over his head]. Now let’s go to the part more...this is the part more [gives a surprise intonation with the book over the head] ... It’s the origin with the villains in the story. Two monsters, this one here, look?! [Inácio shows the book to the researcher]

Res.: Wow!

Inácio points out with his index finger, resumes the story, and places his feet on the chair and the book on the knees: Monster, this is yellow, and this is red. Huge and cruel monsters from the island of monsters…The island of monsters is a terrible place…We reached the village, they were dangerous, the population was afraid…Population is a bunch of people. “Go away you huge and cruel monsters”, says the person [remove the feet from the chair and moves the body forward, while reading] “I want to go to the village to fight the monsters” – says the peach boy. The lady gives the axe to him…throws the axe in the head [makes a gesture of throwing an axe]…It can bleed, it hurts [the boy makes a pain grimace].

Res.: Wow!

Inácio: Inácio and his silly stories, the origin of Inácio, super. The lady gives the axe to him and the lady gives him some rice cakes [shows again the book for the research, indicating the illustration with his finger]

Res.: Rice cake, hummm...

Inácio: Rice cake. I’ve never had a rice cake, and you?

Res.: No? I had it, it was nice!

Inácio: I’ve never had it.

Res.: Ask your mom to do it someday.

Inácio [says something unintelligible and resumes the story]: Now, let’s go to the helpers…look at the face of this peach boy, see?! [Inácio stands up and once again shows the book to the researcher]

Res.: Let me see his face. But he doesn’t have a peach face. He looks like a boy, really.

Inácio: So, look at his clothes [shows the illustration of the boy with a t-shirt with a printed peach, he seats again, looks at the illustration, stands up, shows the book for the researcher] it seems that…look, this arm here [points to the arm of the peach boy]... it looks like it will fall.

Res.: Really? Well, what happened to him, then?

Inácio (sits again): Now is the time for helpers... The peach boy finds a dog. “Can I keep a little cake, please?” –you can, the dog. “Sure, please, help me fight the monsters” – says the peach boy. The peach boy and the dog meet a monkey [raises the body, looks at the researcher and says out loud]... a monkey! “Can I keep a little cake, please? You can”. “Please, help us fight the monsters” – says the peach boy [says turning the page]. Now, it is the part in which there is one, that I don’t know what it is. The peach boy and the dog and the monkey find a pheasant. What is a pheasant? [Inácio looks at the researcher].

Res.: It’s a bird, a type of bird.

Inácio: Is it white and green, blue and red?

Res.: Yes, let me see this book, then, to see what color it is…this one [Inácio shows the illustration for the researcher]... it is colorful, isn’t it? I don’t know if they are that colorful.

Inácio (returns to reading): The peach boy, the dog, and the monkey find the pheasant. “Can I keep a little cake?”. “Sure. Please, help us fight the monsters” – says the peach boy and four friends enter, enter, enter...in a boat and continue to see the island of the monsters. [Starts moving on the chair, moving the body back and forth, while reading]. “I’m afraid,” – says the monkey [raises the book and turns it to the researcher]. “Don’t worry,” says the peach boy.

Inácio (turning the page and looking at the researchers): He is brave. Now, the part they attack the monster...The peach boy, the dog, the monkey, and the pheasant [pause] the monsters, they are, they have... [unintelligible]

Res.: What happens to them?

Inácio: They’re fighting the monster, the monkey is not afraid anymore. Now, she is brave. She is on the top of the monster’s head. Wow, how will she fight it alone? [shows once more the book to the researcher]

Res.: Wow, this monster is big! It has an angry face.

Inácio: Angry face? He has a booboo, not a booboo. They are cruel monsters.

Res.: Are they cruel?

Inácio: She is on the top of the monster’s hair. “Ouch,” says the monster…that is the white one [shows the illustration to the researcher]. Then, says the monster, the dog, what dog? [Looks for the pictures looking for the dog]. Ah! The dog, the dog also becomes brave…The dog became brave…After that, he bit the ear of the red monster. Now, the peach boy and his friends won the fight! [Exclaims, looks at the researcher, smiles]. “And we apologize. Now, we are nice. Wow!” say the monsters. “Do you think that all the monsters are cruel? All right, just don’t be mean again”, says the peach boy. The peach boy and his friends come back to the house. Ready! I mean, no, there’s more! They made a great party, party. [Moves on the chair]. The monsters also came to the party. They are nice. Everyone was very happy.

At the beginning of the episode, Inácio tells the researcher he has something secret: the book “O menino pêssego,” which indicates that he organized himself for this encounter, planning what he wanted to do. He explains that it is a Chinese story and starts reading. He reads some extracts; however, in other parts, he narrates without reading it, as it is a story he already knows.

