Comparing qualitative thematic analysis and machine-based topic modelling in the analysis of autistic and ADHD young people’s accounts of emotions

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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Lukito, S., Li, L., Chandler, S., Kakoulidou, M., Pavlopoulou, G., Matejko, M., Jackson, I., Balwani, B., Boyens, T., Poulton, D., Harvey-Nguyen, L., Johnson, A., Stahl, D., Roberts, A., Sonuga-Barke, E. J., team, t. R., Sonuga-Barke, E. J., Chandler, S., Danese, A.,..., & Wilson, A. (2026). Comparing qualitative thematic analysis and machine-based topic modelling in the analysis of autistic and ADHD young people’s accounts of emotions. Scientific Reports, 16(1), Article 4615. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-34570-7

Publication date: 28 Jan 2026 Added to AutiHub: 9 Oct 2026 Type: Article Article language: English

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Authors

Publication authors
45
Publication authors identified as autistic
3 / 45 (6.7%)

Abstract

Abstract Systematic analysis of interview data can provide important insights into how young people experience and interpret their emotions. Both human-led qualitative (e.g., thematic analysis) and machine-driven quantitative (e.g., natural language processing [NLP]) analytical approaches are available, but their solutions are rarely compared. Interview responses by 57 neurodivergent adolescents to questions about their emotions, previously analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (RTA), were submitted to Topic Modelling (TM). Topic labels were developed in collaboration with neurodivergent co-researchers to ground their meaning in the lived experience of neurodivergent communities. Topics were mapped to RTA themes or subthemes to examine their proximities. Topic-based cluster analysis was used to identify participant groupings with similar topic distributions. TM revealed 10 interpretable and meaningful emotion-related topics – some closely overlapping with and others differing from the RTA themes. TM topics differentiated the young people’s emotional experiences at school from those in other settings. TM and RTA resulted in overlapping and different insights into the meaning of neurodivergent young people’s accounts of their emotions. Our findings demonstrate the potential use of TM in interview analysis and might suggest a potential complementarity between the TM topics and RTA themes, to be further explored using more advanced algorithms and a more sophisticated NLP implementation.

Bibliography cited by this reference

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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: 17 Oct 2026 01:01.

Cited references
72
With a DOI
54
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
18
4 / 72 (5.6%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
11 / 72 (15.3%)
References with detected author names
67 / 72 (93.1%)
Without detected author names
5
Without a structured title
11
Without a stable identifier
18
References with raw author names still to review
5
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
252
From DOI or external metadata
252
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
5
82 / 252 (32.5%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 170 / 252 (67.5%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
5 / 252 (2.0%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 5 / 82 (6.1%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 4 / 207 (1.9%).
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