Research papers

Below, you will find research I have led or been closely involved in. Click each title to find a PDF of the paper, a plain English summary and video explanation. Each page will open in a new tab.

Please note that this area is under construction - links will become live as I create new content, so please check back later for other papers. It takes a while to make accessible versions, so in the meantime, you can see my up to date publication list on my professional page.

Self-injury and suicidality in autistic people

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"Community priorities for preventing suicide in autistic people: an approach to guide policy and practice" (coming soon)

"'The best way we can stop suicides is by making lives worth living': perspectives on suicide prevention from the autism community" (coming soon)

"'I did not think they could help me': UK-based autistic adults’ reasons for not seeking public healthcare when experiencing suicidality" (2025)

"'A combination of everything': a mixed-methods approach to the factors which autistic people consider important in suicidality" (2025)

"Lifetime stressor exposure is related to suicidality in autistic adults: A multinational study" (2025)

"Empathic disequilibrium as a predictor of non-suicidal self-injury in autistic and non-autistic people" (2024)

"Potential mechanisms underlying suicidality in autistic people with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): testing hypotheses from the interpersonal theory of suicide" (2023)

"Non-suicidal self-injury and its relation to suicide through acquired capability: testing this causal mechanism in a mainly late-diagnosed autistic sample" (2022)

"The relevance of the interpersonal theory of suicide for predicting past-year and lifetime suicidality in autistic adults" (2022)

"Links between self-injury and suicidality in autism" (2020)

"A 'choice', an 'addiction', a way 'out of the lost': Exploring self-injury in autistic people without intellectual disability" (2019)

Autistic experiences of menopause

You can now pre-order our book on autism and menopause (released January 2026). It's based on the research below and includes:

Why menopause might be tough for neurodivergent people - the psychology and biology;

Stories and advice from 16 experts by experience, illustrated by an autistic post-menopausal artist

Chapters on ADHD, gender-divergence, coping advice, advice for doctors...

Click this text to find out more!

"Menopause representations as predictors of health and wellbeing during menopause: A comparison study of autistic and non-autistic people" (coming soon)

"'Stepping into who I fully am': a creative exploration of autistic menopause" (2025)

“'Struggling for years': an international survey on autistic experiences of menopause" (2024)

"'A perfect storm': Autistic experiences of menopause and midlife" (2024)

"Autism research is ‘all about the blokes and the kids’: Autistic women breaking the silence on menopause" (2021)

"‘When my autism broke’: A qualitative study spotlighting autistic voices on menopause" (2020)

Physical and mental health issues related to autism

"Sex-specific mechanisms for eating disorder risk in men and women with autistic traits: the role of alexithymia" (2023)

"Lifetime and perceived stress, social support, loneliness, and health in autistic adults" (2021)

"Alexithymia may explain the relationship between autistic traits and eating disorder psychopathology" (2020)

"The loneliness of me: The assumption of social disinterest and its worrying consequences in autism" (2019)

Social, cognitive and emotional processes in autistic and non-autistic people

Perceived neurotype of the other may affect self/other-representation in autistic people. (coming soon!)

"Levels of self-representation and their sociocognitive correlates in late-diagnosed autistic adults" (2021)

"Self-reported sex differences in high-functioning adults with autism: A meta-analysis" (2018)

"What can autism teach us about the role of sensorimotor systems in higher cognition? New clues from studies on language, action semantics, and abstract emotional concept processing" (2018)

"Default mode hypoconnectivity underlies a sex-related autism spectrum" (2016)

"Reduced volume of the arcuate fasciculus in adults with high-functioning autism spectrum conditions" (2016)

"Whole-brain functional hypoconnectivity as an endophenotype of autism in adolescents" (2015)

"Lost for emotion words: what motor and limbic brain activity reveals about autism and semantic theory" (2015)

"Brain routes for reading in adults with and without autism: EMEG evidence" (2014)

"Nouns, verbs, objects, actions, and abstractions: Local fMRI activity indexes semantics, not lexical categories" (2014)

"Brain and behavioral correlates of action semantic deficits in autism" (2013)

"Sensorimotor semantics on the spot: brain activity dissociates between conceptual categories within 150 ms" (2013)

"A role for the motor system in binding abstract emotional meaning" (2012)

Other papers I have co-authored

I have been a more minor contributor to several other papers on the topics of language processing, attention, autism, and eating disorders. For completeness (you know how an autistic brain needs completeness), you can find a list and summaries of these other papers here. You will also be able to download them if you wish.