Research
The research behind the work
Every course here stands on a model, a body of evidence and a lineage. This is where you can see all three. Transparency about how the work was made is part of the work.
Built for access What AASPIRE taught me
How autistic-led research on accessibility shaped every page of Kaleidoscope Systems, and how I checked it. Use the buttons or your arrow keys, or show all slides at once.
Kaleidoscope Systems
Built for access: what AASPIRE taught me
Autistic-led research on access, my own reading of it, and how I built it into Kaleidoscope Systems
Sher Griffin · Kaleidoscope Systems
What AASPIRE is
Autistic adults and university researchers, working as equals
Community-based
The Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education does research with autistic people, not on them.
Shared power
Autistic team members shape every stage: the questions, the methods, what the results mean, and how they are shared.
Practical
The work turns into tools people can use: health care toolkits, research guidelines and web guidelines.
Nicolaidis et al. (2019) · Raymaker et al. (2019)
The three studies I lean on
One partnership, three kinds of guidance
2016
Building a tool with autistic adults, then testing it with them: an online health care toolkit for autistic adults and their doctors.
2019
Including autistic adults in research as co-researchers and as participants: practice-based guidelines for doing it well.
2019
Web accessibility for autistic users: 20 guidelines for websites that work for autistic people.
Nicolaidis et al. (2016) · Nicolaidis et al. (2019) · Raymaker et al. (2019). Full references at the end.
How the web guidelines were made
Built with autistic people, then tested by them
3
years building a health care website as a test bed, with an autistic lead web developer
170
autistic people and supporters rated it, after the team watched 8 people use it
~95%
said it was easy to use and easy to understand
The authors say none of the 20 guidelines were hard or expensive to build. They also say their test site was simple, so busier sites may need more.
Raymaker et al. (2019)
20 guidelines, three groups
Access is physical, intellectual and social
Physical
Guidelines 1–7: what you see and hear
- Soft colors and a dark theme
- A plain, no-style option
- Nothing moving or cluttered
- Text smaller and bigger
Intellectual
Guidelines 8–14: how easy it is to understand
- The simplest layout
- Labels that say what they do
- Choices shown, not hidden
- Little scrolling, short text
Social
Guidelines 15–20: language and culture
- Precise words, no idioms
- A reason for anything unusual
- “I’m not sure” as an answer
- Respect for autistic culture
Raymaker et al. (2019), in my own words
My reading
Access lives in the environment, not inside the person
Through a cognitive ecology lens
None of the 20 guidelines asks autistic people to change. Every one changes the place. That is the heart of the Cognitive Ecology Model: a barrier is information about a structure, not a verdict on a mind.
Social access is relational
The social guidelines (precise words, a reason for anything unusual, “I’m not sure” as an answer, respect for culture) are not code. They are how people treat each other. That is why I built them into how Kaleidoscope Systems talks, not only how it looks.
Sher Griffin’s interpretation, building on Raymaker et al. (2019)
Nothing about us without us, in practice
What I took from the co-research guidelines
Power is shared, out loud
Who decides what is said plainly, and the people affected help decide it.
More than one way to take part
Writing, voice, a private message, or saying nothing yet. Every way counts.
You choose what gets shared
Consent is ongoing. What someone tells you stays theirs.
Every voice gets an answer
Feedback that goes into a void teaches people to stop giving it.
My reading of Nicolaidis et al. (2019)
Putting it into practice
Kaleidoscope Systems, checked against all 20 guidelines
17
Met. Including a dark theme, a plain page, and nothing that moves unless you ask.
3
Partly. Simplest layout (8), short writing (14) and precise words (15). Named openly, still being worked.
2×
Checked twice on November 4, 2026. The second, fresh check found three bugs, now fixed.
The full table, guideline by guideline, is public for beta testers, with a form to tell me where it doesn’t match their experience.
Kaleidoscope Systems accessibility review, November 2026
Audited more than one way
Every part of it has been checked
Access for autistic users
The 20 AASPIRE web guidelines, checked twice.
Course design
Every course scored on 8 criteria from Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and higher-education course standards. All 35 score 40 of 40.
Every source
463 works cited across 40 courses, each checked against the published record. The list is public.
