Autism and hearing services

Are you an autistic person living in the United Kingdom? Have you accessed or wanted to access hearing services? Would you be interested in talking to us?

About the study

We believe that the autistic community should be involved in the planning and delivery of their healthcare services.

We want to speak with autistic adults and children about the barriers and challenges they faced when accessing hearing services (audiology).

We will hold online focus groups and interviews to give you a platform for your views on the hearing services you’ve accessed or wanted to access, and on how hearing services can be made more autism-friendly.

Get involved

If you’d like to take part in the study, please get in touch.

Email: shanice.thomas@manchester.ac.uk

We are happy to discuss this project with you in more detail and answer any questions you might have.

If you would like to give your views but would prefer to do so in a different way (such as in a one-to-one interview), please let us know. We will adjust our study so that everyone feels comfortable to take part and give their views.

Participant information sheets

Download a participant information sheet to find out more about the study. Information sheets are available in two formats: text without pictures or Easy Read with pictures.

For adults

• Focus groups (text without pictures)
• Focus groups (Easy Read with pictures)

For children, young people, and families

• Focus groups (children aged 10-12 years; without pictures)
• Focus groups (young people aged 12-17 years; without pictures)
• Focus groups (Easy Read with pictures)

Terminology

We are using the identity-first term ‘autistic person/people’ as this has been endorsed by a large percentage of the autistic community, including by autistic adults, family members/friends and parents (Kenny et al., 2015).

However, we recognise that person-first terms, such as ‘person with autism’ or ‘person on the autism spectrum’, are also widely used and we respect that these terms may be preferred by some individuals or groups.