Research & Publications
Ripples of Knowledge
Caitlin Hughes
PhD Candidate at QUT
ORCID: 0000-0002-9305-3800
ResearchGate Profile
My research and academic writing explore the places where lived experience, clinical practice, neurodivergent identity, and systemic change meet. From autistic mental health care to neuroqueer methodologies, this work is grounded in the belief that neurodivergent people are not just subjects of research, but theorists, knowledge-holders, collaborators, and architects of new ways forward.
PhD Research & Journal Articles
Autistic Service Users and Mental Health Professionals' Perspectives of Neurodivergent Affirming Autistic Mental Health Care – Exploring A New Way Forward (In progress)
My PhD research at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is grounded in Critical Autism Studies, neuroqueer praxis, and epistemic justice. The project examines how Autistic mental health care is shaped through professional practice, service systems, and broader structures of power. Using Participatory Narrative Inquiry, the research brings together the perspectives of autistic adult service users and allied health professionals through narrative interviews and collaborative sense-making and is informed by an autistic advisory group. The research aims to contribute practice relevant recommendations for allied health professionals and mental health services.
Voices at the Margins: Podcasting as Neuroqueer Collaborative Autoethnography and Epistemic Healing
Neurodiversity, 2026
Caitlin Hughes, Chris Wells, Emma Nicholson, Bee Mayhew, Sheldon Gay, Marni Kammersell & Teena Mogler
DOI: 10.1177/27546330261437265
This article explores how voice-centred dialogue can challenge academic gatekeeping, affirm neurodivergent ways of knowing, and create space for epistemic healing. The article invites a reimagining of research as something relational and accessible. It offers podcasting as a way of restoring silenced knowledge and creating research that serves the people it emerges from.
The Dual Path of Unmasking: Multi-Exceptionality and Positive Disintegration
Advanced Development, 2025
Marisa Georgiou & Caitlin N. Hughes
This conceptual article explores multi-exceptional unmasking through the lens of Dąbrowski’s theory of positive disintegration. Drawing from lived, professional, and academic perspectives, it frames unmasking as more than self-discovery — as a profound process of identity reclamation, internal reorganisation, grief, intensity, and growth. It invites clinicians to recognise unmasking as a complex developmental and systemic process that requires care, nuance, and affirming support.
The Palgrave Handbook of Neuroinclusive Social Work
Palgrave Macmillan, 2026
Capturing Context: Neuro-inclusion/Exclusion in International Social Work
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-18034-6_5
I contributed to this chapter by providing context on how neurodivergence is understood and situated within social work practice in Australia.
Neuroqueering Professionalism in Social Work: Relational Ethics and the Art of Unbecoming
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-18034-6_14
This chapter contributes to the emerging field of neuro-inclusive social work by drawing on neuroqueer theory to reimagine professionalism as relational, embodied, and dynamically ethical. For neurodivergent social workers, neuroqueering professionalism offers a way to critically examine and unlearn neuronormativity, replacing inherited scripts of neutrality and compliance with embodied, intuitive, and relational ways of knowing. Guided by relational ethics, the chapter introduces unbecoming—an intentional release of rigid neuronorms and a return to relational congruence. Lived experience and ethical self-disclosure are positioned not as supplementary but as a legitimate and generative foundation for social work practice. Neurodivergent approaches to communication, boundary-making, identity expression, and emotional presence are reframed as sources of ethical wisdom and relational depth. Through lived experience, concrete practice examples, reflective prompts, and applied strategies, this chapter supports neurodivergent social workers and their allies in neuroqueering professionalism—embracing unbecoming as an intentional practice—to contribute to a wider cultural shift that moves beyond merely accommodating neurodivergence, instead recognising and honouring it as an essential driver of more ethical, inclusive, and transformative social work.
Socialisation via Online Gaming: Perspectives of Five Autistic Adolescents and Their Parents
Journal of Child and Family Studies, 2024
Caitlin N. Hughes & Lan Nguyen
DOI: 10.1007/s10826-023-02727-5
This study explored online gaming as a meaningful space for autistic adolescent social connection. Through interviews with five autistic young people and their parents, the research found that MMORPGs can support friendship, shared interest, and quality of life by offering accessible ways to socialise. It also highlighted the role of parent-child understanding, showing that parents who recognised the relational value of gaming were more likely to support their child’s online social worlds.
Speaking & Presentations
Sharing research, lived experience and emerging ideas through conferences and presentations is an important part of how I contribute to wider conversations about neurodivergence, practice and systems change. My presentations bring together lived experience, research, professional practice and systemic thinking to make complexity understandable, question familiar assumptions and open up more ethical, accessible and neurodivergent-affirming possibilities.
Invite Caitlin to Present
If you’re looking for a speaker for a conference, symposium, professional event, panel or community gathering, you can learn more about my speaking topics, approach and how we might work together via the Speaking Enquiry Form.
