These are some of the research questions I concluded that I've not found answers for - these are dissertation ideas, not grant applications - in a field I've struggled to find much institutional appetite for, that being Neurodiversity Psychology. I write them here on the chance that changes: a university willing to take them on, an organisation willing to fund them.
Fear generalises across situations. Safety does not - it stays attached to the conditions it was learned in, which is why extinguished fear comes back when you change the room. Now make the room internal. ADHD is a condition of fluctuating arousal,...
Continue readingRejection sensitivity in ADHD is not usually described as an overreaction. It is described as a failure of things to fade. The rejections stay vivid and the thousands of ordinary interactions that went fine never accumulate as counter-evidence. There is now a...
Continue readingLate diagnosis of autism in adulthood is rising, and AuDHD - co-occurring autism and ADHD - is common enough that pooled estimates put it around two in five autistic people, with individual studies ranging far wider than that pooled figure suggests. Is...
Continue readingIn the laboratory, competition suits autistic people rather well. Put an autistic child in a competitive game and their performance improves. Embed a false-belief task inside a contest with a prize and the proportion passing rises from thirteen per cent to seventy-four....
Continue readingAutism and ADHD are now routinely diagnosed in adults in their thirties, forties and fifties. At those ages most people are partnered, and have been for some time. A late diagnosis therefore does not arrive into a life. It arrives into a...
Continue readingWeight-loss drugs like semaglutide (a.k.a., GLP-1's) work by changing how the body senses hunger and fullness. Many autistic people sense hunger and fullness differently. Does the drug therefore work differently for us - better, worse, or simply strangely?
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