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DPDDr Monique Botha — no licensed photograph is available, so the academic plate is shown instead.

Academic

Dr Monique Botha

Associate Professor in Social and Developmental Psychology, Department of Psychology, Durham University

Department of Psychology, Durham University is based in City of Durham — the organisation’s base, not a personal address.

Press citations

4

Topics

2

Children's health

Last quoted

Sept 2026

first cited Aug 2026

Dr Monique Botha: key facts

Kind of voice
Academic
Role
Associate Professor in Social and Developmental Psychology
Organisation
Department of Psychology, Durham University
Organisation based in
City of Durham
Quoted on
Children's health, Learning disability & autism
Tracked press citations
4
Most recently quoted
10 Sept 2026
First quoted
27 Aug 2026

Who Dr Monique Botha is

Dr Monique Botha is an Associate Professor in Social and Developmental Psychology at Durham University's Department of Psychology, based in the Centre for Neurodiversity and Development. They are a Community Psychologist specialising in neurodivergence, equality, and mental health, with research spanning stigma, dehumanisation, minority stress, masking, and the double empathy problem. Their doctoral research at the University of Surrey (2016–2020) investigated autistic community connectedness as a buffer against minority stress on mental health, and they subsequently held an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Stirling before winning a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship for a three-year project entitled 'Fragile Knowledge: Dehumanisation and Interpretation Bias in Autism Research'. Botha has argued that dehumanising language in the scientific literature about autistic people facilitates maltreatment and legitimises violence, and is known for applying the minority stress model to autistic populations. They co-founded the Community Against Prejudice Towards Autistic People (CAPTAP) and the STARTS collaborative research network in Scotland.

“Autism is not a male condition, 'yet girls struggle to get a diagnosis in a timely or robust manner'. Importantly, these diagnostic disparities are not unique to Sweden. We see parallel patterns in the UK and given the UK's more fragmented diagnostic pathways and constrained infrastructure, there is good reason to think these inequities may be even more pronounced here.”

References for this biography

  1. 1.Dr Monique Botha – Durham University staff page — Current role, research focus, career history (PhD Surrey 2016–2020, ESRC fellowship at Stirling, Leverhulme fellowship), and research interests
  2. 2.Monique Botha – Google Scholar profile — Confirms Associate Professor title at Durham University, verified Durham email, and citation count exceeding 5,900
  3. 3.Cherishing Compassion While Autistic and Marginalized – Thinking Autism Guide (Sept 2025) — Confirms Associate Professor title, Centre for Neurodiversity and Development affiliation, co-founding of STARTS and CAPTAP, and research themes
  4. 4.CAPTAP – Community Against Prejudice Towards Autistic People — Confirms Botha co-founded CAPTAP with Eilidh Cage and Kayden Stockwell following the May 2021 INSAR conference
  5. 5.Stirling Autism Research – News — Confirms Botha was awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship for the 'Fragile Knowledge' project
  6. 6.Extending the Minority Stress Model to Understand Mental Health Problems Experienced by the Autistic Population – Society and Mental Health (2020) — Key publication establishing Botha's application of minority stress theory to autism
  7. 7.The neurodiversity concept was developed collectively – Autism (2024) — Confirms ORCID iD 0000-0002-5935-9654 for Monique Botha
  8. 8.Dr Monique Botha – Durham Research Online (DRO) — Confirms Department of Psychology affiliation and membership of Centre for Neurodiversity & Development

Notable achievements

  • Awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship for the three-year project 'Fragile Knowledge: Dehumanisation and Interpretation Bias in Autism Research' Source ↗
  • Co-founded the Community Against Prejudice Towards Autistic People (CAPTAP), a network of over 250 scholars and autistic people focused on reducing stigma and systemic inequality Source ↗
  • Co-founded the STARTS (Striving to Transform Autism Research Together, Scotland) collaborative research network with Dr Eilidh Cage and Dr Catherine Crompton Source ↗
  • Published 'Extending the Minority Stress Model to Understand Mental Health Problems Experienced by the Autistic Population' in Society and Mental Health (2020), a widely cited paper applying minority stress theory to autism Source ↗
  • Google Scholar profile records over 5,900 citations to their work as of 2026 Source ↗

What Dr Monique Botha has said

  • “There are many studies which refute a link, but the most important was a Swedish study of 2.4m births published in 2024 which used actual sibling data and found no relationship between exposure to paracetamol in utero and subsequent autism, ADHD or intellectual disability”

    associate professor in social and developmental psychology at Durham University · Learning disability & autism · 27 Aug 2026 · Trump attacks Tylenol as officials unveil highly contentious conclusions on autism ↗

  • “There are many studies which refute a link, but the most important was a Swedish study of 2.4 million births published in 2024 which used actual sibling data and found no relationship between exposure to paracetamol in utero and subsequent autism, ADHD or intellectual disability. This suggests no causal effect of paracetamol in autism.”

    associate professor in social and developmental psychology at Durham University · Learning disability & autism · 27 Aug 2026 · Experts alarmed as Trump pushes unproven link between Tylenol and autism ↗

  • “This study included Dr Monique Botha from our Department of Psychology, working alongside researcher Taylor Burns.”

    Department of Psychology, Durham University · Learning disability & autism · 27 Aug 2026 · Identity distress drives poor mental health in autistic people ↗

Where Dr Monique Botha has been quoted

  1. Rates of autism in girls and boys more equal than previously thought, research findspulsetoday.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
  2. Trump attacks Tylenol as officials unveil highly contentious conclusions on autismtheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
  3. Experts alarmed as Trump pushes unproven link between Tylenol and autismtheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
  4. Identity distress drives poor mental health in autistic peopledurham.ac.uk · 27 Aug 2026

Related media coverage

Recent UK press coverage of their topics — not necessarily citing them directly.

Contact & links

Organisational contact points only, each taken from a page the organisation publishes itself. No personal or direct contact details are held or shown.

Professors, researchers and think-tank analysts quoted on the strength of their research rather than a clinical role. Citations are counted by an automated scan of UK press coverage and may be incomplete. Roles, biographies and contact details are researched and human-reviewed before they appear here; anything not yet reviewed is simply absent rather than shown unverified. This profile was last updated on 5 Oct 2026. See the methodology for how this page is built, or email contact@bridgeheadcommunications.com to correct anything on it.