36.3364, Confs: Focused Interests, Identity, and Autistic Communication Across Contexts (United Kingdom)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-3364. Tue Nov 04 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.3364, Confs: Focused Interests, Identity, and Autistic Communication Across Contexts (United Kingdom)

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Date: 03-Nov-2025
From: Nelya Koteyko [n.koteyko at qmul.ac.uk]
Subject: Focused Interests, Identity, and Autistic Communication Across Contexts


Focused Interests, Identity, and Autistic Communication Across
Contexts

Date: 08-Jan-2026 - 09-Jan-2026
Location: London and online, United Kingdom
Contact: Jessica Aiston
Contact Email: j.aiston at qmul.ac.uk

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; General
Linguistics; Pragmatics

Submission Deadline: 14-Nov-2025

This workshop explores how autistic people engage with and express
focused interests across diverse communicative settings. Previously
framed narrowly as “special interests,” these intense areas of
engagement are central to autistic sense-making, self-expression, and
social interaction. Bringing together discourse, narrative, and
interactional approaches, the sessions will examine how focused
interests shape the stories autistic individuals tell, the way
knowledge is shared, and connections are formed— both online and
offline. We will consider how these interests are linguistically
constructed, socially received, and differently valued, and ask what
it would mean to centre focused interests as a strength rather than a
symptom.
Questions:
 - How do autistic individuals use focused interests to structure
personal narratives, create meaning, and engage in play?
 - What linguistic or narrative patterns emerge when people
communicate through their interests?
 - How are focused interests received in different social or
institutional (education, workplace, healthcare) contexts — and how do
those responses shape autistic self-presentation or narrative choices?
 - What role do digital platforms play in enabling the sharing,
performance, and development of focused interests?
 - How can greater attention to focused interests help reshape
dominant narratives about autistic communication and competence?
We invite contributions from linguistics, medical humanities,
psychology, education, and disability studies to discuss how language,
identity, and neurodiversity intersect in and through focused
interests.
Keynote Speakers:
Pete Wharmby, neurodiversity speaker and writer, author of What I Want
to Talk About
Dr Rebecca Wood, Senior Lecturer in Inclusive Education, School of
Education, University of Glasgow will give a keynote ‘Monotropism and
autistic communication in schools’



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