Session 2: Autism & Sexuality

Presenters: Mark Stokes, PhD, with Kirstin Greaves-Lord, PhD

About the session:

This session highlighted the current understanding of sexuality, romantic and/or sexual relationships among autistic people. The webinar focused on experiences of autistic people’s experiences with developing and maintaining relationships and their sexuality.

About the presenters:

Mark Stokes, PhD, is a registered psychologist, and has been involved in Autism research since 1992; obtaining his PhD from La Trobe University in 1996 in circadian rhythms and sleep control. Following this, Mark has had appointments at La Trobe, Monash University, and Vanderbilt University. In 1999 Mark returned to Monash University as Director of the Victorian Injury Surveillance Unit at Monash University’s Accident Research Centre. In 2002 Mark was appointed to Deakin University where he established a research group - the Healthy Autistic Life Lab (HALL). HALL collaborates with many researchers globally and covers research programs into autism addressing sexuality; relationship development; the female profile of autism; mirror neurons in autism; and the transition to adulthood in autism. HALL seeks to understand how to support autistic adolescents and adults through the major transitions to adulthood, such as finding employment, finding a life partner, developing intimacy, to assist people to obtain a life that supports outcomes of mental health and positive well-being. Mark has published over 150 peer reviewed publications, book chapters, and reports to government as well as more than 140 conference presentations. Mark has supervised over 30 doctoral and PhD completions. Mark actively supports research into autism through his role as former President of the Australasian Society for Autism Research and as National Lead for Australia to INSAR. Mark has also been involved in Child Injury Prevention and Intervention for 25 years. Mark has been a board member of Kidsafe since 2000 and is a life member and former President of Kidsafe Victoria and Kidsafe Australia. Mark is currently Vice President of Kidsafe Victoria.

Dr. Kirstin Greaves-Lord was originally trained as a neuro-linguist. She has been involved in Autism Research since 2001. She obtained her PhD in 2007 at Erasmus MC with a theses concerning stress physiology and anxiety. After this, she did simultaneous post docs on stress physiology and addiction and autism phenotypes. In 2009, she became an Assistant Professor at Erasmus MC and established a research group concerning Autism Assessment and Interventions. In 2012 her research group extended to Yulius, to expand societal impact. This joint research group examined developmental pathways from childhood to adolescence in autistic youth, investigating autistic traits as well as co-occurring emotional and behavioral problems and psycho-sexual health. Also, factor predicting positive outcome were examed, which translated to the development of intervention programs faciltating teenage transitions (i.e. primary to secondary school, making and maintaining friendships, building intimate partner relations and obtaining a career). In 2014 she co-founded the Academic Workplace Autism (AWA), a national endeavor to improve the societal inclusion of autistic people, further bridging research with practise. Within this interdisciplinary collobaration network she co-created several interventions involving autistic experts by experience. Since 2018 she moved to the North of the Netherlands, where currently is a senior researcher at Jonx and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Cinical Psychology at the University of Groningen. Within the AWA she is co-creating an integrative approach to improve meaning and quality of life of autistic people and the near ones. Moreover, she investigates how equal co-creation between experts by experiences and experts by profession can be optimized. She has published over 80 peer reviewed articles, book chapters and reports to government and has supervised over 60 Master and 10 PhD students.

Session 2 Materials PDF

Session 2 Slides

Recorded on July 1, 2021