What Counts as a Voice? Working alongside non-verbal participants with Hannah McCormack

What does it mean to listen to a child who does not communicate through conventional speech?In this episode of The Phenomenology Collective, we explore how phenomenology can help us encounter experiences expressed beyond words.We’re joined by Hannah McCormack, a final-year PhD researcher at the University of Dundee whose hermeneutic phenomenological study explores the voices and lived experiences of very young children with special educational needs and disabilities. Drawing on more than 20 years in early years education, Hannah challenges the assumption that an absence of speech means an absence of voice.Together, we discuss:How gesture, movement, gaze and touch can communicate meaningThe difference between hearing a child and genuinely listeningUsing hermeneutic phenomenology with non-verbal participantsThe importance of time, familiarity and attentive presenceThe role of parents and practitioners in interpretationNavigating consent, assent and ethical inclusionRemaining open and methodologically rigorous when conventional interviews are not possibleThis conversation invites us to reconsider what counts as voice—and whether the real limitation lies not in children’s capacity to communicate, but in how adults have learned to listen.