Tyler
McFayden

I'm Tyler McFayden (she/her), a current NICHD T32 Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities. I work with Dr. Clare Harrop's Sex and Gender in Autism (SAGA) Study and Dr. Mike O'Shea's Extremely Low Gestational Age Newborns (ELGAN) study. 

​

My career goal is to improve the quality of life for individuals with neurodevelopmental differences by studying functional communication and social connection. We can learn a lot of valuable lessons about how humans communicate from a variety of sources.  I'm fortunate to work with multiple groups to gain insights into how we relate to one another, including pre-verbal infants, Deaf/Hard of Hearing individuals, and autistic individuals. Most of my work involves asking questions about speech in groups who do not use a verbal speech modality to communicate. 

​

As an allastic (non-autistic) researcher who studies autism, and as a hearing individual who studies deafness, I strive to be aware of my biases and those pervasive in the field of research.  In my quest to do so, I welcome collaborations and conversations with autistic self-advocates, Deaf community members, family members, and stakeholders. Please reach out if you are interested in collaborating!

​

Other things I love: chocolate, house plants, field hockey, small animals