Phase 1

This page contains more information about Phase 1, including what type of people we’re looking to take part, and what exactly will happen if you decide to get involved.

Project overview

Who can take part?

In Phase 1 of the project, we are looking for neurodivergent people to join the research team. They will work to make the research more relevant to other neurodivergent people, by sharing what they think is important in this area, and also by giving honest feedback on how the project is being planned & carried out. We are hoping about 5-8 people will join. Here is a list of things we are looking for:

You must be neurodivergent. Although neurodivergence can mean a lot of different things, and relates to a lot of different experiences, for this project we are only looking at autism, ADHD, or a combination of both. You can also experience other types of neurodivergence, but we would like to be able to have your feedback and suggestions based on being autistic or having ADHD.
Your autism/ADHD can be formally-diagnosed by a health professional, or it can be self-diagnosed. If you are self-diagnosed, we would ask that you have considered yourself autistic or to have ADHD for over 5 years.
You must be at least 18 years old.
You must live in the UK.

What will I do?

If you choose to join the research team in Phase 1, you will do a variety of things. This will include:

Giving researcher running this project (Ruth, she/her) feedback on how the project is currently being planned, and whether things could be improved or changed. The project needs to be about this topic and will include interviews, but we will adapt specific bits of this processes wherever possible based on the feedback we get.
Reading things like information sheets and consent forms for Phase 2 of the project. We want to ask people to be interviewed in the best possible way. Your feedback might tell us that the way we have written our form or made our advert would not actually work to get people to take part. We will listen to your feedback and change things where it’s possible. If we can’t make the changes you suggest, we will tell you why.
Listening to Ruth describing what the Phase 2 interviews will be like. She can also do a pretend interview with you so that you can experience what it is like. If there are things in the interview format that you think will be very difficult for other neurodivergent people, we will make those changes if it’s possible to do so. If it isn’t possible, we will explain why.
After Ruth does the interviews with the other group of participants in Phase 2, she will tell you what she found out. You can then suggest what we should do with these results. For example, should we create a website with everything we find out? Should we write it out, and in what format? Should we make videos to tell people? And as well as how we should tell people, it’s also about deciding who we should tell. Would other neurodivergent people benefit from this, or is it more about telling doctors, or politicians? We’ll work together to figure this out.
When the project is almost finished, you’ll be asked where you think research still needs to be done on this topic. These suggestions and areas of importance will be written into the project’s results and reported for future researchers to learn from.
At the very end of the project, after the study’s results have been shared in whatever way the team decides on, Ruth will give you an update on what happened as a result. For example, did anything change? You will be informed of any updates.

Will I work in a group?

You don’t have to work in a group if you don’t want to. We are hopefully going to have between 5 and 8 people joining the team to do the activities in Phase 1. You can either choose whether you would like to take part on your own or in a group. Some people like working with other people and discussing ideas, and other people prefer to do this by themselves with no added pressure. You can choose what you would prefer. If everyone except one person says they want to work alone, then groupwork won’t be possible, but if there are enough people then we will offer a choice.

If you choose the groupwork option, and we have enough people who want to do that, we will have Zoom meetings to discuss the things in the “What will I do?” section. There will probably be about 4 meetings over the next year and a half. We will make whatever accommodations we can to make sure these Zoom meetings suit people’s needs.

If you choose the individual work option, we will communicate via email (or by another method that suits you, if possible). This means you won’t have to answer questions under pressure or in front of other people. You can take your time and respond by email (or message, chat, voice note etc) whenever you are ready.

Community Guidelines

You can find the community guidelines – including an audio version – for this project here

More information

If you want more information, you can download the documents below. This has a lot of details, and is quite long. Because of this, Ruth has also made an audio version – located at the bottom of the document – where she reads all the included information aloud.

You can also email Ruth at ruth.leiser@strath.ac.uk with any other questions you have. She would be happy to organise a Zoom call, or an instant chat conversation, to answer any more questions or provide any more information.

Project Documentation

Please use the drop-down menus below to access & download the relevant documents for this phase of the research