Profile
I am a clinical professional with a background in Speech and Language Therapy in Intellectual Disabilities, Autism and Mental Health. I worked as a Senior Lecturer in Speech and Language Therapy at De Montfort University for three years. I am also a fully accredited autism diagnostician of adults. I am in my final year of an NIHR funded PhD at the University of Leicester. This research focuses on the role of staff in communicating with and involving autistic in-patients in their care in mental health hospital settings. The theoretical framework informing this piece of work is competence focused as opposed to being impairment oriented, and this supports a focus on change directed at communication partners. My current position is a Research Associate in Visual Communication in Medicine for the DECODE project with Thomas Jun and Panos Baloutsoukas. I will be facilitating the focus groups with people with learning disabilities, and writing a literature review on the effectiveness of different strategies to support people with learning disabilities to better make sense of health information.