Question: What initially got you interested specifically in the minds of autistic people?

Berengere Digard answered on 15 Nov 2023:

My journey towards autism is a bit unusual! I come from France, where people don’t really talk about autism. I knew very little about autism up until the end of my Masters. Then one day, as I was working through ideas for my future PhD research, I watched a 10min-long interview with an autistic bilingual author talking about his new book on autism. I was hooked! The next day I bought the book and read it in one day (even though I’m a very slow reader). And that was it! I loved learning about the autistic mind and the autistic way of perceiving the world. I was shocked to learn about the unfounded stigma and the lack of fair opportunities. All the emotions! I wanted to learn more and do more, so I completely abandoned the original idea I had for a PhD project in England (something about dementia), and instead found an autism research to work with in Scotland

It just goes to show: sometimes watching the telly for 10min can entirely change the course of your life!