The background for this study is our work on communication, relationship and belonging to a community. Magne is a deaf, 12 year old, autistic, intellectually disabled boy. Magne does not use verbal language neither spoken nor sign language. His main strategy of communication when he wishes to do, or not to do, something, has been inappropriate acting-out behaviour. When his school, as a result of the covid pandemic situation, was organised at home about a year ago, development of communication was planned in relation to daily, meaningful activities. The plans for the home-school covers the whole day and include communicational exercises, communication when doing practical activities and, now, communication about shared daily experiences.

Because of the Magnes acting-out behaviour and lack of verbal communication his social network is very small. He is not attending classes as other children at his age, and his siblings has, in these situations, to be protected by adults. Two adults are together with Magne during the day as personal assistants (Norwegian: BPA).

Little is researched and written about teaching pupils like Magne and this paper is part of an action research project where the staff working with Magne systematically explore and research the effects of their initiatives

The aim of the research is to understand more about basic factors for including a person like Magne into a friendship, a fellowship and as participant in a small community. Based on this our research question is How is the fellowship influenced by communication in and about shared activities like drawing, painting and play-like activity? The result will afterwards be used in the home school plans for Magne.

Alternative Augmentative Communication (AAC) (Tetzchner & Martinsen, 2002) with use of symbols, organised systematically according to themes and activities is the main tool when the assistants communicate with Magne. The data is gathered when Magne and the two assistants went for å walk in the wood. They told Magne about some happenings on their way, themes as parking the car, crossing the beck, the slippery ice in the path, the size of the trees, throwing stones into the water etc. while walking was communicated, but Magne only to a very small degree responds. It is difficult to know what he understands. Also, they took many photos. After returning at home the whole walk was re-created on a paper sized app 1,5m x 3m. The parking place, the trees, the icy path, the stones thrown in the water etc was drawn on the sheet of paper, the photos and the AAC symbols were glued at the right places and Playmobil figures were moved to recreate and communicate about the shared experience as part of the home school. The aim was to teach Magne to communicate about happenings, not visible right now, as shared experiences.

Play as fundament for development (Greve & Løndal, 2012), and the connections between play communication and relations in a fellowship as presented in socio-historical theory (Wenger, 1998) is our point of departure. Magne does not play as other children due to his lack of communication and the autism. To play, in his case, has to be learned, and then it is a case of definition whether he is “playing” or participating in a “play-like activity”. He does not, himself, move the figures on the path drawn on the paper, but he is interested, keeps focus, and seems to understand this as communication about the walk.

Our main research question is How is the fellowship influenced by communication in and about shared activities like drawing, painting and play-like activity? To answer this empirical data was gathered in participating observations, video-recordings and interviews. The walk and communication were observed, reflection notes were written afterwards. The play-like activity when recreating the shared experience by drawing and moving Playmobil figures on the sheet of paper was videorecorded with three cameras and observed. The personal assistants were interviewed about their thoughts of implementing AAC as a tool before the happening and interviewed again afterwards. As participants in the action research project the researchers and the assistants are developing the plans, the happenings, the shared experiences informal conversation about daily work supply us with background knowledge, more examples and is part of the empirical data. The video-recordings are looked through many times and thematically analysed (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The video-recordings are not transcribed because we would miss the engagement from Magne shown as wrinkles in his forehead, turning towards a shared focus etc. The interview were transcribed and analysed by use of constant comparative method (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) in addition to a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The results in this paper are parts of an action research project (McNiff, 2013)and the results will be communicated back to the assistants and into the future plans for the school and the leisure time for Magne. We, the researchers, are involved as responsible for these plans, in addition, we are both relatives to Magne and the study is then within the range of selfstudy (Loughran, 2004)

The preliminary analyses show that • Through play-like activities the participants established joint communication, a shared repertoire. The possibilities for meaningful communication increase for both parts through the shared experiences, even though Magne does not talk or use signs. The assistants experience communication when they can play out the shared experience, even though Magne only to a very small extent express himself. Even some disagreements were discussed. When Magne moved some pictures and symbols to another place along the drawn path he showed his disagreement. The potential to develop a tool to include Magne as participant in a small fellowship seems to be present. • Magnes engagement increases when he experiences certain activities several times. He shares and keeps a shared focus for a longer time and a few times initiated communication by looking at the stored drawings. At the same time the engagement of the participating adults is increasing; they draw more freely “talk” with Magne with use of AAC symbols and tell us about their commitment. A mutual engagement is developed through drawing and communicating about their shared experiences. • This kind of shared activity develops more and more play-characteristics as Magne on his own initiative repeat some playing activities like driving the Playmobil-car along the drawn road and park it on the drawn parking place. Magne seems to acquire competences for play and communication at the same time. Magne has difficulties understanding how to interact in a fellowship. It is difficult for this group of children to interact as expected when communicating and playing. Magnes engagement increases during the researched activity, and the created situation seems to increase his communicative competences, his ability to communicate about happenings out of sight and his ability to engage in interaction-like activity. Communicative competence is important to experience belongingness.

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa Greve, A., & Løndal, K. (2012). Læring for lek i barnehage og skolefritidsordning [Learning for play in kindergarten and after school care]. Nordisk barnehageforskning, 5(19), 1-14. Loughran, J. J. (2004). Learning through self-study: The influence of purpose, participants and context. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International Handbook of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices. (pp. 151–192). Springer. McNiff, J. (2013). Action Research -Principles and practice (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203112755 Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Sage. Tetzchner, S. v., & Martinsen, H. (2002). Alternativ og supplerende kommunikasjon [AAC]. Gyldendal Akademisk. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press.