Projects
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Hannah Fry
Hannah is one of this year’s placement students here at CRAE. Prior to her placement, she was a research assistant for the Autism in Court Project within the Centre for Applied Autism Research at the University of Bath – this experience sparked her interest in autism research. This year she will assist members of staff on various…
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Louie Plumb
Louie is currently completing his placement year at CRAE as part of his BSc Psychology degree at the University of Bath. Having completed his GCSEs through home education, he developed an interest in the benefits of inclusive and individualised learning. Louie continues to advocate for innovative approaches to education and accessible environments that offer flexible…
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Q&A with Felicity Sedgewick
Supporting Autistic University Students: Policy and Practice *(Questions with identifiable institutions have been avoided) Who to contact for the training links please? The training links can be found on the SMHAS project website: https://smhas.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/ If you scroll down the homepage, there is a link to the University of Bristol site where it is hosted. The training has…
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Joshua Roche
I am a student at the university of Manchester and have previously been a support worker for both children and adults with autism. I found a joy in working alongside these individuals whilst also noting both positive and negative public attitude making for an interesting reflection on societal norms and conformity. I want to challenge…
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Ali Northcott
Ali Northcott joined CRAE in 2017 as an Honorary Researcher, where she led the interdisciplinary research project Embodying Difference. Informed by her lived experience she investigated how the traits of neurodiverse artists enhance or inform their creative practice, processes and how those in turn inform their experience of being neurodiverse. Ali conducted two parallel studies:…
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Zahra Mudhir
I am in my third year at the University of Westminster, pursuing a Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience degree. I am passionate about using participatory research to improve support for autistic individuals. I am excited to contribute to the Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE) during my 2024/25 academic year placement. My personal connection to…
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Geoff Bird
Geoff brings with him experience in cognitive neuroscience, autism research, and policy advising. He returns here to UCL where – a while back – he did his PhD with Cecilia Heyes, exploring the mechanisms of imitation. Following this, he joined the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (ICN), working with Chris and Uta Frith on autism research,…
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Lucy O’Connor
Role: Student Placement Researcher I am an undergraduate student at the University of Manchester studying psychology. Having an interest in clinical psychology, I hope to gain a greater understanding of autism in my time at CRAE. I have previously assisted with research into Parkinson’s at Manchester with an emphasis on Patient and Public Involvement. I…
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Luci Rose
Luci Rose joined CRAE, in 2017 as a second year EdD student under the supervision of Dr Anna Remington, and Dr Chloe Marshall. Her research focuses on the unrecognised abilities of non-speaking autistic children. She hopes her EdD will contribute towards a better understanding of the educational experience of autistic pupils who do not use…
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Fae Burrell
Fae completed her BSc in Psychology at the University of Bath and has worked as a support worker and learning support assistant with autistic adults, teenagers, and children. During her undergraduate studies, she completed a placement year at CRAE, which not only sparked her passion for autism research but also led to a deeper understanding…
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Charlie Hamilton
Communications Assistant Charlie (she/her) is autistic. Charlie has three decades of communication and fundraising experience with organisations across Europe. Most notably, she has worked for the International Herald Tribune – The New York Times, euronews, UEFA, The European Union Youth Orchestra and youth social action charities: Music Masters and Student Hubs. Most recently, she was…
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2023 CRAE Annual Lecture
TITLE: Making Schools Safer and More Inclusive for Autistic Students Schools are inherently hostile places for many autistic students, and it takes effort and knowledge to make them safer and more inclusive. But it doesn’t have to be difficult – in fact, many necessary changes are quick-fixes, cheap and easy to implement, so long as…
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Evelyn Sam
Bio: Evelyn is an undergraduate psychology student from the University of Kent and is currently undertaking her placement year from September 2022 at CRAE. She is assisting members of the CRAE team with ongoing projects and through this experience, and hopes to gain a better insight into the world of autism research in the upcoming year. …
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Norah Richards
PhD Researcher Norah joined CRAE in 2022 as a first year PhD student under the supervision of Laura Crane. Norah has a BSc, PGCE and PGCert Ed, and worked as a primary school teacher with a focus on language learning and literacy difficulties. Norah completed her MSc in Language and Communication Difficulties in Education jointly at…
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Estelle Killick
Estelle is an undergraduate student at the University of Kent studying Psychology. She is currently undertaking her placement year at CRAE. In her time studying psychology she has developed her interest in clinical psychology and neurodivergence (specifically autism). She has been particularly interested in female presentations of autism as well as support for autistic women…
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CRAE Webinar Series: Emeline Han
