Autism has changed from being a narrowly-defined and rare condition, to a widely-defined spectrum encompassing more than 1% of the population.

Join Professor Francesca Happé, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, King's College London, in conversation with Professor Alan Stein, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health and Public Policy, for talk on changes in the concept of autism over the last several decades. 

Historically under-recognised in women and girls, autism is still likely under-diagnosed in older adults. While autism is no longer the preserve of child psychiatry and pediatrics, ageing on the autism spectrum remains a neglected field. A growing recognition of heterogeneity has led some to talk of the ‘autisms’, and it also appears that different aspects of autism (eg, social difficulties, rigid/repetitive traits) can occur in isolation, for example in relatives of those with autism. The importance of co-occurring challenges, particularly in mental health, has become increasingly clear. These, rather than core autism traits, are now considered the right treatment targets; we no longer talk of ‘curing’ autism, but rather recognise this and other forms of neurodivergence as part of natural variation. This last change is part of a wider movement in disability and neurodiversity, which brings autistic people into the centre of research co-design, although a challenge remains to hear all voices including those with few words. All of these changes bring new opportunities as well as new challenges.

Professor Francesca Happé

Francesca Happé, CBE FBA FMedSci, is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at King's College London. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Medical Sciences, past-President of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR; 2013-2015), and has received the British Psychological Society Spearman Medal and President’s Award, the Experimental Psychology Society Prize and the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award, as well as a CBE for services to the study of autism. 

For the last 30 years, Professor Francesca Happé's primary research focus has been autism. Her work has explored the nature of social understanding in neurotypical development and ‘mentalising’ difficulties in autism. Francesca is also actively engaged in studies of abilities and assets in autism, and their relation to detail-focused cognitive style. She is the co-author/editor of recent books including: Autism: A New Introduction to Psychological Theory and Debate (with Sue Fletcher-Watson), Girls and Autism: Educational, Family and Personal Perspectives (with Barry Carpenter and Jo Egerton), and Learning From Autistic Teachers: How to be a Neurodiversity-Inclusive School (with Rebecca Wood and colleagues).