Dr. Holly E.A. Sutherland
@heasutherland.com
audhd postdoctoral researcher @Cambridge_Uni // currently midrash, reading diversity, and creativity // generally autism, neurodiversity, mixed methods
Hello! Im at #AECongress25 - do come say hi if you see me. I also have a talk this afternoon about the double empathy problem in care and support services!
September 12, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Hello! Im at #AECongress25 - do come say hi if you see me. I also have a talk this afternoon about the double empathy problem in care and support services!
I'm going to be speaking at this, as part of the "Human-AI teaming: Whose voices are missing?" session - talking about how neurodivergent voices and minds need to be included when designing AI to work collaboratively with humans.
August 18, 2025 at 9:35 AM
I'm going to be speaking at this, as part of the "Human-AI teaming: Whose voices are missing?" session - talking about how neurodivergent voices and minds need to be included when designing AI to work collaboratively with humans.
Belated because I've been super busy, but I graduated a few weeks ago! I'm *officially* Dr. Sutherland now.
Not sure I can really explain what that means to me - I've wanted a doctorate for as long as I can remember. Huge thanks to the wonderful supervisors who helped get me there. 💜
Not sure I can really explain what that means to me - I've wanted a doctorate for as long as I can remember. Huge thanks to the wonderful supervisors who helped get me there. 💜
July 29, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Belated because I've been super busy, but I graduated a few weeks ago! I'm *officially* Dr. Sutherland now.
Not sure I can really explain what that means to me - I've wanted a doctorate for as long as I can remember. Huge thanks to the wonderful supervisors who helped get me there. 💜
Not sure I can really explain what that means to me - I've wanted a doctorate for as long as I can remember. Huge thanks to the wonderful supervisors who helped get me there. 💜
Reminder that I'm doing a talk tomorrow for the Middletown Centre on neuro-affirming support for autistic people with higher support needs. Aimed at carers, professionals, parents etc. - do come along!
More info & ticket link: www.heasutherland.com/talk/neuro-a...
More info & ticket link: www.heasutherland.com/talk/neuro-a...
April 8, 2025 at 9:27 AM
Reminder that I'm doing a talk tomorrow for the Middletown Centre on neuro-affirming support for autistic people with higher support needs. Aimed at carers, professionals, parents etc. - do come along!
More info & ticket link: www.heasutherland.com/talk/neuro-a...
More info & ticket link: www.heasutherland.com/talk/neuro-a...
Reminding me that I really, *really* need to take "Empire of Normality" with me to read on my annual leave next week. (Fein, 2018; "Autism as a Mode of Engagement")
April 7, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Reminding me that I really, *really* need to take "Empire of Normality" with me to read on my annual leave next week. (Fein, 2018; "Autism as a Mode of Engagement")
This morning, I had the pleasure of talking at @autisticsociety.bsky.social's conference about neuroaffirming practice. This afternoon, I was looking over my autism diagnosis report (from '08!), and saw this at the end of it. Got a lot of feelings about now being part of producing those resources...
March 13, 2025 at 3:47 PM
This morning, I had the pleasure of talking at @autisticsociety.bsky.social's conference about neuroaffirming practice. This afternoon, I was looking over my autism diagnosis report (from '08!), and saw this at the end of it. Got a lot of feelings about now being part of producing those resources...
Updated my website with some talks I'm doing over the next few months - a lot of stuff aimed at professionals working with autistic people, including autistic people with higher support needs.
More info & booking links at: heasutherland.com/event/
More info & booking links at: heasutherland.com/event/
March 5, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Updated my website with some talks I'm doing over the next few months - a lot of stuff aimed at professionals working with autistic people, including autistic people with higher support needs.
More info & booking links at: heasutherland.com/event/
More info & booking links at: heasutherland.com/event/
I'm excited to be one of the speakers at @autisticsociety.bsky.social's Annual Professionals’ Conference, live online on 13th March 2025.
The conference's theme is exploring neuroaffirmative practice. I'll be talking about high support needs.