Click the image above to book your place! TITLE: Adaptation of a disclosure decision-making programme for autistic adults Emeline’s talk will provide an overview of her PhD project, including: 1) A systematic review she conducted on autistic people’s experiences of stigma and coping strategies; 2) A consultation survey she conducted with the autism community on…
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CRAE Webinar Series: Amy Pearson
Click the image above to book your place! TITLE: “I felt like I deserved it because I was autistic”: Understanding the impact of interpersonal victimisation on autistic adults Research suggests that autistic adults are more likely to experience violence and abuse from people they know (known as interpersonal victimisation), but there is very little exploration…
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Brian Irvine
Brian joined CRAE in the summer of 2022 on the ESRC Superior Perceptual Capacity Project, and now works as our Communications and Engagement Officer. We know that many autistic people hear, see and feel more than the majority might. The Superior Perceptual Capacity Project is hunting for environments where all might thrive. This might be less…
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CRAE Webinar Series: Brian Irvine
Click the image above to book your place! TITLE: Framing and reframing: Specialist (Autism) Mentoring in UK HEIs In this webinar, Brian Irvine will discuss his work in creating a framework for Specialist (Autism) Mentoring. This year more than 16,000 autistic students are attending universities in the UK alone. The students receive funding for a…
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CRAE Webinar Series: Rachael Davis
Click the image above to book your place! TITLE: Understanding the impact of bilingualism for autistic children While all children should have access to their linguistic and cultural identities as a fundamental human right, this is currently not the case for all autistic children. Although studies have shown that children living in a dual-language environment benefit…
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CRAE Webinar Series: David Moore & Bethany Donaghy
Click the image above to book your place! TITLE: Pain in Autism Recent diagnostic criteria of autism include insensitivity to pain as a specific example of this abnormality. Research evidence here is however limited. The suggestion of altered pain responsivity in autism is distressing as pain may be the first or only sign of illness…
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CRAE Webinar Series: Aimee Grant
Click the image above to book your place! TITLE: ‘Incredibly Painful, Both Emotionally and Physically’: Autistic Experiences of Pregnancy Loss and Associated Healthcare Around one in five pregnancies end in loss, and it is well established that this experience is traumatic in a general population. To date, little is known about Autistic experiences of pregnancy…
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CRAE Webinar Series: Heba Al-Jayoosi
Click the image above to book your place! TITLE: “Evaluating the use of Flexible Seating in a Mainstream Primary School for Neurotypical and Neurodivergent Pupils” Most neurodivergent pupils are educated at mainstream. Whilst adaptations to seating are sometimes recommended to accommodate the needs of certain children (for example by occupational therapists), the use of a range…
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2022 CRAE Annual Lecture
Click the image above to book your place! TITLE: Neurodiversity-affirmative education for autistic learners Neurodiversity is a simple, incontrovertible scientific fact, but the implications of this concept are both profound and radical. In this lecture, Professor Sue Fletcher-Watson will start by exploring how recent findings are undermining historic models of understanding autism, and highlighting the…
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Molly McCabe Role: Masters Student and Volunteer Research Assistant Bio: Molly McCabe received her BS in Psychology and BA in Humanities from Seattle University. She is currently an MSc Child Development student at UCL and a volunteer research assistant at CRAE, working on a systematic review of RCTs looking at language interventions for autistic people. Outside of…
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“Avoiding Anxiety in Autistic Adults” – a review
By Jade Davies, Emeline Han and Kana Umagami. Luke Beardon’s new book, Avoiding Anxiety in Autistic Adults, explores the environmental factors behind this distressing problem. Written with the autistic reader in mind, this book provides an understanding of potential anxiety triggers, along with a series of practical tips on what can be done to reduce…
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CRAE Webinar Series: Joris Lechêne
Click the image above to book your place! TITLE: “Autism and psychological colonialism.” This webinar will draw from lived experience and explore the parallels between the Cultural Deficit Model, as the main ideology behind the Colonial Mindset, and the Social Deficit Model which is still the most common lens through which autism is perceived by…
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Annual Health Checks Survey
Autistic people, on average, have worse health outcomes than the general population. Annual health checks have been suggested as one way to improve health outcomes. We want to understand the barriers and facilitators involved in implementing annual health checks for this group so we can develop adequate support for primary health care professionals. Who can…
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Sam Dexter
PhD Researcher Sam Dexter is undertaking his PhD at CRAE and is exploring how schools prepare autistic young people for life after the classroom. When not working toward his PhD, Sam is a class teacher at Gesher School in north west London, where he teaches a year 6 class. Research Summary: For his MA thesis,…
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Aaron Giuliano
Role: Research Assistant Bio: Aaron is a research assistant at CRAE working on various participatory research projects. Aaron undertook a placement year at CRAE as part of his Education with Psychology (BA) degree at the University of Bath. Aaron joined CRAE in September 2021 and, as part of his placement year, led a research project investigating the…
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CRAE Webinar Series: Monique Botha
Click the image above to book your place! TITLE: “The construction of autistic people by autism researchers: a mixed method study on discourse, dehumanization, and stigma.” In this webinar, Dr Monique Botha will discuss the findings from a mixed method study conducted with Dr Eilidh Cage investigating how researchers talk about autism and autistic people.…
