Abstract:

The use of digital technologies has increased substantially worldwide, and the age of children's first access has dropped. Digital technologies are now an integral part of many autistic children's daily lives. Despite the recognised potential of digital technologies, little is known regarding autistic children's digital practices. Recent global events, including the COVID-19 pandemic, have highlighted the importance of investigating the home as a central context for children's digital interactions. To build an understanding of young autistic children's digital interactions in the home context, a digital ethnographic study was conducted with three families with an autistic child turning six years old. Accessing the autistic children's everyday experiences through a digital ethnography study enabled understanding in what ways autistic children engaged with digital technology available, the context of their experiences, who was involved, how families experienced their digital activities and the outcomes of their activities.

Digital ethnography offers opportunities to research everyday contexts from a distance, allowing contact with settings that researchers may not have access to and permitting participants to exercise their agency, participating in their own terms and deciding what and how they want to share their life experiences.

This study offered multiple ways of participating, including in situ direct observations, online conversations, and data collected by the families through video recordings produced by the autistic children and the families with video cameras provided.

During nine months, each family participated in the study according to their characteristics and preferences, demonstrating the importance and the benefit of offering young autistic children and their families multiple ways to inform research. Providing the families opportunities to video record their practices empowered them to show their perspectives of digital technologies that are invaluable to inform carers, families, educators, policymakers, allied health professionals' practices and future research. The online and in-person meetings allowed the researcher to build rapport with the families, demonstrating the importance of their viewpoints and expertise and developing a trusting relationship that was essential to accessing the families' worlds respectfully. These families' practices highlighted the educational, entertaining, social and communicational potential of digital technologies in autistic children's lives and the importance of understanding children's practices and perspectives to promote healthy, educated and connected digital childhoods.

Keywords:

Agency, autism, children's digital experiences, digital ethnography, family interactions, video recordings.