New FORRT paper on the intersection of neurodiversity and open research is published, led by Jenny Mai Phan with @saralilplants.bsky.social @flavioazevedo.bsky.social @bethaniley.com Magdalena Grose-Hodge @sammiety.bsky.social @yskjdmmhnd.bsky.social @johnjshaw.bsky.social @helenahartmann.com.
Appreciate your Aiston et al. (2025) this year linking Milton‘s DEP, intense/focused interests, and infodumping! Looking forward to empirical studies connecting these!
Workshop: Focused Interests, Identity, & Autistic Communication Across Contexts. 8-9th January, Queen Mary University of London. Speakers: - Dr Liam Cross & Dr Gray Atherton, leading a co-design session to create a board game highlighting strengths of neurodiversity - Pete Wharmby, neurodiversity advocate - Professor Rebecca Wood, Glasgow This workshop will explore how autistic people engage with focused interests in diverse communication settings. Bringing together discourse, narrative, interactional approaches, sessions will examine how intense interests shape storytelling, knowledge exchange, and social connections. We consider how focused interests are differently valued in society and ask what it would mean to centre interests as a strength rather than symtom. We invite proposals for individual papers and contributions to a roundtable discussion. Contributions from autistic individuals and allies, practitioners, clinicians, and education professionals are especially welcomed. Submit your proposal to j.aiston@qmul.ac.uk by Friday 14th November
**CALL FOR PAPERS**
Upcoming workshop at QMUL in January, looking at autism, focused interests, and communication across diverse contexts. How can we centre autistic interests as a strength rather than a symptom?
Contributions outside academia welcome.
Please share widely!
The Stanford Neurodiversity Summit will be Sept 13-15. Once again we are offering tickets for up to 50 online attendees! Info linked below. Contact us at ThinkingAutism at gmail if you'd like a ticket. It's going to be a fantastic event.
stanfordneurodiversityproject.stanford.edu/stanford-neu...
Yes, I think there may be implications for autism group based programs - some of the positive effects may be due to enhanced rapport / cohesion / understanding between autistic people, integrating peer support elements may boost the positive effects further!
I am excited to share that my team here at the at the Social Connections and Treatment Lab at the Life Course Outcomes Program at the AJ Drexel Autism Institute, and we are looking for a full-time Research Associate!
For more information and to apply: careers.drexel.edu/mob/cw/en-us... (1/)
"Science is not, and has never been, a neutral endeavour... the notion that researchers can or should cleanse themselves of bias is untenable, potentially intellectually dishonest, and ethically fraught."
New preprint with the (brilliant) Sarahanne Field #Metascience2025
osf.io/preprints/os...
Curious about how autism intervention researchers define and measure "problem behavior"? We examined 102 intervention studies with young autistic children and found that only 1/3 of studies give a reason for targeting the behavior they aim to reduce, 1/4
acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
There are many neurodiversity-affirming parents, researchers, and therapists who have gone through guilt, regret, dissonance, etc. 10-20-yr ago, almost no one could anticipate that many findings challenge traditional knowledge. Let’s build a more forgiving, accepting, & supportive community!
This was partially replicated (minimal difference between autistic-autistic and NA-NA) but also w parts that didn’t replicate (minimal difference between mixed group and other 2 groups) - not sure how to interpret the null findings comparing 3 conditions
New paper alert!
Information transfer within and between autistic and non-autistic people is out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com
nature.com/articles/s41...
THREAD! 🧵⬇️
Yes, imagine the guilt, regret, dissonance, etc feelings of these ppl - many ND-affirming therapists and researchers hv experienced that. Sometimes pain can be transformed into meaningful contributions/reforms, agree that accepting environment is important for meaningful reforms
A7: Dena Gassner says that there are a lot of people who have good hearts and then realize that they've done harm. And there's no support for them to be supported through growth. We need to be more welcoming and forgiving, and provide a safe landing space.
#AutINSAR #INSAR2025
