“It felt like there was a piece missing from me”: An IPA exploration into the school experiences of adolescents with an autistic sibling

Sibling relationships have been described as the ‘marathon runner’ of human connections – beginning before those with significant partners and outlasting those with one’s parents (Green, 2013). Despite the acknowledged importance of sibling relations and growing research into the experiences of having an autistic sibling, the literature into neurotypical sibling experiences within school has received little focus to date. This paper seeks to highlight the lived experiences and individual voices of young people navigating the UK school system, whilst also exploring their roles within their sibling dynamics. To explore this, the following research qualitatively examines the school experiences of young people with an autistic sibling, aged between 14-18 years old using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. This paper situates itself within research around disability and sibling relationships, drawing on the Siblings Embedded Systems Framework (Kovshoff et al., 2017) and The Social Relational Model of Disability (Connors & Stalker, 2007) to make sense of the experiences shared by neurotypical siblings. Sibling roles of parentification, caregiving and protection are shared, as well as feelings of loss and confusion around transitioning away from a sibling in school. Consideration is given to the role of gender with respect to caregiving expectations, as well highlighting the development of a sense of self enmeshed with the needs of a sibling. Avenues for providing further space for neurotypical sibling perspectives are discussed, as well as implications for the roles of school-based staff and Educational Psychologists.