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FELS Inaugural Lecture with Professor Hanna Kovshoff Event

Time:

3:30pm

Date:

2025-06-20 15:30:00

Venue:

University of Southampton, Centenary Building (100), University Road, Southampton, SO17 1BJ

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Event details

This was the third event in a series of engaging lectures from newly appointed Professors at the Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences. On Friday 20 June 2025, Professor Hanna Kovshoff from the School of Psychology and Professor Pete Worsley from the School of Health Sciences presented their research, real-world impact and future research directions.

Watch the lecture video

Professor Hanna Kovshoff - Beyond the medical model: How neurodivergent voices changed the way I do autism research

See Professor Pete Worsley's lecture here .

Watch all the Inaugural Lecture videos from 2025

Professor Hanna Kovshoff

Beyond the medical model: How neurodivergent voices changed the way I do autism research

Autism has long been framed within the medical model of disability as a disorder to be "fixed," with decades of research and public funding focused on normalising autistic individuals—making them “indistinguishable from their peers.” More recently, a transformative shift has occurred in autism research. The concept of neurodiversity, informed by the social model of disability, has challenged this pathologising view and instead champions the voices and lived experiences of autistic individuals. This framework has empowered neurodivergent people to co-create research agendas that truly reflect their needs, values, and priorities.

Professor Hanna Kovshoff explores how medical model informed early work and neurodiversity have reshaped her own research journey. By highlighting the importance of listening to and amplifying autistic voices, she will show how these perspectives have created more meaningful and effective ways to support neurodivergent individuals on their unique trajectories.

Biography

Professor Hanna Kovshoff co-directs the Autism Community Research Network @Southampton ( ACoRNS ) a unique research-practice partnership that brings together researchers, practitioners, and experts by experience to jointly develop projects of direct relevance to autism practice and policy. ACoRNS focuses primarily on the educational and lifecourse transitions and trajectories of autistic children and young people, and places autistic children’s views and voices at the centre of this work.

She joined the University of Southampton in 2001 as a Research Assistant on the first local authority funded early intervention evaluation trial, earned her PhD here, and has stayed ever since! Through her initial training in School Psychology at McGill University in Canada, to her current work in understanding educational experiences of neurodivergent children and families, the focus of her research has consistently been on identifying, understanding, and ameliorating barriers to educational attainment and positive educational experiences for children and young people with neurodevelopmental differences.