‘A deep, empathetic, wondrous connection’: Autistic adults' definitions and experiences of nature connection

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. three authors of this publication are identified as autistic in the project.

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Friedman, S., McHaffie, S., Noble, R., & Stenning, A. (2025). ‘A deep, empathetic, wondrous connection’: Autistic adults' definitions and experiences of nature connection. People and Nature, 7(2), 504-515. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10779

Publication date: 13 Jan 2025 Added to AutiHub: 6 Jul 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) Full text OpenAlex source

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Authors

Publication authors
4
Publication authors identified as autistic
3 / 4 (75.0%)
  1. Samantha Friedman
  2. Sara McHaffie *
  3. Roan Noble *
  4. Anna Stenning *

Abstract

Abstract Connection to nature is an important concept for understanding human‐nature relationships, interests in nature and pro‐environmental behaviours. However, conceptualisations of this relationship thus far have excluded autistic perspectives. Through this reflexive thematic analysis of survey responses from 108 autistic participants in the UK, we sought to understand how autistic people define and experience connection to nature. Towards this aim, we developed three themes: ‘feeling that you benefit nature and nature benefits you’; ‘connecting with something ancient to which I nevertheless belong’; and ‘it makes me a little sad tbh.’ Across many participants in this sample, nature was not something they saw as separate from themselves (or from humans more generally), and so connection to nature was not a simple, unidirectional relationship nor a clear‐cut binary. Through this work, we hope to contribute towards the effort to imbue ecopsychology and related fields with the influences of critical disability studies. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 2 Oct 2026 08:05.

Cited references
74
With a DOI
62
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
12
17 / 74 (23.0%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
0 / 74 (0.0%)
References with detected author names
74 / 74 (100.0%)
Without detected author names
0
Without a structured title
0
Without a stable identifier
8
References with raw author names still to review
0
References with external metadata lookup issues
1
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
197
From DOI or external metadata
197
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
0
69 / 197 (35.0%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 128 / 197 (65.0%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
23 / 197 (11.7%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 23 / 69 (33.3%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 18 / 177 (10.2%).
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