“Talk to me about the LEGO!” A Qualitative Exploration of Autistic Students’ Experiences with LEGO-Based Therapy

LEGO-Based Therapy (LBT) is a play-based social skills intervention which is being employed widely in schools across the UK to support autistic students’ social and emotional wellbeing. However, the existing literature lacks insight into how the children themselves experience and benefit from this intervention. Furthermore, there is a need for research that engages with under-represented autistic individuals (e.g., those with accompanying cognitive, behavioural and language difficulties). The following study explored autistic students’ experiences with LBT and aimed to answer whether and how this intervention supports their social and emotional wellbeing in school. The experiences of 14 autistic students with accompanying cognitive, behavioural or language needs (Nfemale = 2, Mage = 10.14 , NCaucasian = 5) from an independent special school in London were captured using video-recorded semi-structured interviews. Multimodal qualitative analysis yielded three key themes: i. Students have positive experiences with LEGO, ii. Majority of students have positive experiences with LBT, and, iii. LBT helps the majority of students and they have suggestions on how it can be better adapted to support them. These findings and the methodology are discussed and emphasise that in order to better represent the entire spectrum of needs in the autistic community in school-based research, future research can use mixed-method approaches which promote positive rapport so neurodivergent children and young people feel empowered to share their experiences through a medium which supports their needs.