Sharing a Message of Love – Spirituality and Autism

Mrs Karenne Hills, Lecturer and Undergraduate Counselling Course Coordinator in the School of Social Sciences, has a growing international reputation in the field of disability research. From her first peer-reviewed publication in 2013, Karenne has extended her research further to develop a strong national and international research presence in the area of disability theology.

Much research in this sector is motivated by a medical model approach that seeks specific outcomes. Whereas this is valuable to many areas of disability research such as policy and education, Karenne focuses on a more person centred approach, specifically the lived experience of people, and how understanding their world from within their own perspective may support greater autonomy and societal changes.

Reflecting this focus, Karenne recently presented a paper from her Ph.D. thesis “Towards an understanding of Spirituality in the context of people with non-verbal autism” at the 2016 Summer Institute for Theology and Disability conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This research, based on the premise that spirituality is an essential ingredient of humanness, investigates the spiritual experiences and expressions of people living with non-verbal autism. Specifically, it questions the necessity of language as essential to a divine encounter and explores the aspects of spirituality experienced by the individual within their unique life context.

As detailed in Karenne’s presentation, initial research results suggest that people with non-verbal autism may experience unique spiritual experiences, possibly because of rather than despite their inability to use verbal language. Further, the research suggests that many people in this group believe that they have been given a divine message to pass on to humanity, most commonly a message of divine love.

The field of disability theology is of growing research interest and through her presentations both in the USA and within Australia Karenne has been granted the opportunity to create an extensive network of international scholars in the field including Professor John Swinton from The University of Aberdeen (pictured); Professor Hans Reinders from the University of Amsterdam; Dr Amos Yong from Fuller Theological Seminary; Dr Jeff McNair from California Baptist University; Dr Benjamin Wall from Greensboro College, North Carolina; Dr William Gaventa, Director of the Summer Institute on Theology and Disability; and Dr Bethany Fox from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Karenne has several upcoming presentations in 2016 including at the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities World Congress in Melbourne in August.