The Autistic Advantage as an Researcher in Autism

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

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Whitney, E. (2025). The Autistic Advantage as an Researcher in Autism. In Neurodivergent Education and Lifelong Learning (pp. 383-404). IGI Global Scientific Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-8044-4.ch017 · ISBN : 9798369380444

Publication date: 8 Aug 2025 Added to AutiHub: 19 Oct 2026 Type: Book chapter Article language: Unknown or unsupported language
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Book containing this chapter, also included in AutiHub

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Authors

Publication authors
1
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 1 (100.0%)
  1. Esther Whitney *

Abstract

Studies have argued whether the autism research field has been fully welcoming to autistic researchers. Literature highlights that autistic researchers have unique strengths which are beneficial to the autism research field (Dwyer et al., 2021). As an openly autistic autism researcher I am in a unique position, I am able to approach participatory autism research from an inside perspective because of my experience of being ‘the researched'. Considering the autistic advantage in the context of an autism researcher as a notable part of the methodological approach, might seem unorthodox however many research projects are put together with little consideration in relation to autistic communication and rigid methodological approaches. This chapter will reflect on the two questions below. 1. How can personal experiences and knowledge of autism support the development of a fully collaborative research approach to allow the voices of autistic females to be heard? 2. How can creative and personalised approaches be used to engage autistic participants.

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: 23 Oct 2026 07:41.

Cited references
56
With a DOI
43
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
10
18 / 56 (32.1%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
10 / 56 (17.9%)
References with detected author names
51 / 56 (91.1%)
Without detected author names
5
Without a structured title
9
Without a stable identifier
10
References with raw author names still to review
4
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
139
From DOI or external metadata
139
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
11
77 / 139 (55.4%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 62 / 139 (44.6%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
31 / 139 (22.3%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 31 / 77 (40.3%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 24 / 124 (19.4%).
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