Power
A standing anti-rank self-audit, run on the whole system, the founder included. Latest: October 29, 2026.
kaleidoscopesystems.org/research · kaleidoscopesystems.org/sources · kaleidoscopesystems.org/accountability
What that looks like
Reading support on every page
Dark mode
Higher contrast
Plain page, no layout
Smaller or bigger text
Dyslexia-friendly font
Extra spacing
Reduce motion
Read page aloud
Hear me say this
Plus a glossary of about 180 plain definitions you can tap in any lesson, and lessons shown one at a time with an “In this module” list at the top.
Each setting is saved and follows you from page to page
What I’m asking of you
Tell me where access still breaks down.
An audit is only as good as the people who test it. If anything on Kaleidoscope Systems is hard to read, follow or use, I want to hear it, in writing, by voice, or privately.
Every report gets an answer, and every change it leads to is named.
References
Nicolaidis, C., Raymaker, D., McDonald, K., Kapp, S., Weiner, M., Ashkenazy, E., Gerrity, M., Kripke, C., Platt, L., & Baggs, A. (2016). The development and evaluation of an online healthcare toolkit for autistic adults and their primary care providers. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 31(10), 1180–1189. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-016-3763-6
Nicolaidis, C., Raymaker, D., Kapp, S. K., Baggs, A., Ashkenazy, E., McDonald, K., Weiner, M., Maslak, J., Hunter, M., & Joyce, A. (2019). The AASPIRE practice-based guidelines for the inclusion of autistic adults in research as co-researchers and study participants. Autism, 23(8), 2007–2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361319830523
Raymaker, D. M., Kapp, S. K., McDonald, K. E., Weiner, M., Ashkenazy, E., & Nicolaidis, C. (2019). Development of the AASPIRE web accessibility guidelines for autistic web users. Autism in Adulthood, 1(2), 146–157. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2018.0020
Every source behind Kaleidoscope Systems: kaleidoscopesystems.org/sources
Read the slides as text
Where it comes from
The model
The Cognitive Ecology Model
Neurodivergence as an emergent ecological expression, shaped by environment, support and relationship, rather than a fixed condition inside one person. Five layers, from the self to the culture.
The evidence
463 sources, every one checked
Every work cited across all 40 courses, in one list. Each entry has been checked against the published record, and each shows which courses use it.
The lineage
Nothing here is self-made
The thinkers, elders and communities this work grew from, named on purpose. Naming where it comes from isn’t a footnote. It’s the thesis.
Go deeper
Two research guides
Long, plain-language guides that bring the research together on two topics people ask about most.
My academic writing Papers
Selected papers from my master’s and doctoral work. Most are unpublished coursework. If you’d like to read one for your own research, ask me.
2025 · Master’s thesis, Transformative Social Change, Saybrook University
The Cognitive Ecology Model: Neuroqueering systems through relational design
Where the model was formalized.
2026 · Doctoral paper, restorative and transformative justice
When harm becomes an ecology: Moral narrative capture and transformative justice in infrastructures that cannot hold complexity
2026 · Doctoral paper
Relational care as community health: A case study of The Compassion Collective
2026 · Doctoral paper
Contextualizing distress: A literature review of mental health and adaptation in autistic adults
2025 · Doctoral paper, qualitative research
Listening between the lines: A heuristic inquiry into neurodiverse communication and AI
2025 · Doctoral paper
The epistemic harm of neuronormative systems
2025 · Graduate paper, African diaspora history and psychology
Black metamodernism and Exclusion Feedback Synpraxis (EFS): Breaking the loop of erasure
2025 · Graduate paper, depth psychology and creativity
Creativity as coherence: A spiral ecology of deep emergence
2025 · Graduate paper, depth psychology and creativity
The visionary’s descent: Archetypal creativity and the neurodivergent psyche
2025 · Graduate paper
Ecology of mind, ecology of Earth: A cognitive ecology approach to psychological responses to the environmental crisis
2024 · Graduate paper, peacebuilding
Integrative peacebuilding: SYNPRAXIS and emergent strategies in the Compassion Collective
Learn with us Facebook group
The Research Commons
Kaleidoscope Research Commons: Neurodiversity, Learning Together
A place for everyday people and researchers to learn about neurodiversity together. Anyone can join, no degree needed. Lived experience is research here, and the group decides its own agreements together, by consent.
Research with us
Nothing about us without us. I welcome research partnerships that are participatory, consent-based and answerable to the communities they study, in the spirit of the AASPIRE guidelines. Kaleidoscope Systems frameworks are open source, but not open for extraction. Get in touch →