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CRAE Webinar Series: Kathy Leadbitter
Click the image above to book your place! TITLE: “An evidence-based, ethical and person-centred care pathway for autistic children and their families: How can we make this happen?” There has been significant progress in autism intervention research over the past two decades. New interventions have been developed, tested in increasingly rigourous ways, and some found…
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CRAE Webinar Series: Rebecca Wood
Click the image above to book your place! TITLE: “Inclusion in School: Learning the Lessons from Autistic Pupils and Teachers.” In this presentation, Dr Rebecca Wood will set out some of the typical difficulties faced by autistic pupils in school resulting from the environment, a lack of understanding and support, and the prevalence of neuro-normative…
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CRAE Webinar Series: Kristen Bottema-Beutel & Shannon Crowley
Click the image above to view this webinar’s recording on YouTube! TITLE: “Evaluating Intervention Research for Transition-age Autistic Youth.” In the United States, federal law mandates that students with disabilities, including autistic students, receive educational services to support their transition to adulthood following high school exit. These services are mandated to start no later than…
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CRAE Webinar Series: Alyssa M. Alcorn
Click the image above to view this webinar’s recording on YouTube! TITLE: “What does it mean to teach about neurodiversity at school, and how can we do that? An overview of the LEANS project and resource pack.” The Learning About Neurodiversity at School (LEANS) project is developing the first resource pack for UK primary schools…
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Heba Al-Jayoosi
Heba is undertaking her PhD at CRAE, and is exploring ways in which to improve home school collaboration for caregivers of autistic pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds. Her other interests include autistic self advocacy, and how autistic people can be meaningfully included in school decision making. She is also the Assistant Headteacher and Inclusion Leader…
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Katelyn Smalley Role: Honorary Research Fellow Bio: Katelyn is a health policy researcher, with a background in political economy and behavioural economics. She has contributed to health policy development, impact analysis, and implementation research in Government, Voluntary Sector, and Academic settings. She grew up near Washington, DC, and completed her undergraduate degree in Political Economy…
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Diverse Minds Employment Survey
Maria is recruiting participants for research about the transition from education to employment, and employment experiences for autistic young people. Moving from education to employment is an important area of research for understanding quality of life for autistic adults. There is also a national autism-employment gap where autistic adults are less likely to be in full-time employment than people…
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Audrey Linden
Audrey Linden is a research assistant at the Centre for Research in Autism and Education, based at UCL’s IOE.
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Embrace your inner five year old
A crash course in how to write about psychology, as taught by small children. One of the great myths of journalism, or any kind of writing, is that you can smoothly move from one subject to another, Mr Benn-style, and still speak or write with some degree of authority on the topic. Anyone who’s read…
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Freya Elise
Freya Elise is a research assistant at the Centre for Research in Autism and Education, based at UCL’s Institute of Education.
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[Past Event] CRAE Webinar Series: Sebastian Gaigg
In this webinar, Dr Sebatian Gaigg (City, University of London) examines the role of learning and memory processes in the language impairtments in Autism, which is to take place on 3rd June 2021.
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[Past Event] CRAE Webinar Series: Jo Saul
UCL PhD student Jo Saul presents a webinar on expressive language development in minimally verbal autistic children. This is to take place on 6th May 2021.
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[Past Event] CRAE Webinar Series: Liz Pellicano
In this webinar, which takes place on 8th April 2021, Dr Liz Pellicano discusses the everyday experiences of autistic people and families during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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[Past Event] CRAE Webinar Series: Prithvi Perepa
TITLE: “Camouflaging behaviours used by autistic adults during everyday social interactions.” In this webinar, Dr Prithvi Perepa (Lecturer in Autism, University of Birmingham) highlights different norms across cultures and how this might impact on diagnoses of autism. For example, factors such as direct eye contact, use of gestures, and so on, may be considered inappropriate…
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[Past Event] CRAE Webinar Series: Julia Cook
In this webinar, Julia Cook presents her research on the different ways in which autistic people adapt to and cope within the predominately neurotypical social world. It took place on 7th January, 2021.
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[Past Event] CRAE Webinar Series: Rosa Hoekstra & Beth Tekola
In this webinar, Rosa Hoekstra and Beth Tekola Gebru discuss their work on autism and intellectual disability in Ethiopia, a nation with a population of over 100 million, half of whom are children.
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[Past Event] CRAE Webinar Series: Jo van Herwegen
Jo van Herwegen talks about her research on developmental disabilities and school transitions in this short webinar, which took place on 5th November 2020.
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Ginny D’Odorico
PhD Researcher Ginny joined CRAE 2020. She is the Headteacher of The Windmill School, a new specialist school providing the autism specific environment to reduce anxiety and engage individual students’ learning needs. Ginny completed a BSc in Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, then a PGCE Primary teaching qualification at the Institute of Education prior…