In 2018, Jaswal and Akhtar wrote a paper that questioned the assumption that autistic people are socially uninterested. They provided a compelling argument, explaining that this apparent lack of social motivation in autism was not consistent with how autistic people describe themselves, and did not recognise the many other reasons why autistic people may behave in unconventional ways. The paper has attracted comments from more than 30 scholars across many disciplines.

CRAE’s Brett Heasman and Alex Gillespie (The London School of Economics and Political Science – LSE) published their response, suggesting that by examining how autistic people appraise autistic behaviour, it can provide solutions to improving neurotypical-to-autistic interaction.

Read the original study here https://bit.ly/2ZevkOW and Brett’s and Alex’s full response here https://bit.ly/2LLSOI7