Improving communication between autistic and non-autistic individuals

Autistic people often experience difficulties with social communication. It is so common, in fact, that is it one of the central criteria for an autism diagnosis (see: DSM-5 criteria, APA, 2013). Social communication difficulties impact all areas of life and can contribute to things such as poor mental health outcomes and reduced opportunities for fulfilling social interactions as well as barriers to health and social care, education and employment.

For a long time, researchers have thought that these difficulties are due to autistic cognitive and social 'deficits'. When autism is seen as a disorder in this way, autistic people are thought of as not being able to communicate 'normally'. However, autism is now increasingly also thought of as a form of "neurodivergence" i.e. one particular way of being that is 'different, not less' to the majority (Fletcher-Watson and Happé, 2019: 23).

Because issues around autistic communication are so important, they were identified as a top priority for autism research by stakeholders in the most recent independent priority-setting report (James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership, in Cusack and Sterry, 2016: 6). Despite this, however, they remain 'relatively little studied' (Happé and Frith, 2020: 12).

This fellowship will widely share and build on the findings of my PhD research, which applied a fresh, emancipatory perspective to a cognitive linguistic study of autistic social communication. A theory called the double empathy problem (Milton, 2012) argues that non-autistic people have just as much trouble understanding autistic people, and that problems of mutual understanding between autistic and non-autistic speakers is best thought of as a two-way affair.

My research takes the double empathy problem as its starting point and tries to provide an explanation, in technical cognitive linguistic terms using relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986/1995), for why mutual understanding can sometimes break down.

The proposed activities of the fellowship centre around three key outputs, each designed with accessibility and meaningful stakeholder engagement in mind. While the primary aim is to maximise impact of the research itself on social policy and engagement with a broader autdience, these activities will also facilitate and support my development as an Early Career Researcher and prepare me for a successful academic career in Social Policy-oriented research.

Planned activities:

1) To establish and work in partnership with a stakeholder Advisory Group to coproduce a set of recommendations or guidance notes around best practice for communication between autistic and non-autistic speakers, specifically in health and social care settings. We will collectively consider an output strategy for our findings, so that they have the greatest chance possible of being embedded within the UK's forthcoming National Strategy for Disabled People.

2) To write and publish a public science-style monograph, written for a general readership, that presents the novel theoretical contributions from my PhD research. The publication and dissemination of this research will increase the visibility of my research profile while maximising the impact of this vital work on autistic verbal communication on social policy.

3) To work coproductively with a local community organisation, Figment Arts, to create a series of short, animated 'explainer' videos, presenting the empirical findings of my research in an engaging and accessible way. Figment Arts will support a small group of local autistic artists to learn animation skills and to illustrate, plan and make the videos.

These will be designed to be shared widely online, via social media, and will also be posted to the dedicated project webpage, hosted on the established Boingboing website.