Krysia Waldock

University of Kent | KENT · Tizard Centre

Neurodivergent people have been reported in academic literature to not always feel a sense of belonging within church congregations. Previous scholarship has highlighted that some neurodivergent people may be stigmatized and/or excluded within congregational settings. However little attention has been paid to how neurodivergent people belong within...

Although there is a growing field exploring Autistic people, faith and churches, negative attitudes remain towards Autistic people within some faith spaces. Our paper aims to unpick the theological and sociological issues behind negative attitudes, beliefs and practices. We will then tentatively suggest how this projects a neuronormative and able-b...

Access to church communities can be difficult for autistic people. Whilst specific autism guidelines are available for churches to follow, their dissemination among church communities, as well as churchgoers' attitudes towards autism is unknown. Semi-structured interviews were used with twenty-one adult church-goers from four Protestant churches in...

Although it is known within social sciences and beyond that autistic people have smaller social networks, less attention has been paid to how autistic people experience and understand ‘social inclusion’ and ‘belonging’. Within the academic literature, ‘social inclusion’ and ‘belonging’ have been interchangeably used, but with no clear consensus on...

Gelotophobia (fear of being laughed at) is an under-researched phenomenon in autistic people, yet can have a significant impact on autistic people’s quality of life. A narrative review was undertaken to explore if gelotophobia and being autistic are related and what is currently known in the academic literature regarding gelotophilia (joy of being...

Singer et al. (2023) argue that the current lexical shift within autism research towards more neutral terminology hinders accurate scientific description of the wide range of autistic experiences, particularly within clinical and medical contexts. We disagree with these claims. This letter is authored and co-signed by a diverse group of autistic re...

Purpose: The purpose of this letter to the editor is to further elucidate the arguments Keates (2022) and Beechey (2022) stated in their commentaries. Both Bambara (2022) and Camarata (2022) pose comments which require clarifying the original arguments, in particular regarding power and autistic sociality, which we feel will provide further clarity...

Michael Oliver's (1990; 2013) social model of disability inspired a sociological study aimed at improving service provision in higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom. Oliver (& Barnes, 2012, p. 30), calls for a 're-engagement with the real'. Therefore, a collaborative framework was applied here to explore neurodivergent student wellbeing in a...

Michael Oliver’s (1990; 2009; 2012; 2013) social model of disability inspired a sociological study aimed at improving service provision in higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom. Oliver (& Barnes, 2012, p. 30), calls for a ‘re-engagement with the real’. Therefore, a collaborative framework was applied to exploring neurodivergent student wellbe...

Purpose This narrative review aims to examine how trans people with intellectual disabilities are perceived and discussed in the academic literature. Design/methodology/approach A narrative review was carried out to better understand the positioning of people with intellectual disabilities who identify as trans. Findings There was a lack of clear...

collaborative research findings about neurodivergent HE student wellbeing

The aim was to undertake a narrative literature review seeking to examine how trans people with intellectual disability feature in the academic literature. The positioning of trans people with intellectual disability was explored.

Online Church is still the main way I access church. I have seen amazing growth in how people do church online, which has really encouraged me. In the months after I wrote this, the UK has been in two subsequent lockdowns which has solidified the need for a “Church without walls” which has, in my opinion, dramatically shifted community boundaries a...

This is an introductory chapter on what Critical Autism Studies is.

There is no abstract to this. I will note I insisted on using person first language to avoid antagnoising JADAD reviewers or editors. I used Pathological Demand Avoidance instead of Demand Avoidance Phenomena to ensure the article would appear in searches for PDA, while lowering word count.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the possible impact of normalisation on the perceptions of quality of life (QoL) and the impact of this association on the research to date. This commentary reflects on the implications of limiting QoL research to autistic people who are perceived to be “more able”. Design/methodology/approach Thi...