Professor Sue Fletcher-Watson

Professor of Developmental Psychology; College Dean of Equity, Inclusion and Community

Biography

Background

I first became interested in developmental disabilities, and autism in particular, through my work with the Oundle School Mencap Holiday, an organisation I’ve been volunteering with since 1997 and of which I became a trustee from 2006-2016. Inspired by OSMH, I am continuing this work as founder of SuperTroop, a charity providing residential holidays for children and young people with learning disabilities.

As an undergraduate I studied Psychology at the University of St Andrews, and then went on to a Masters and PhD at Durham University, where I was fortunate to be supervised by the wonderful Professor Sue Leekam. My PhD research explored the spontaneous social attention preferences of autistic and non-autistic adults and adolescents, using a range of methods, including verbal descriptions, change blindness and eye-tracking. Since then I have worked under the fabulous mentorship of Professor Helen McConachie including a Nuffield Fellowship which funded the Click-East project. I became a Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Edinburgh based in the Patrick Wild Centre and in 2019 I moved into the role of Director of the Salvesen Mindroom Research Centre - a research partnership with the charity Salvesen Mindroom Centre (https://www.mindroom.org/). In 2024 I announced my decision to step down from this role, and took up a position as Dean of Equity Inclusion and Community for the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. 

I am a former trustee of Scottish Autism and working closely with this organisation, and autistic-led organisations such as ARGH and AMASE, to inspire and contribute to high-quality, respectful, evidence-based practice in Scotland. Public engagement is very important to me and I try to provide useful insights into research and accessible summaries of knotty academic issues in the DART blog.

Qualifications

  • BSc (hons) Psychology, University of St Andrews (first class), 2003
  • MA, Developmental Psychopathology, Durham University (with distinction), 2004
  • PhD., 'Understanding social attention in adults with and without autism spectrum disorders', Durham University, 2008

Responsibilities & affiliations

Convenor of the Scottish ADOS Consortium 2018 - 2024

Chartered Psychologist, British Psychological Society

Editor-in-Chief of the journal Autism: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/aut 

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

I am interested in students wishing to do neurodiversity-informed, transdiagnostic or adiagnostic research, with elements of coproduction and a strong focus on real world impact. I am currently supporting three students seeking funding for a 2026 start. I am therefore only interested to hear from PhD students looking to start their studies in September 2027 or beyond. 

Current PhD students supervised

Mark Somerville: https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/mark-somerville

Past PhD students supervised

Joy Tsai: experiences of siblings of autistic children in Taiwan and the UK

Emma Moore: social development following preterm birth in the first year of life

Mihaela Dragomir: technology to facilitate pretend play

Bérengère Digard: bilingualism and social cognition of autistic adults

Shereen Sharaan: bilingualism and executive function of autistic children in UAE

Maggi Laurie: the role of technology toys in autistic children's interactions

Bethan Dean: the social development of infants born preterm in the pre-school years

Sinéad O'Carroll: prematurity and parent-child language and gesture 

Lorna Ginnell: attention development in preterm infants

Ruth Cowie: teaching autistic children a musical instrument - approaches to teaching and potential benefits

Lorena Jiménez Sánchez: attachment in preterm infants

Heather Love: EEF1A2 syndrome: the impact of gene mutations on protein behavior and cell function

Holly Sutherland: autistic people's interactions in general and in social care settings

Reesha Zahir: relationships between sleep and mental health in autistic children and young people

Research summary

I am interested in how children grow and learn, with a particular focus on neurodivergence. Most of my work historically has focused on the autistic experience, and on preterm birth. However at the time of writing I am attempt to do work that is all either trans-diagnostic or adiagnostic (inclusive of multiple people with and without a given diagnosis). 

I adopt a neurodiversity paradigm framing of all my work and aim to disseminate this way of thinking about humanity in general, and development specifically. 

On a practical level, my research aims to apply rigorous methods from psychology to questions with clinical, educational and societal impact. I strive to achieve meaningful partnerships with community representatives and to support neurodivergent leadership in research.  

I am an advocate for open science and good citizenship in research, and for inclusive and diverse workplaces. 

Research aims and areas of interest

  • Cognitive and behavioural approaches to understanding neurodiversity in (social) development & consequences for practice in education, health and social care
  • Co-production methods for research in mental health and neurodevelopment
  • Complex intervention development and evaluation, including rigorous outcome measurement for clinical trials, and community trial methodology
  • Methodologies: randomised controlled trials; eye-movement recording; experimental group comparisons; focus groups; interviews; online surveys, Delphi studies

Current project grants

AMBER: Antidepressant Medications: Biology, Exposure and Response https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/amber-antidepressant-medications-biology-...
Diversity in Social Intelligence: https://salvesen-research.ed.ac.uk/our-projects/diversity-in-social-inte...

Past project grants

Learning About Neurodiversity At School: https://salvesen-research.ed.ac.uk/leans
NEurodivergent peer Support Toolkit: https://salvesen-research.ed.ac.uk/our-projects/nest-neurodivergent-peer...
Theirworld Edinburgh Birth Cohort: https://reproductive-health.ed.ac.uk/tebc
Mental Health Data Science Scotland: https://mhdss.ac.uk/
Autism & Bilingualism in Childhood: http://dart.ed.ac.uk/research/bilingualism-childhood/
CoMorMent: https://www.comorment.uio.no/
Understanding Repetitive Behaviours clinical trial: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/mrbstudy/

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