My research
I am an Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University’s School of Humanities, Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, where I also co-coordinate the Medical Humanities Cluster. My interdisciplinary research and teaching bring together disability and neurodiversity, embodied interaction, and the design of interactive environments. I combine video-based analyses of social interaction with design-based research to explore how people interact and create meaning together.
Prior to joining NTU, I was formally trained in Linguistics and received my Ph.D. in Special Education, with a designated emphasis on New Media, from the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University. My doctoral research focused on the improvisations of non-speaking autistic individuals.
For over a decade, I have worked closely with the non-speaking neurodivergent community, studying their creative communicative practices and the ways these practices are often overlooked or misunderstood. My work is grounded in long-term collaborations with disabled people and their families, as well as with schools, healthcare organisations, and cultural institutions.
At the heart of my work is a deep interest in the many ways people relate to one another and move through the world, and in creating environments that honour and make space for different ways of being.
Latest projects
May 2026 -
In collaboration with the Community & Access team, this research explores the use of the Calm Room at the National Gallery Singapore. The study aims to better understand how visitors use the space, including visitor experiences, usage patterns, and how the Calm Room may support wellbeing, accessibility, and inclusive museum experiences.
National Gallery Singapore
Image credit: https://musictherapy.org.sg/what-is-music-therapy/Upcoming
In collaboration with Estelle Ng (MA, MT-BC, NMT) and her team, this project investigates the clinical interactions of music therapists and patients undergoing rehabilitation and palliative care at Singapore General Hospital. This study will examine video-recorded music therapy sessions at SGH, and explicate the power of the arts in patient-centered approaches within healthcare.
Singapore General Hospital
Publications
Latest publications
Chen, R. S. Y. (2026). CA and neurodiversity. In M. Burdelski & T. Greer (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 606–621). Routledge.
Peer-reviewed journal articles
Chen, R. S. Y. (2024). Bridging the gap: fostering interactive stimming between non-speaking autistic children and their parents. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 18, 1374882.
Pudlinski, C., & Chen, R. S. Y. (2023). Destigmatizing disfluency: Stuttering in peer telephone support. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders, 14(2), 220-240. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jircd.24376
Park, I., Chen, R. S. Y., Gorisch, J., Park, S. H., Tadic, N., & Yasui, E. (2023) The use of interlocking multi-unit turns in topic shifts. Pragmatics.
Chen, R. S. Y. (2022). Improvisations in the embodied interactions of a non-speaking autistic child and his mother: practices for creating intersubjective understanding. Cognitive Linguistics, 33(1), 155–191.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cog-2021-0047
Velautham, L., & Chen, R. S. Y. (2021). Can’t clap to a beat? How rhythmically challenged people experience and strategize keeping time to music. Psychology of Music, 50(4), 1254–1266. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/03057356211049564
Chen, R. S. Y. (2021). The researcher’s participant roles in ethical data collection of autistic interaction. Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality, 4(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.7146/si.v4i2.127298
Tancredi, S., Chen, R. S. Y., Krause, C., Abrahamson, D., & Gomez Paloma, F. (2021). Getting up to SpEED: Special Education Embodied Design for sensorially equitable inclusion. Education Sciences and Society — Open Access, 12(1), 114–136. http://dx.doi.org/10.3280/ess1-2021oa11818
Hoey, E. M., DeLiema, D., Chen, R. S. Y., & Flood, V. J. (2018). Imitation in children’s locomotor play. Research on Children and Social Interaction, 2(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.36016
Book chapters
Chen, R. S. Y. (2026). CA and neurodiversity. In M. Burdelski & T. Greer (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 606–621). Routledge.
Yu, B., & Chen, R. S. Y. (2024). Social communication and language development in diverse autistic learners. In P. J. Wolfberg & K. D. Buron (Eds.). Learners on the Autism Spectrum: Preparing highly qualified educators and related practitioners—Instructor manual. NY, USA: Routledge.
Streeck, J. & Chen, R. S. Y. (2023). Echo and synchrony: Social attunements in blind children’s repetitive movements. In B. L. Due, (Ed.), Everyday without sight: The practical accomplishment of ordinary activities when having a visual impairment. London, UK: Routledge.
Tancredi, S., Chen, R. S. Y., Krause, C., & Siu, Y. (2022). The Need for SpEED: Reimagining Accessibility through Special Education Embodied Design. In S. L. Macrine, J.M.B. Fugate (Eds.), Movement matters: How Embodied Cognition informs teaching and learning (pp. 197–216). Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: MIT press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13593.003.0021
Abrahamson, D., Tancredi, S., Chen, R. S. Y., Flood, V. J., & Dutton, E., (2021). Embodied Design of Digital Resources for Mathematics Education: Theory, Methodology, and Framework of a Pedagogical Research Program. In Routledge Handbook of Digital Resources for Mathematics Education. NY, USA: Routledge.
Sterponi, L., & Chen, R. S. Y. (2020). Situating Autistic emotionality in interactional, sociocultural, and political contexts. In S. E. Pritzker, J. Fenigsen & J. M. Wilce (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Emotion (pp. 273–284). NY, USA: Routledge.
Conference proceedings
Chen, R. S. Y. (2021). Embodied design for non-speaking Autistic children: the emergence of rhythmical joint action. In M. Roussou, S. Shahid, J. A. Fails, & M. Landoni (Eds.), Interaction Design and Children (pp. 648–651). Association for Computing Machinery. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3459990.3463396
Chen, R. S. Y. & Cekaite, A. (2021, June). The transformative role of a stimming object in Autistic interaction. In D. Keifert, K. Gutiérrez, M. H. Goodwin, A. Marin (Chairs), Dignity affirming learning contexts. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Bochum, Germany.
Chen, R. S. Y., Ninh, A., Yu, B., & Abrahamson, D. (2020, June). Being in touch with the core of social interaction: Embodied design for the nonverbal. In M. Gresalfi & I. Horn (Eds.), Proceedings of the annual meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University.