I started out as a teenager volunteering in a class of children with autism and quickly decided that I wanted to do work which would benefit their lives. More recently, I started to specialise in digital support tools – like co-designed iPad apps for autistic children – because so many people with autism seem to have an affinity and preference for working with tech. It makes sense to me to provide learning and development in a preferred medium if we can.

One group of projects I am very excited about is looking at bilingualism and autism.  In a nutshell, bilingualism seems to enhance the development of various thinking processes which are typically difficult for autistic people.  So we are asking – in a number of studies with adults and children – what about autistic bilinguals?  Do they enjoy the same benefits and if so, should we be thinking about second languages as a way to empower autistic learners?

The variety. I get to do so many different things in a given week and I feel I am constantly being intellectually stretched and challenged.

Edinburgh hosts world-class science but it is a friendly and collaborative community.  There are not the same internal competitions for resources that I see colleagues experiencing in some other UK Universities. People want you to succeed and they do not see that as being at the expense of their own success.

We use eye-trackers in a number of studies.  By recording where someone is looking you can make lots of inferences about their cognitive processes.  For example looking at something for a long time means you find it interesting, but if you look for a long time with many short individual “fixations” then that might also mean you are finding the image hard to comprehend.

We have tons of toys in the lab – we video parents playing with their children, as a way to capture real-world social interactions. There is a jack-in-the-box I am particularly fond of.