Inácio takes on the role of a storyteller, using different narrative strategies: the illustrations are used as support, he changes the intonation, uses gestures and corporal expressions, and interacts with the interlocutor (the researcher). According to Sarmento and Oliveira (2020), children’s narratives occur in different and concomitant ways– “with words, but also with gestures, drawings, or other forms” (p. 1127).

The body’s participation in the creative activities is one of the dimensions of semiotic constitution that allows the imaginative functioning of young children. However, the body is commonly neglected in studies about creative activities in childhood, which hinders the due understanding of imaginative functioning. Costa (2018) observes that there is an intellectual tendency in the ways of investigating childhood creation. Supported in Bakhtin’s ideas, the researcher defends that the body is a sign: it reflects and refract the reality represented, thus, imagined. Inácio frequently uses the body during the narrative: he swings, sits downs, stands up, gestures. This could be understood only as stereotypes of children with ASD but, in consonance with the author, we understand that the body composes creation.

During the episode, Inácio interacts with the interlocutor. For example: “Can you see that this is a peach?” or “Ah, you’re thinking the same thing as he…” We should notice how Inácio inserts the interlocutor in the narrative dynamic: he tells the story while bringing his interlocutors to the plot, making questions, inferences, explanations, etc. He knows that he is narrating to someone and needs to guarantee the meaning he produces in his story. The narrator’s role is to produce a meaning that regulates his own action but also guides the interpretation of his interlocutor during the story told. Without this interdependence – which dates back to our communal ancestral experiences –, it is reduced to the narrative experienced. “Thus, the narrator, through the soul, the eye, and the hand, works the raw material of experience to change it to oneself and to others” (Ferreira Netto, 2017, p. 34).

Inácio’s interest to be understood is notorious. He wants the researcher’s attention to guarantee the meaning of his action when narrating and, at the same time, call someone else’s participation. Therefore, in several moments, he guides his interlocutor’s attention: “what a huge peach!” (showing the book for the researcher); “look here, this little bubble [indication gesture] is of a story, like in Mônica!”.

We should also highlight that storytelling places Inácio in a non-ordinary position, which affects the whole superior psychological system, as it challenges him to act beyond what he does alone and consider the other in the development of the action. The act of narrating, necessarily implying social participation and creation, involves the emergence of developmental cycles that are not yet consolidated. Or, in Vygotskyan terms, a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is created because the child is invited to go beyond their common behavior. According to Vygotsky (2001), ZPD refers to the difference between the level of children’s real development, that is, what she/he does automatically, and the potential level of development, which refers to the problems the children solve with the help of other people, in the intersubjective relations, with adults or more experienced companions.

In general, when narrating, Inácio allows us to confront the hegemonic view that children with autism have difficulties establishing social interaction, talking, and sharing feelings. The episode presented points out the opposite direction: the narration created by the boy is full of events that keep the researcher interested. But not only this! The way the story articulates itself with the content narrated produces feelings that would not be experienced daily. The intensity of the characters’ actions, the fantastic development of the plot (the boy who was born in a peach), and the different scenarios described (space- fictional time) characterize the narrative experience that, though supported in a book, breaks away from it through new elements. We can observe this when Inácio talks about the peach in the river: “Then, will he die? How did it survive? I hope not! He grows up quickly, but we’ll continue…”.

Therefore, in Inácio’s narrative, we see the relationship between imagination and emotion. The child tells that the peach-boy “grows up and gets big and strong and brave”, reflecting: “Imagine if he wasn’t brave?! He would pee in his pants”. Inácio lists two elements that contradictorily inter-connect: the boy’s courage, which is not seen in those who pee in their pants.

When narrating about the monsters in the story, he said: “The lady gives the axe to him…throws the axe in the head [makes a gesture of throwing an axe]…It can bleed, it hurts [the boy makes a pain grimace].” The emotions interconnect in the creation process; the axe in the head of the monster makes it bleed and Inácio’s pain grimace are absolutely real and, simultaneously, are the result of his imagination. Here we have the Vygotsky theses of the indissociability between imagination and emotion. According to Vygotsky (2009), “any construction of fantasy inversely influences our feelings and, though this construction by itself does not correspond to reality, every feeling it provokes is true, truly experienced by the person, and takes it hold” (p. 28). About this, Smolka (2009) comments that imaginative functioning involves an image in action connected to the emotion that the image itself provokes. The opposite is also true: the emotions mobilize the formation of images. The pain grimace, articulated to the bleeding narrated by Inácio, reveals this intricate relationship between imagination and emotion. These elements make us think that the narrator’s experience allows Inácio to experience feelings and affections potentialized by the narrative.

