Whose Vulnerability? Challenges in Conducting Participatory Research with Children with Multiple and Complex Disabilities

Abstract

Research on disabled children with complex and multiple disabilities is still recent. In the quest to reach out these children voices researchers have turned to participatory research and to the mosaic approach. The advantages of exploring the Mosaic approach are to grant researchers with multiple and flexible tools which can intentionally be designed and adapted to reach each children voice enhancing their agency. However, in this process and when pursuing inclusiveness, researchers face some additional challenges. This chapter will bring into discussion some of those challenges found in the practice of researching with 52 children with multiple and complex disabilities, during a program of Animal Assisted Therapy sessions held at four different school settings. During the ethnographic research, the challenges associated with the practice of researching in this context of mix (dis)abilities showed that children participation, namely, on tool design, turned out to be a process of co-researching. It is suggested that a better understanding of the process and the procedures of co-researching with children with multiple and complex disabilities, and in contexts of mix (dis)abilities, should consider the different dimensions of vulnerability enacted by the research situate encounters.