Tickets and information: www.autism.org.uk/conference
The conference's theme is exploring neuroaffirmative practice. I'll be talking about high support needs.
Tickets and information: www.autism.org.uk/conference
March 3, 2025 at 4:28 PM
I'm excited to be one of the speakers at @autisticsociety.bsky.social's Annual Professionals’ Conference, live online on 13th March 2025.
The conference's theme is exploring neuroaffirmative practice. I'll be talking about high support needs.
Tickets and information: www.autism.org.uk/conference
The conference's theme is exploring neuroaffirmative practice. I'll be talking about high support needs.
Tickets and information: www.autism.org.uk/conference
Re-reading through my thesis in advance of my viva (which is tomorrow?!) and, out of 112,000 words worth of sentences, I think these two might be my favourite:
February 24, 2025 at 10:43 AM
Re-reading through my thesis in advance of my viva (which is tomorrow?!) and, out of 112,000 words worth of sentences, I think these two might be my favourite:
Sneak preview of my contribution to this "methods with nonspeaking people" seminar: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/qualitativ... Grab a free online ticket now!
January 28, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Sneak preview of my contribution to this "methods with nonspeaking people" seminar: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/qualitativ... Grab a free online ticket now!
Why does Outlook think it more likely that people will be working at *midnight on a Wednesday* than at 5.09pm on a Tuesday?!
January 21, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Why does Outlook think it more likely that people will be working at *midnight on a Wednesday* than at 5.09pm on a Tuesday?!
I'll be talking as part of this next Thursday! If you'd like a more methods-focused insight into my ethnographic research with autistic people with high support needs, do come along. The fantastic Léon van Ommen and Freddie Jones will also be presenting.
January 21, 2025 at 2:20 PM
I'll be talking as part of this next Thursday! If you'd like a more methods-focused insight into my ethnographic research with autistic people with high support needs, do come along. The fantastic Léon van Ommen and Freddie Jones will also be presenting.
Today's mood, btw:
December 3, 2024 at 10:55 AM
Today's mood, btw:
Not enjoying doing thesis edits on a Sunday, but I'm so close to being finished that I can almost taste it...
(And, of course, I'm being helped along by The Bean's generous squatting on my lap. Always helps with doing something unpleasant when you have a little cat to assist.)
(And, of course, I'm being helped along by The Bean's generous squatting on my lap. Always helps with doing something unpleasant when you have a little cat to assist.)
December 1, 2024 at 12:21 PM
Not enjoying doing thesis edits on a Sunday, but I'm so close to being finished that I can almost taste it...
(And, of course, I'm being helped along by The Bean's generous squatting on my lap. Always helps with doing something unpleasant when you have a little cat to assist.)
(And, of course, I'm being helped along by The Bean's generous squatting on my lap. Always helps with doing something unpleasant when you have a little cat to assist.)
Working on a lecture I'm giving for some students on Stirling's autism masters course on Friday, and I'm actually quite excited about it. We're going to be talking about how the neurodiversity paradigm applies to autistic people with high support needs, especially re: support & interventions.
November 27, 2024 at 4:02 PM
Working on a lecture I'm giving for some students on Stirling's autism masters course on Friday, and I'm actually quite excited about it. We're going to be talking about how the neurodiversity paradigm applies to autistic people with high support needs, especially re: support & interventions.
… and this hostility can be due to “autistic deficits” (participants' words), misunderstandings, or people’s histories with trauma/ableism. Also a) aut community is still trying to work out what being authentically autistic looks like! and b) autistic people are not monolithic + “we’re all human”.
November 5, 2024 at 12:57 PM
… and this hostility can be due to “autistic deficits” (participants' words), misunderstandings, or people’s histories with trauma/ableism. Also a) aut community is still trying to work out what being authentically autistic looks like! and b) autistic people are not monolithic + “we’re all human”.
