Over a five week period, Helen and Gillian worked with a group of nine adolescent girls from four schools across Belfast. Using smartphones, the girls produced a series of 34 photographs, giving a powerful and moving insight into their lives inside and outside of the mainstream school environment.

Led by Gillian O’Hagan and Helen Sloan, this discussion will delve deeper into the focus of the Missing Voices project which aims to amplify the adolescent female voice of ASD. The panel will look at the importance of creative expression in helping girls with ASD to allow parents, teachers, friends and others to understand their experience of the world around them.

They will also discuss the chronic problem of misdiagnosis in female ASD, asking why practitioners continue to use male-led diagnostic criteria that leaves countless young girls unseen, unheard and unrepresented.