Library

The Lost Girls of Autism

Gina Rippon, 2025

Subtitled "How Science Failed Autistic Women and the New Research That's Changing the Story." Useful for understanding why so many adult women are only recognised now, and why the diagnostic frameworks themselves have lagged behind.

What I Want to Talk About

Pete Wharmby, 2022

Pete gives a great account of his special interests, and what they show about how an autistic brain makes sense of the world. Funny, sharp, and not a memoir of struggle.

Untypical

Pete Wharmby, 2023

He lays out what the world looks like from an autistic perspective and what could change to make it less exhausting. Useful for partners, employers, and anyone wanting to understand the day-to-day.

Rediscovered

Catherine Asta, 2025

I described it as "an essential handbook for autistic women and people of all ages and backgrounds ... a gentle yet persuasive manifesto for rediscovering who you always were."

Odd Girl Out

Laura James, 2017

A journalist's memoir of being diagnosed autistic in her mid-forties. Honest about marriage, motherhood, and the experience of recognising yourself in a framework that wasn't built with you in mind.

"Putting on My Best Normal": Social camouflaging in adults with autism spectrum conditions

Hull L, Petrides KV, Allison C, Smith P, Baron-Cohen S, Lai M-C, Mandy W. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 2017;47(8):2519-2534.

This first paper maps the lived experience of camouflaging in 92 autistic adults explaining what it is, why people do it, what it costs.

Is synaesthesia more common in autism?

Baron-Cohen S, Johnson D, Asher J, Wheelwright S, Fisher SE, Gregersen PK, Allison C. Molecular Autism. 2013;4:40.

The foundational prevalence study: synaesthesia found in around 19% of autistic adults compared with 7% of non-autistic controls. Useful for understanding sensory cross-wiring in autism.

Joint hypermobility, neurodivergence, dysautonomia and pain

Jessica Eccles and colleagues, Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Frontiers in Psychiatry 2022; Phil Trans Royal Society B 2024.

Dr Eccles's group has done the leading UK work on the brain-body interactions that link autism and ADHD with hypermobility, dysautonomia, chronic pain, emotion regulation difficulties, and disproportionate Long COVID.

Autistic women's experiences of the perinatal period

Westgate V, Sewell L, Caramaschi D, O'Mahen H. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 2024.

A systematic review of pregnancy, birth and the postnatal year for autistic women - sensory overwhelm, being heard by healthcare professionals, the difference individualised care makes.

The PEACE pathway: autism and eating disorders

Tchanturia K, Smith K, Glennon D, Burhouse A. Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2020;11:640.

Describes the development of the PEACE pathway, the first UK clinical pathway designed for people with both an eating disorder and autism. Around a third of patients with anorexia are autistic; the paper sets out the adaptations that make a difference.

The Late Discovered Club

Podcast by Catherine Asta

Conversations with late-discovered autistic women, hosted by an autistic psychotherapist. One of the most useful resources I point people to after diagnosis, particularly women in their thirties, forties and beyond who are processing what it means to recognise themselves now rather than earlier.

The Hidden 20%

Podcast by Ben Branson

Conversations on neurodivergence with clinicians and lived-experience voices. I appeared on the show in 2025 discussing diagnosis, NHS waiting lists, and what's gone wrong in the system.

Inside Our Autistic Minds

Chris Packham, BBC Two, 2023

A two-part documentary in which Packham, himself autistic, works with four autistic people to make short films revealing what's going on inside their minds for family and friends. Particularly good for partners, parents and colleagues of autistic adults who want to understand the inside view rather than the diagnostic one.

Christine McGuinness: Unmasking My Autism

BBC One, 2023

Christine McGuinness, diagnosed autistic in her thirties after her three children were, explores autism in women - masking, late diagnosis, the social and emotional cost of fitting in. One of the few mainstream documentaries that centres the experience of autistic women specifically.

The National Autistic Society

Particularly the pages on reasonable adjustments and on supporting meltdowns. Clear, practical guidance for autistic adults.

Autism Central

The national peer education programme for families and support networks of autistic people in England. Useful if you're a partner, parent, sibling, carer or close friend of someone autistic, and you want education and support from people who understand it from the inside.

Royal College of Psychiatrists - Autism and Mental Health

A patient and family information resource on autism, how it's diagnosed, the mental health support autistic adults are entitled to, and what good care looks like. I co-authored this resource as one of the clinical experts, alongside others including Verity Westgate.

Autism Action

A UK national charity that commissions and campaigns on autism research, working with Cambridge University's Autism Research Centre. Useful if you want to see where autism research is moving, and to read the evidence behind the policy debates.

PEACE Pathway

Their website has free resources for patients, families and clinicians. Worth knowing about if disordered eating is part of your picture, or if you're supporting someone else.

SEDSConnective

A user-led charity for the overlap between hypermobility, Ehlers-Danlos, and neurodivergence. The connection between autism and connective tissue conditions is genuine and under-recognised in mainstream services.

Tourettes Action

The UK-wide charity for people with Tourette syndrome and their families. Tics and tic disorders co-occur more often with autism than is usually recognised, and people who come for autism assessment sometimes turn out to have both.

Neurodiverse Sport

A UK organisation founded by former Olympic rower Caragh McMurtry and elite cyclist Mikey Mottram, working to make sport and exercise neuro-inclusive at every level. Useful if exercise is part of how you regulate, or if you're a parent or coach of a neurodivergent athlete.

Improving Mental Health Therapies for Autistic Children and Young People

Pavlopoulou, Crane, Hurn and Milton, 2024

Working through it slowly. I'm interested in what this sparks for adult mental health services too.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

W. B. Yeats, 1890

Returning to this one again. Yeats's quiet poem about leaving the "pavements grey" for a small cabin by a lake. I find myself thinking about it when we describe wanting to retreat from a world that takes too much from us and how pleasant solitude can be.