Kathy Leadbitter

📣 RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY 📣

Autistic Mothers & Children's Social Work Study

We are looking for #Autistic mothers who can say "YES" to all:

✅ Are mothers, including birth mothers, stepmothers, same-sex partners, adoptive mothers, foster carers, or kinship carers, etc.
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Happy New Year Bluesky peeps!

Are you #autistic? Please see our latest call for survey volunteers for a PhD project exploring autistic #inertia.

Interested? More information & the survey can be found here: www.qualtrics.manchester.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_...

Last chance to take part in this survey which closes at the end or March

Last chance to participate in this important research. Survey closes end March

Yes, yes I do

Katie... where autistic people are concerned, difference = deficit ... come on, you know this! 🙃

I would say you have a youthful charm too Dr K

You are certainly very youthful

Autistic people: please consider taking part!

Winter Roundup: Toolkit Evaluation, Café Autistique, and What’s Next

Winter Blog post📢 #autism #research reflections including our December Cafe Autistique, an update on the research involvement toolkit & the new 2nd year Autism module co-developed with #autistic people for second year psychology students @fbmh-uom.bsky.social
sites.manchester.ac.uk/autism-at-ma...

Love this

I've seen some posts about gestalt language processing in autism again. Just to say we have no evidence that autistic language learners process language in that way. Some of us do produce language in that way though. Important not to conflate processing with production.

📢Are you #autistic and living in the UK? Would you like to provide feedback on our short films about autistic adults' experiences of #dance? We are running online focus groups in the new year to discuss the films and other resources. Email me for more info: kelly.birtwell@manchester.ac.uk 💃🕺

Nnena Kalu’s embodied, sensuous art makes her a worthy Turner prize winner The closer you get to Kalu’s endless sinewy trails of old VHS tape, the harder it is to know where their forms stop and the space around them begins

Nnena Kalu’s embodied, sensuous art makes her a worthy Turner prize winner

We are looking for clinicians who work with autistic people without Learning Disabilities to support their sensory motor needs to complete a survey asking experiences asssing and supporting autistic adults.

www.qualtrics.manchester.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_...

Wrong

Wes Streeting orders review of mental health diagnoses as benefit claims soar Health secretary has asked experts to investigate whether normal feelings have become ‘over-pathologised’

And the guardian:
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Beautiful and evocative. So true about medical professionals working in their silos. Glad you got your diagnosis x

Welcome to my body After twenty years of pain and repeated medical dead ends, a stranger sent me a message on Instagram. It led to a diagnosis all the doctors…

Last month, I found out I have hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, after decades of chronic pain and medical disinterest.

I've decided to write publicly about this, not just about hypermobility and its health impacts, but about how it feels when doctors don't care:

medium.com/p/4fea6398b8ba

New autism strategy must deliver change for autistic people - Committees - UK Parliament This is the key conclusion reached by the House of Lords special inquiry committee on the Autism Act 2009 in its report ‘Time to deliver: The Autism Act 2009 and the new autism strategy’.&...

Today, @hlautismactcom.parliament.uk published their report, 'Time to deliver: The Autism Act 2009 and the new autism strategy'.

Access the full report and recommendations (including easy read report, video from the Chair, and shorthand story) here: committees.parliament.uk/committee/77... [1/4]

📢Research opportunity for #autistic adults! We are running an online focus group about autistic adults experiences of #mindfulness, and opinions on the suitability of mindfulness outcome questionnaires. We have a few spots left, please get in touch if interested 🙏

Autism assessment frogs the last thing autistics see before they die, scientists confirm A groundbreaking study has reportedly discovered that the flying frogs from the ADOS assessment appear to autistic people before they die. The study found that the frogs from the book Tuesday, used…

The study found that the frogs from the book Tuesday, used in the standard autism assessment, appear to autistic people in their final moments. In these visions, they seemingly explain the story, allowing autistics to pass to the other side finally at peace.

Understanding the relationship between autism and hypermobility | Precision Medicine Doctoral Training Programme | Usher Institute Precision Medicine Project - Understanding the relationship between autism and hypermobility

We are recruiting a fully-funded 3.5yr PhD student to examine the potential genetic relationships between autism and hypermobility. Full details of the project and how to apply here ⬇️

usher.ed.ac.uk/precision-me...

Deadline Jan 12th! Within the Precision Medicine DTC at Edinburgh.

Midwife: OK, so you're at 10cm now so it'll soon be time to start pushing

Kristen: yeah yeah yeah no problem, I'm onto Limitations now anyway so all gooddddd ... arrgghhhhh!

It's impressive, Kristen, but not as impressive as when you wrote a manuscript actually in labour! 🤯

You two 🤣

📢 New Research Opportunity!
Are you:
➡️ A neurodivergent (ND) young adult (18-25)?
➡️ A parent/caregiver of a ND young adult?
➡️ A mental health professional working with this group?
We’re studying depression in ND young adults from diverse racial backgrounds.
📩 e.hayashibara@qmul.ac.uk
🔽 More info

Katie, we should submit an abstract

Journal of Intellectual Disability Research is inviting applications for the role of Editor-in-Chief

A reminder that Wiley is recruiting an Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Intellectual Disability Research. The deadline for applications is 31st October 2025.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...