Linah AlShaalan(she/her)
Faculty Mentor: Mary Lawlor ScD, OTR/L, FAOTA
Research Lab: Sensory Integration Engagement and Family Life (SIEFL)
Year of Entry: 2018

I am a PhD student working in the Sensory Integration Engagement and Family Life lab under the guidance of Dr. Mary Lawlor. Our lab’s current focus is to understand the lived experiences, strengths, and needs of autistic individuals as they transition into adulthood and participate in their communities. My role in the lab involves helping out with organizing the lab’s workflow, coding qualitative data, and contributing to writing grants as a research assistant.
My research interests include neurodiversity, autism, disability, and adapting social network analysis methods to understand the role of social connectivity within neurodiverse groups, specifically autism. For my dissertation project, I am planning on using a mixed methods design that includes both qualitative and social network analysis methods to understand social connectivity of autistic adults in an effort to highlight real life examples of benign neurodiverse differences that may be commonly labeled as deficits through the paradigm of the medical model of disability.
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