In the narrating activity, Inácio also elaborates concepts, some more established: “Population is a bunch of people”. Others are still under elaboration: “Now it is the part in which there is a, I don’t know what it is…What is a pheasant?”. To Vygotsky (2001), conceptual elaboration is a process that takes place through the mediation of the other, through the word. The author affirms that: “At any age, a concept expressed by a word represents a generalization. But word meanings evolve” (Vigotski, 2001, p. 246). When narrating, Inácio mobilizes different concepts and questions the researcher about what is still unknown. Nevertheless, how does that take place?

Because it is a work with words, every narrative production involves several levels of conceptual elaboration. While placing the narrator into the position of the person who creates narrative statements and operates with its generalization, as in the word “population,” it also invites the reflection on the meaning of emergent words, in this case, the word “pheasant.” In the conceptual elaboration, the word has a primordial role: it is through one’s own word (or someone else’s) that the child elaborates the concepts, as Vygotsky (2001) tells us. In this process, the meanings are built in intersubjective relationships. Psychic functions, such as memory, imagination, conceptual elaboration, affection, etc. are moved in the dynamic of narrating.

All this psychological process challenges the child because the narrative leads her/him to think about the meaning of words and the production of their meanings. Inácio knows what he does not know and what he already knows; when narrating, he can manage these different levels of elaborating the word. This is surprising when we talk about a child with autism because it shows the semiotic possibilities potentialized by the narrative. The position of the narrator, even in a fictional story that Inácio already knew, triggers psyche processes established from social relations. This situation allows us to state that the narrative production is an alternative way to build superior psychic function in individuals with developmental peculiarities.

Final remarks

The analysis of the episodes allowed us to positively answer our research question: Would narratives be potentialized in the psyche development? We discovered that, when narrating with the researcher, Inácio mobilizes all his psychic development: imagination, emotion, will, and concept formation – psychic functions that interconnect in the systemic dynamic of psychism. This can only happen because narrative is a work activity with language; its nature is semiotic. This finding is key because, for Vygotsky (2001), “the word is a microcosm of consciousness” (p. 486). We find in the verbal sign the organizing unity of the conscious activity in terms of a psychological system; the word composes and articulates the psychic functioning. Inácio, for example, chooses what to narrate, creates situations and appropriates ideas from the researcher but always inserts new elements. Everything happens through language and, as said, his creative process is the result of his own experiences and that of others (social), mediated by the sign.

When problematizing the relationship between narrating and imagining in the psyche development of children with ASD, we identified that the activity of narrating implies the imaginative functioning. Thus, interfering in the whole complex functional system, affecting the higher psychological functions in general.

Seeking to bridge the investigative gaps on this theme, we identified the following elements that characterize the power of narration in children’s development: 1. imagination is a way for children with ASD to re-elaborate experiences by narrating what is lived, broadening their own relationship with the surrounding universe; 2. the narrative is, par excellence, an activity guided by the production of meanings, for the other, by the engagement in fictional creation – and this is very important for a child with peculiar development; 3. when narrating, children are placed on non-ordinary position that challenges them to act, overcoming what they can do alone because they promote the emergence of the Zone of Proximal Development; 4. the narrative mobilizes affections out of extraordinary; 5. the narrative, as a work with words, involves several levels of conceptual elaboration, broadening how children think, feel, and act with reality. It is, therefore, a complex activity that potentializes children’s development; thus, it would not be different with children with autism.

All these principles show, in a very propositional way, how narrative potentializes psyche development. This means that children who do not narrate (or that are not invited to be in this space) can have their possibilities of semiotic operation limited. Ultimately, this finding leads us to conclude that such limitations have negative consequences for their development. In the case of children with ASD, this issue seem to worsen when the surrounding educators (or adults) do not value their narratives and stigmatize what they tell. And it is even more serious when the spaces of exchange and collaborative work, mainly in school, do not focus on the emergence of alternative paths of development (Vigotski, 2021).

These remarks nos permitem refletir sobre uma série de implicações no âmbito da psicologia do desenvolvimento e das práticas educacionais. After all, every argument of this text confronts the hegemonic discourses about the limitations of children with ASD, displacing the debate for another flexion point. The issue is not to fixate on what children are not able to do but on their endless potentials. This is not a new argument. Vygotsky, in the early 20th century, already defended this when researching children with peculiar development. One hundred years have passed, and we continue to insist on focusing on what the child cannot do: placing their human potential into a limiting position.

• Support and Funding:
  Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo – Process No. (2019/20813-2)
• Research ethics:
  The research was submitted and approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Plataforma Brasil, according to Process n.º 3.941.846.

Research data availability:

Research data cannot be made publicly available.

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Edited by

• Responsible editors:
  Associate Editor: Pedro Angelo Pagni https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7505-4896
  Editor-in-Chief: Chantal Medaets https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7834-3834

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  31 Mar 2025
• Date of issue
  2025

History

• Received
  08 June 2024
• Reviewed
  03 Dec 2024
• Accepted
  27 Dec 2024