Show and Tell app in action — The aim of the app was to prepare a child who didn’t like surprises for a show full of them. Photograph: Briscoe Photography Photograph: Circus Starr

How we made the Show and Tell circus app for children with autism

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The Show and Tell app uses social storytelling to capture the essence and unpredictability of circus for a very literal audience

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At Circus Starr, our mission is to create accessible community circus events throughout the UK that positively engage with children with physical disabilities, learning difficulties and families from disadvantaged backgrounds. One strand of what we do is to work with children with autism.

Since we first launched in 1987, time and again parents would tell us how their autistic child, who could not usually cope with unknown situations, had sat through our entire show mesmerised, or how their child who could get very distressed in crowds had been dancing ringside with their light-up windmill shouting: “come and boogie everyone!”

Even though from the outside we appeared to break all the rules (loud music, lots of people, bangs, surprises) for some reason we were naturally “autism-friendly” and children felt relaxed in our big top. However, because new experiences and environments can provoke anxiety in children on the autistic spectrum, we also had to find a way to prepare those who were too anxious to make it that far.

We wanted to produce an app that could somehow capture and convey the essence, magic and unpredictability of circus for a very literal audience. We needed to prepare a child who didn’t like surprises for a show full of surprises … without ruining the surprise.

With funding from the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts and inspired by the concept of the Social Stories – where visual stories are used to create positive visualisations that reduce stress and enable the development of coping strategies – we set out to create an interactive storybook where children could make their own circus story from a “bank” of related images. They could then personalise these stories by uploading their own images, captions and footage: a virtual, ring-side circus experience without ever leaving the house.

When you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.

We first heard those words from Mark Lever, chief executive of the National Autistic Society, and with them ringing in our ears, we knew we had to create a universal “circus experience” template that could be adapted to suit the different needs of the 700,000 people with autism in the UK. This also meant that many elements from our original scope ended up on the cutting room floor as what seemed like a good idea at the outset turned out to be “un” autism-friendly in practice.

Take the Clap-o-meter. The idea was that children would tap the screen to express how much they were enjoying themselves at the show, which seemed great until we realised that tapping could also be a sign of anxiety, the very thing we were trying to quell.

The interval activities were another conundrum for us. We were aware that intervals can be a cause of anxiety for children with autism as this is an unstructured part of the experience. We spent days, weeks and months discussing what we were going to put in our app to help keep children distracted during the interval: games? Puzzles? Word-searches?

You are not Candy Crush.

Our learning partner Nesta offered this advice. We realised that if we did our job in creating a fit-for-purpose app, we wouldn’t need any interval activities to “escape” to as the child would already be relaxed, engrossed in the performance and fully prepared for the 15-minute interval.

Preparation, sign-posting and showing and telling our audience what to expect was the key, so we introduced a series of graphic slides that explained waiting times, tickets, show times and intervals. Every potential source of anxiety was chronologically recorded in our visual story.

Unfortunately, when we tested the app on our focus group, the children unanimously chose to hide or delete our helpful graphic slides from their stories; they were condemned as “too boring”. So, while not Candy Crush, nor were we aiming to produce an educational tool: this was the circus after all and needed to be fun.

We went back to the drawing board and filmed the ringmaster giving all the instructions in true visual story style and filmed 20 seconds of lowlights from each act (without giving away the surprises). Early feedback from the parents and children using the app for the shows on our current tour is telling us we did get it right.

What’s next for us? In addition to the app supporting access to the arts more broadly (theatre visits, museums, galleries) many parents and teachers have commented on the app’s potential for supporting transition into reception and year 7 – or even helping prepare for things like the Christmas play.

Show and Tell is currently available only on iPad and iPhone so as a priority we need to secure further funding to include a version for Android users. We’re also hoping the research side of things will help identify the best parts of the app so we can take them forward into new developments in the future.

App facts

Length of the project: One year
Companies involved: Circus Starr, Glyndwr University, Therapy Box, the National Autistic Society, Briscoe Photography and CineRobota
Type of finance: Supported by the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts (Nesta, Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council)