Professor Sue Fletcher-Watson

Professor of Developmental Psychology; College Dean of Equity, Inclusion and Community; Director of the Salvesen Mindroom Research Centre

  • Division of Psychiatry, Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences
  • Salvesen Mindroom Research Centre
  • Department of Child Life and Health

Contact details

Address

Street

Chancellor's Building
Little France Crescent

City
Edinburgh
Post code
EH16 4TJ
Street

Child Life and Health
Royal Hospital for Children and Young People
Little France Crescent

City
Edinburgh
Post code
EH16 4TJ

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 currently interested to hear from PhD students with an interest in neurodiversity-informed research looking to start their studies in September 2025 or beyond. 

Current PhD students supervised

Holly Sutherland: https://salvesen-research.ed.ac.uk/our-projects/sleep-problems-and-mental-health-in-autism

Reesha Zahir: https://salvesen-research.ed.ac.uk/our-projects/sleep-problems-and-mental-health-in-autism

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

Heather Love: https://sidb.org.uk/catherine-abbott/heather-love/

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

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/

This article was published on