Theme 5: Autistic community is complicated. Other aut ppl good to be around, but aut communities (esp. online) can be exclusionary and hostile, esp to the newly autistic who don’t know the right words etc. …
November 5, 2024 at 12:56 PM
Theme 5: Autistic community is complicated. Other aut ppl good to be around, but aut communities (esp. online) can be exclusionary and hostile, esp to the newly autistic who don’t know the right words etc. …
Theme 3: Autistic people put a lot of effort into accommodating nonautistic preferences, but nonautistic people are bad at accommodating autistic preferences. This is unfair and upsetting. Nonaut ppl often think they’re being empathetic to aut ppl but are not.
November 5, 2024 at 12:55 PM
Theme 3: Autistic people put a lot of effort into accommodating nonautistic preferences, but nonautistic people are bad at accommodating autistic preferences. This is unfair and upsetting. Nonaut ppl often think they’re being empathetic to aut ppl but are not.
…about their social communication style & preferences, and their experiences interacting with other autistic vs. nonautistic people. Thematic analysis. Five themes:
November 5, 2024 at 12:55 PM
…about their social communication style & preferences, and their experiences interacting with other autistic vs. nonautistic people. Thematic analysis. Five themes:
Result #3: Autism identification is very context dependent, especially for autistic observers. Autistic observers change guess behaviour between photos and videos (nonautist observers don’t): their guessing becomes closer to nonautistic guess pattern in photo task…
November 4, 2024 at 10:06 AM
Result #3: Autism identification is very context dependent, especially for autistic observers. Autistic observers change guess behaviour between photos and videos (nonautist observers don’t): their guessing becomes closer to nonautistic guess pattern in photo task…
…this is largely because of the effects of averaging over a lot of different conditions. We’re good at identifying autism! Better than nonautistic observers. We just often think pairs of nonautistic people are both autistic. So this might be guess bias, not autdar.
November 4, 2024 at 10:05 AM
…this is largely because of the effects of averaging over a lot of different conditions. We’re good at identifying autism! Better than nonautistic observers. We just often think pairs of nonautistic people are both autistic. So this might be guess bias, not autdar.
Result #2: Autistic observers are not better than nonautistic observers at identifying autism in others – we seem to be slightly worse, actually. (Caveat: this is just for *watching* interactions. Results might be different when taking part in interactions.) But…
November 4, 2024 at 10:04 AM
Result #2: Autistic observers are not better than nonautistic observers at identifying autism in others – we seem to be slightly worse, actually. (Caveat: this is just for *watching* interactions. Results might be different when taking part in interactions.) But…
Results #1: It’s easiest to identify autism in mixed pairs. Very hard for autistic pairs; observers tend to think both are nonautistic! We think this is probably because people are looking for social awkwardness to identify autism, and autistic pairs aren’t awkward.
November 4, 2024 at 10:03 AM
Results #1: It’s easiest to identify autism in mixed pairs. Very hard for autistic pairs; observers tend to think both are nonautistic! We think this is probably because people are looking for social awkwardness to identify autism, and autistic pairs aren’t awkward.
We know autistic sociality and communication differs to nonautistic, but how? Not a lot of rich descriptions of this from autistic perspectives, so we did a focus group with nine autistic adults about their social/communicative experiences and thematically analysed it. Five themes:
November 1, 2024 at 9:49 AM
We know autistic sociality and communication differs to nonautistic, but how? Not a lot of rich descriptions of this from autistic perspectives, so we did a focus group with nine autistic adults about their social/communicative experiences and thematically analysed it. Five themes:
The video from my talk at MMU's #LearningDisability and #autism seminar series, "Friendships, fear, and (double) empathy: an ethnography of social care services for autistic people with high support needs" is now up!
🎥Check it out at www.heasutherland.com/talk/friends...
🎥Check it out at www.heasutherland.com/talk/friends...
October 30, 2024 at 10:21 AM
The video from my talk at MMU's #LearningDisability and #autism seminar series, "Friendships, fear, and (double) empathy: an ethnography of social care services for autistic people with high support needs" is now up!
🎥Check it out at www.heasutherland.com/talk/friends...
🎥Check it out at www.heasutherland.com/talk/friends...