Autism Acceptance Festival
DCU, NCI and ATU Sligo are, respectively, the first, second and third HEIs in Ireland to receive AsIAm designation as Autism Friendly HEIs. This year, CCT, DkIT and NCAD are in the processing of applying for this designation.
In 2024, we six higher education institutes are proud to work together to host the first Autism Acceptance Festival, a series of public-facing events to centre autistic people and promote autism acceptance. All events will be online and free to attend.
Learn more about the speakers in this event and find more events in this series by visiting our Festival Hub.
Autism and Health
Susan Madigan from DCU will talk with Dr Mary Doherty, founder of Autistic Doctors International (ADI) who has written a paper called SPACE about making healthcare settings more autism friendly. The conversation will then expand to include the patient perspective, where we will be joined by Brigid MacMurrough, Kayren Hayes and Lindsey Gordon, who will share some of their experiences accessing healthcare.
Our Panelists
Bios for our panelists can be found at the end of the page.
Event Details
Time: 1-2:00pm
Date: Thursday 7th March
Other Events
If you are interested in finding out more about our other events, please visit our Festival Hub to check out what is happening.
More information on our panelists
Susan Madigan
Susan has been working with neurodivergent children and adults since graduating as an Occupational Therapist in 2011. In her roles in Trinity College, Dublin City University and Child and Adolescent Mental Health services, Susan has through an occupational therapy lens, aimed to support neurodivergent children and young people to understand themselves and thrive. Susan is neurodivergent and is passionate about collaborating with professionals and clinicians to improve services and make the environment more neurodivergent friendly.
Dr Mary Doherty
Dr Mary Doherty is a Consultant Anaesthetist at Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan, and Clinical Associate Professor at the School of Medicine, University College Dublin. Diagnosed as autistic over 10 years ago, she is parent to two neurodivergent young people. Her research interests focus on autism and healthcare, including both the needs of autistic people accessing services and autistic healthcare providers. She is founder of Autistic Doctors International, and author of the Autistic SPACE framework.
Brigid MacMurrough
Brigid L MacMurrough (he/she/they) is a final year student of the Creative Writing and Literature programme at ATU Sligo. She is a writer, poet and visual artist currently based in Sligo. He is currently doing his dissertation on the intersection of online spaces and traditional publishing.
Brigid has been a neurodivergent student ambassador since beginning her studies at ATU Sligo in 2021. Collaborating with both staff and students, Brigid has worked to improve accessibility for autistic students, to advocate on their behalf, and bring awareness to barriers within the college for neurodivergent students. Brigid has a special focus on students with multiple neurodivergences as they themselves have lived experience with Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia and CPTSD.
Kayren Hayes
Kayren Hayes is a retired Principal teacher who engages in various part-time work including as a facilitator with the Women 50+ Peer Support Group with AsIAm. She was one of four candidates who completed the inaugural M.A. in Autism Studies hosted by MIC in consultation with Middletown Centre for Autism, graduating in 2023. Her thesis examined the experiences of fourteen Irish women, who like herself, received a formal diagnosis of Autism as an adult.
Lindsey Gordon
Lindsey Gordon is a newly qualified English and Special education teacher. She was diagnosed with autism as a teenager and ever since has had a big interest in the acceptance and understanding of autistic people.