Opening up understanding of neurodiversity: A call for applying participatory and open scholarship practices

Abstract

Democratic] societies: Puithllam et al., 2022). Hitherto, neurodivergent perspectives -i.e. non-pathological variations in human brains (Walker, 2021)-are often overlooked and misunderstood within behavioural and cognitive sciences. It is common to encounter assumptions that anything outside of neurotypicality is at best dismissed as outlier data, or at worst, considered disadvantageous and in need of 'fixing ' (e.g., Gernsbacher & Pripas-Kapit, 2012). Such viewpoints hinder a broader understanding of human behaviour and cognition.Here, we call for more open and Participatory Research on neurodiversity through addressing the issue of power imbalance. Neurodiverse perspectives can lead to a more representative scienceNeurodivergent individuals (e.g. autistic, dyslexics, dyspraxics…) are often considered objects of study rather than active research contributors, leading to erroneous and harmful assumptions about them (Elsherif et al., 2022). A proposed solution is the adoption of Participatory Research practices, defined as incorporating the views of neurodivergent individuals and their allies into the whole research cycle, from project design to dissemination and application of findings (Bourke, 2009;Fletcher-Watson et al., 2021). Participatory

Teaching open and reproducible scholarship: a critical review of the evidence base for current pedagogical methods and their outcomes

“…The findings of our review fit well with the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people, based on scientific insights into how humans learn in Higher Education [115][116][117]. The evidence highlighted that choice should be provided to enable students to develop agency in their own learning.…”

Writing experiences of neurodiverse students in graduate STEM programs

“…Participatory research emphasizes the active involvement of neurodivergent individuals in the research process (Fletcher-Watson et al, 2021). This approach aligns with inclusive research principles, ensuring that the perspectives and experiences of neurodivergent individuals are incorporated and reflected in the study findings (Gourdon-Kanhukamwe et al, 2023). While in the current study, we did not directly involve neurodivergent study participants in the formulation of research questions or interpretation of data, multiple neurodivergent researchers contributed to all phases of the research, including the study design, implementation, and analysis.…”

Dyslexia in higher education – teacher’s perspective: scoping review

“…They brought their own ideas and opinions (which cannot be avoided within the constructivist position), but they confronted these predispositions with each other, the data, and the previous literature. Consistent with participatory research, we would like to mention that the first author of this article is neurodivergent, which is considered a contribution to the study, especially in the field of research on neurodevelopmental diversity research (Fletcher-Watson et al, 2021;Gourdon-Kanhukamwe et al, 2023). Critical evaluation of individual sources of evidence was not undertaken as it is not a requirement for scoping reviews (Peters et al, 2020;Gutierrez-Bucheli et al, 2022).…”