Clare has been teaching for ten years, most recently in a school for autistic children and young people. She is founder of Spectrum Space, a not-for-profit organisation that provides tuition to autistic children who find it difficult to access school. Clare completed her BA in Education Studies at Cambridge University and her PGCE and Masters in Policy Studies at the Institute of Education.
Clare’s PhD research focuses on autistic children who display extreme avoidance of everyday demands. Some clinicians ascribe the term, Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) to autistic individuals with this profile. They advocate support strategies that can be very different to those recommended for the majority of autistic children and young people. Others argue that there is not enough evidence for the existence of PDA as a separate condition. Clare compares the educational and support experiences of school-aged autistic children who display extreme demand avoidance behaviour, with or without a PDA diagnosis. Her research is supervised by Liz Pellicano and Laura Crane.
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