Very excited to share our new paper describing the development and pilot evaluation of the Children's Masking Questionnaire (CMQ)! #frontiersinpsychiatry www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

Frontiers | Development and pilot evaluation of the Children’s Masking Questionnaire

IntroductionNo tools currently exist to measure children’s experience of masking/camouflaging autistic characteristics.MethodUsing co-production approaches, ...

frontiersin.org

New preprint! The Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q) is widely used in autism research, but until now there was no validated Brazilian Portuguese version. To read more: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Pleased to share our new paper, out open-access in Psychological Medicine. In this work we looked at the relationship between childhood trauma, autism/ autistic traits and depression over a 28 year follow-up in the ALSPAC birth cohort.

How do autistic adults make sense of being assigned the "challenging behaviour" label? *RECRUITING PARTICIPANTS* I am autistic & I have been assigned the "challenging behaviour" label Supervisor: @drstevenkapp.bsky.social Email Chloe.Apter@myport.ac.uk to express interest/for more information

Update: Young people & families today received shocking & transphobic letters from NHS. These letters tell people that endocrine care (blockers / HRT) is being fully withdrawn in 7 weeks time (July 31st). Forced medical detransition. This country is a danger to trans children & young people.

Cal Horton (they/them)@fiercemum.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Trans adolescents accessing the only NHS route to healthcare (WellBN) have been through a stressful year long transphobic investigation. For a year they have sat under the threat of forced medical detransition. With significant negative impacts. 1/2

no other way to say it, this thing in the uk where every single time a non-white person is in the news being accused of a crime we have full on race riots is very very bad

The new EHRC guidance is a joke. It defines the protected category of sex by biology and then relies on enforcement based on appearance. The GRC has effectively been nullified. It's involuntary disclosure carries criminal penalties but then requires Anyone having a GRC to constantly out themselves.

At last I have got around to responding to Professor Dame Uta Frith's TES piece, in which she questions the autism spectrum In a nutshell, I disagree... "yes, autism is a broad and diverse category — that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the category itself" medium.com/@suefletcher...

5 yrs ago @shanclapoint.bsky.social and I found most autism intervention studies published in ABA journals were authored by researchers who were also clinicians/ consultants, but this COI was almost never declared. We have an update! Things are now... worse! 1/6 journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....

New paper alert! We summarise current knowledge on how to use the CAT-Q in research and clinical settings, and offer recommendations on what (not) to do, as well as priorities for future research. 1/4

Meng-Chuan Lai@mengchuanlai.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Sharing our opinions and words of caution on the (mis)use of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q), via @autisminadulthood.bsky.social : journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Sharing our opinions and words of caution on the (mis)use of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q), via @autisminadulthood.bsky.social : journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The Use and Misuse of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire in Autism Research and Clinical Practice: Issues, Considerations, and Suggestions - Benjamin Ross Hannon, Laura Hull, Meng-Chuan La...

In this Perspective, we summarize the evidence to date around the use of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q) as a tool in research and clinic...

journals.sagepub.com

I'm in the Guardian today, writing about the question of overdiagnosis of mental illness. I argue we need to stop seeing this as a binary yes/no question - is overdiagnosis happening or is the increase real? - and acknowledge that multiple things can be happening at once tinyurl.com/yzsey97c

Are we really overdiagnosing mental illness?

It’s tempting to dismiss the proliferation of labels as a fad, but there’s more to this phenomenon than a simple culture-war reading allows

theguardian.com

In a functional country, this would be a scandal. A service suffering only from chronic underfunding was ripped apart because the media created a myth of 1000s of complaints of malpractice. The truth - as in my family’s experience - was very different. www.thepinknews.com/2026/02/11/n...

NHS closed Tavistock over care complaints – there were only eight

An eye-opening FOI report has revealed that just eight people complained about the Tavistock gender clinic's care provision in 10 years.

thepinknews.com

I'm editing a Special Collection for Women's Health on autistic women and girls' health and wellbeing - particularly interested in submissions from the Global South and with under-researched groups! journals.sagepub.com/topic/collec...

Another new open-access paper (w/ Dr Elly Nuzum, Prof Josh Stott and Dr Amber John) has been published in Nature Mental Health! Using data from PROTECT (n=9979, age 50+), we found that the relationship between #autistic traits and #suicidality was mediated by mental health and social problems.

Autistic traits and suicidality in midlife and old age: investigating mediating effects of mental health and social connectedness - Nature Mental Health

Nuzum et al. used cross-sectional data from the UK PROTECT study to evaluate the relationship between high autistic traits and suicidality in older adults.

nature.com

Our new study, just published in Nature Mental Health: Symptom change in depression and anxiety during psychological therapy for autistic adults... [1/8] 🧵⤵️ #autres #mentalhealth www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Symptom change in depression and anxiety during psychological therapy for autistic adults - Nature Mental Health

Pender et al. evaluated depression and anxiety symptom trajectories in autistic adults receiving routine therapy in UK primary care.

nature.com

Are you an autistic person aged 18+ from the Global Majority, who has received talking therapy for support around anxiety? We hope to include a diverse range of voices to inform our study, which involves a 75 minute online interview. To find out more, please follow this link: dub.sh/LzKn6is

Are you an autistic person aged 18+ who camouflages, and is interested to take part in a study evaluating support for people who camouflage? It involves 3 support sessions, weekly questionnaires, and a final interview. To find out more, please follow this link - qualtrics.ucl.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_...

#AutRes #devpsy

Laura Hull@lauralhull.bsky.social · 3y ago

Research request: looking for parents and teachers to help me pilot a new questionnaire of masking behaviours in children. As long as you are a parent/teacher of children aged 8-12 in the UK (whether they are neurodivergent or not) you're eligible! Contact me (email below) for more info.

Research request: looking for parents and teachers to help me pilot a new questionnaire of masking behaviours in children. As long as you are a parent/teacher of children aged 8-12 in the UK (whether they are neurodivergent or not) you're eligible! Contact me (email below) for more info.

#HiSciSky Finally dipping my toes into this brave new world! I'm a researcher at the University of Bristol looking at masking/camouflaging and mental health in neurodivergent people. Have a cat picture (Minna enjoying the sunshine)! #AcademicSky #AutRes