Beneficiaries

Who has benefitted from my interventions? The answer is broader than any one field. Sometimes the benefit is practical: a change to a space, service, document or professional practice. Sometimes it is an idea, a connection, a resource or a different way of seeing a problem. Sometimes the clearest evidence appears only later, when somebody takes something away and uses it in a way I could not have predicted.

People with invisible disabilities

Much of my engagement has been concerned with people whose differences are not immediately apparent: autistic and neurodivergent people, people with hearing differences, balance disorders and sensory sensitivities. Through Aural Diversity, NHS autism work, accessibility advice and balance-disorder advocacy, I have tried to make experiences that are easily overlooked more visible and harder to overlook when designing spaces, services and systems.

The consequences vary in scale. Aural Diversity participants reported new connections and changes in how they thought about hearing; clinicians described changing the way they spoke with patients. Writing from my Autistic Professor blog has been republished by the NHS. A BBC World Service discussion of vertigo led listeners in other countries to find the balance-disorder community Life on the Level.

Creative people, artists and musicians

I have spent much of my life helping other people make things. Beyond formal teaching and supervision, this has included mentoring, commissioning, giving feedback on work in development, making introductions and helping artists and musicians think through questions of sound, technology, disability and access.

Examples include the series of commissions for the Aural Diversity workshops that broke new ground in terms of making music available to people with hearing differences but also enabled many aurally divergent artists and musicians to create new work, or the Digital Syzygies project in which four autistic and/or Deaf composers co-created an album, using EEG devices during lockdown. Frog Fizzles is another kind of contribution: a collection of 147 miniature living scores that performers can simply take away and use.

Organisations, large and small

Organisations have often invited me in because an outside perspective, specialist knowledge or lived experience might reveal something they have missed. These have ranged from large organisations such as NHS bodies, Arup and major cultural venues to small arts and community organisations.

The intervention may be substantial or very modest: reviewing accessibility, commenting on plans, identifying a sensory problem, suggesting a quiet space, connecting an organisation with somebody who can help, or turning a difficult experience into constructive feedback. I value the small interventions as much as the conspicuous ones, because they are often where an abstract commitment to inclusion becomes something people can actually experience.

Governments and policy-makers

I have contributed specialist knowledge and lived experience to people making public policy and public decisions. For example, Aural Diversity was incorporated into the Welsh Government's Noise and Soundscape Plan 2023–2028; I submitted written evidence to Parliament's review of the Autism Act, including recommendations on sensory accessibility and quiet or decompression space; and I contribute as an Expert by Experience to the Leicestershire and Rutland Autism Partnership Board and implementation of the Adult Autism and Neurodiversity Delivery Plan.

The benefit here is not that I make policy myself. It is that perspectives arising from research, creative practice and lived experience become available to the people who do.

Professionals and practitioners

Audiologists, acousticians, architects, designers, healthcare professionals, museum practitioners and others have used ideas or perspectives that I have helped to develop. One of the clearest examples came when clinicians reported that the infographic I created had changed how they talked with patients about hearing.

The network's conversations also travelled into professional practice through the Arup Aural Diversity Toolkit for architects, designers and engineers.

Communities and networks

Sometimes the most important outcome is simply that people find one another. The Aural Diversity Network is the clearest example. It now has more than 300 members, but the number matters less to me than the connections participants have made, leading to new enquiries, collaborations and changes in practice.

What matters most is that the network continued after the original funded project ended. I helped create a space in which people could find one another; what they subsequently did with those relationships belongs to them.

Members of the public

Some beneficiaries are people I will never meet. They may encounter an idea through a broadcast, talk, article or website; use a railway station, hospital or cultural venue to which I have contributed accessibility advice; or come across a resource that has travelled far beyond the circumstances in which it was made.

I try not to make claims about effects I cannot demonstrate. But public engagement matters partly because its consequences cannot always be followed. An idea can be heard by somebody who needs it, a practical suggestion can quietly improve an experience, or a connection can begin without my ever knowing about it.

Individuals

There is also a quieter category that is easily lost in accounts of public engagement. I have a steady stream (about two a week) of individual people who email me asking for advice, feedback, encouragement or an introduction. Some are artists or researchers or people with invisible disabilities; others simply arrive with a question. Much of this work leaves no formal evidence and belongs to no project.

I have always greatly valued these one-to-one exchanges. Sometimes helping one person think differently, make a connection or continue with something difficult is enough.