While all children should have access to language learning - and the related opportunities that come with this - as a fundamental human right - this is currently not the case for all autistic children. Parents & professionals are often concerned that a bilingual environment could be harmful for autistic children - despite this idea not being built on evidence. My research aims to provide an evidence base for families, and focuses on understanding the lived experiences & creating inclusive tools to better understand the effects of bilingualism on developmental processes.

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Currently in the UK, there are 42,500 autistic children in mainstream education (DfE 2015), with the number of children rising comparably internationally. Yet, we currently know very little from autistic children themselves regarding how they can best be supported to thrive socially in school.

There can be a significant disconnect between the school experience for autistic children and stated aspirations of inclusive school practices. There are long-established concerns regarding the school experience for autistic children, with research commonly reporting feelings of unhappiness and dissatisfaction, experiences of bullying and victimisation and increased social exclusion.

My research focuses on understanding children's school experiences, and working with staff to find accessible ways to record and implement children's views in school. I am also conducting research with Caryll Jack and Laura Crane to understand the experiences of neurodivergent trainee teachers at QMU, and the barriers to inclusion. Watch this space for project info coming soon!

I am interested in cognitive processes and changes accross development. In my research to date, I have focused on a number of key areas:

I have conducted a longitudinal study to understand the impact of bilingualism on cognitive development for autistic and non-autistic children. I have also focused on understanding differential lateralisation in infants who go on to recieve an autism diagnosis and in preterm infants. I have also worked on projects looking to better understand the relationship between side biases as a marker of lateralisation, and the links to cognitive skills.

Within this field, it's also a priority for me to develop inclusive tools to better understand the cognitive processes, ensuring that we can include children who are frequently excluded from research - this includes children with intellectual disabilities, minimally verbal and non-speaking children.

A large proportion of autistic people belong to at least one other minority group in addition to being autistic. Intersectionality is commonly used to refer to membership of more than one minority group (i.e., people who sit at the intersection of different minority communities).

People with intersecting oppressed identities experience not only the same oppression as people in one or the other of those groups, but also unique facets of prejudice and disadvantage that apply to that combination of identities. It's therefore crucial to understand all aspects of identity.

Look out for info about projects in this area soon.