Cutting our own keys: New possibilities of neurodivergent storying in research

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

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Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, H., Botha, M., Hens, K., O’Donoghue, S., Pearson, A., & Stenning, A. (2022). Cutting our own keys: New possibilities of neurodivergent storying in research. Autism, 27(5), 1235-1244. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613221132107

Publication date: 19 Oct 2022 Added to AutiHub: 4 Jul 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) Full text OpenAlex source

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Authors

Publication authors
6
Publication authors identified as autistic
5 / 6 (83.3%)
  1. Hannah Bertilsdotter Rosqvist *
  2. Monique Botha *
  3. Kristien Hens
  1. Sarinah O’Donoghue *
  2. Amy Pearson *
  3. Anna Stenning *

Abstract

Increasingly, neurodivergent people are sharing their own narratives and conducting their own research. Prominent individuals have integrated the ‘nothing about us without us’ slogan, used by neurodivergent and other disabled social activists, into academia. This article imagines a neuromixed academia. We consider how to work through challenges present in neuromixed encounters; to support cross-neurotype communication and pave the way for an ethos of community and collaboration. We explore how we might create a space in which neurodivergent experiences are seen as just one part of our complex and multifaceted identities. We do this through the process of ‘cutting our own keys’, to try out new possibilities of neurodivergent storying aimed at finding ourselves in our own stories about neurodivergence. This involves borrowing and developing methodological approaches formulated outside of research on different forms of neurodivergence, and to invent our own concepts based on our own embodied experiences and the social worlds we inhabit. Throughout, we mingle our own autoethnographic accounts in relation to research accounts and theories, as a way of illustrating the work with the text as a thinking about neurodivergence with each other in itself. Lay abstract A lot of people who do research are also neurodivergent (such as being autistic or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), but neurodivergent people do not always feel welcome in research spaces which are often shaped around neurotypical people. Some neurotypical researchers lack confidence in talking to neurodivergent people, and others feel like neurodivergent people might not be able to do good research about other people who are like them without being biased. We think it is important that all researchers are able to work well together, regardless of whether they are neurotypical, autistic, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (or any other neurotype) – in truly ‘neurodiverse’ teams. In this article we talk about how to create better spaces for all researchers, where we feel valued for who we are and take each others’ needs into account. We do this using some approaches from other areas of research and talking about how they relate to our personal experiences of being neurodivergent researchers with our own personal stories. This article adds to a growing work on how we can work with people who are different from us, in more respectful and kind ways.

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 07:50.

Cited references
58
With a DOI
37
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
21
18 / 58 (31.0%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
6 / 58 (10.3%)
References with detected author names
56 / 58 (96.6%)
Without detected author names
2
Without a structured title
5
Without a stable identifier
18
References with raw author names still to review
1
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
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
90
From DOI or external metadata
90
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
1
43 / 90 (47.8%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 47 / 90 (52.2%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
23 / 90 (25.6%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 23 / 43 (53.5%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 15 / 78 (19.2%).
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