Who gets caught by the emotion?

Have you ever stepped in front of an audience and immediately spotted this person who didn’t seem happy with your talk? Or are you someone who is drawn to an encouraging face? What is it that makes people more likely to attend to different emotional expressions?

Words matter, especially at the front of a lecture hall

“Words matter.” That was the theme of a recent symposium on Diversity and Inclusion, here at Leiden University. How seemingly casual language can sustain or emphasize exclusion of groups that are marginalized within society.

Are autistic people unsocial? Or is it in the eyes of the non-autistic people?

Is school a place where autism meets equal opportunity?

How are schools doing, when it comes to welcoming children with autism into mainstream education? How successful is the 2014 Dutch Appropriate Education Act for pupils with autism? An estimated 16,000 school-age children do not attend school, with about 5,000 suspected of having autism.

Bullying and autism: blaming the victim?

When it comes to bullying, we often focus on the victim, who is then often offered social skills training. Yet, when children with autism are bullied, is this really appropriate?

Questions to a student with autism

A student with autism once confided in me that she no longer told anyone at the university that she had autism, because she’d noticed that people immediately associated it with Raymond from the film Rainman.