Sophie Hall.
BSc Education and Psychology.
In recent years, there has been a call for more community based research partnerships, in which members of the autism community (including autistic people, families and practitioners) work alongside researchers to create and inform research. Studies have highlighted that the autism community are generally dissatisfied about the type of research being conducted in the UK, as it predominantly focuses on the biological and neurological nature of autism. The autism community prioritise research on aspects that affect the daily lives of autistic people and their families (e.g., research looking into public service provision).
This project looks at what the academic literature says about community based research partnerships, in terms of their success and weaknesses. Whilst this project is ongoing, findings so far indicate that there is still a significant lack of community involvement in research, but more is being done to encourage research-community partnerships (e.g., through funding and policy development), so this may change over the next few years. You can read in detail about the project’s findings here.