Video stimulated accounts (VSA)

With the help of Video-Stimulated Accounts (VSA), children have the opportunity to participate in articulating successful interaction situations and in generating ideas to support peer interaction in everyday school life. In VSA sessions, children on the autism spectrum (AS) and typically developing children watch short video clips of their own interaction situations, alone and in small groups. Based on these recordings, children can share what they perceive as important in the interaction. Children’s participation in VSA sessions is particularly valuable, as the research focuses on capturing and analyzing their interpretations, reactions, and thoughts. Their participation is also essential because they have the autonomy to control the session – starting, rewinding, or pausing the video clips as they choose. The researcher’s role in VSA sessions is to select the video clips to be watched together, set up the research setting, and facilitate the discussion—stepping in to guide the conversation when needed.

Through discussion and sharing their interpretations based on the video recordings, children are able to contribute to the analysis of the research data as research partners. In this way, the VSA method enables a participatory research approach, allowing the researcher to gather participants’ perspectives and incorporate them into the research process (see Theobald, 2012; Pihlainen, 2016). Such participation by children on the AS in research is still rare, as traditionally, their social skills have been assessed by researchers and professionals (e.g., Kabashi & Epstein, 2017).

References:

Kabashi, L., & Epstein, A. (2017). Improving Social Initiations of Children with Autism using Video Self-Modeling with Video Feedback: A Case Study. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 7(2), 111-121.

Pihlainen, K. (2016). Significance, accountability and new creation – on the tech clubs activities of children with special needs and their parents (in Finnish). Publications of the University of Eastern Finland, Dissertations in Education, Humanities, and Theology: 88.

Theobald, M. (2012). Video-stimulated accounts: Young children accounting for interactional matters in front of peers. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 10(1), 32–50.

Publications:

Pihlainen, K., Anniina Kämäräinen, A., Suero Montero, C., Kärnä, E. (2025). Autismikirjon oppilaiden näkemyksiä onnistuneesta ryhmätyöskentelystä. Teoksessa K. Dindar, A. Kämäräinen, A. Kilpiä, E. Kärnä, K. Pihlainen & H. Pukki (toim.), Autismikirjo eri elämänvaiheissa: Kasvatus, koulutus, työelämä ja palvelut. Gaudeamus. [Autistic Students’ Accounts on Successful Group Work.]