2/19/26
Elite Rising Scholar Peer Reviewer Award
Dear Hari,
We are pleased to announce that you have been named an inaugural 2025 Elite Rising Scholar Peer Reviewer for Rehabilitation Psychology. We initiated this award for 2025 to specifically recognize the incredible contributions of peer reviewers who are at the graduate student or postdoctoral fellow level...
This award is particularly impressive given that you are outstanding in comparison to all reviewers – including editorial board members. Your commitment and service to the journal is remarkable and even among our best reviewers, you have stood out this past year.
We have included a certificate of appreciation to congratulate you on this distinctive recognition. We are very grateful for your service and contributions to our overarching mission to advance rehabilitation psychology research. We look forward to working with you in the coming years.
With sincere gratitude,
Anna Kratz, PhD & Paul Perrin, PhD
Editors-in-Chief
Rehabilitation Psychology
2/18/26
2/16/26
Lonely in a Crowd: When Being There Still Isn’t Belonging
Loneliness is usually imagined as being alone. But many autistic people describe something different—and harder to explain: being surrounded by people and still feeling profoundly lonely. That paradox is what my paper tries to make sense of
Preprint Link: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/rjeus_v1
2/9/26
A map of multisensory illusions—and what they reveal about autism and ADHD
I recently wrote a Psychology Today piece [Why Perception is Not Just What We Sense] about a simple idea: perception isn’t something we receive. It’s something the brain builds. I used a few familiar illusions—the McGurk effect, the stream–bounce illusion, the sound-induced flash illusion, and the parchment-skin illusion—to show what happens when the building process becomes visible.
What I couldn’t fit into that article is the part I think about most: illusions aren’t one category of party trick. They’re a toolkit. Different illusions probe different “decisions” the brain has to make—about timing, about cause, about whether signals belong together, about what counts as part of the body, and about how much certainty is “enough.”
When “Just Try Harder” Isn’t the Problem
We tell students this story early and often: If you work hard enough, you can get there.
That message—usually called growth mindset—has helped a lot of people. It pulls us away from “I’m just not good at this” and toward “I can learn.”
But there’s a quieter question that doesn’t get asked nearly enough: What if I am trying—and the system still doesn’t move? That question is what my new paper is trying to take seriously
Preprint link: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/x7jru_v1
Why growth mindset sometimes falls short
2/7/26
Neurodiversity 2.0. Contemporary Research Evolving Frameworks and Practice Implications
Thanks, NIEPID for hosting and to everyone who joined the conversation today. Lovely to see so many MPhil students joining from all over India. Recording at. https://youtu.be/q0ctpgproS4
Breaking the Either Or Trap. Why Autism needs nuance not extremes
Thanks, Chico State for hosting and to everyone who joined the conversation on nuance in autism. Recording at https://youtu.be/h70I6msB7rA
2/6/26
2/4/26
2/2/26
When AI Can’t Hear You, It’s Not Neutral — It’s Designed That Way
I’ve been thinking a lot about who gets heard by AI—and who doesn’t. We tend to talk about artificial intelligence as if it’s neutral. Objective. Just math and data. But for many autistic people—especially those who are minimally speaking or nonspeaking—AI systems don’t just fail sometimes. They quietly shut people out. That’s what my paper (currently under peer review) is about: something I call engineered exclusion
What do I mean by “engineered exclusion”?
Most AI communication tools assume a very specific kind of user:
2/1/26
About That Autism Barbie and the Headphones
A few weeks ago, there was a lot of social media posts on something that was being widely celebrated online: a new Barbie meant to represent autism.
It had noise-canceling headphones. It had an AAC device. It had flexible hands for stimming.
And I felt… conflicted.
That moment is what eventually became my new Psychology Today .
My TedX Talk
My Ted X talk titled "Pebbles in the Pond of Change
Hari Srinivasan, shares a powerful message about the power of small actions in creating ever-widening ripples in the pond of change. Drawing from personal experiences and the legacy of disability rights leaders, he redefines progress as a journey that starts with simple, accessible steps. His inspiring message encourages everyone to identify and act on their own "small pebbles" to drive societal transformation.
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