Francesca Happé

53.0k total citations · 18 hit papers
330 papers, 33.0k citations indexed

About

Francesca Happé is a scholar working on Cognitive Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology and Developmental and Educational Psychology. According to data from OpenAlex, Francesca Happé has authored 330 papers receiving a total of 33.0k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 280 papers in Cognitive Neuroscience, 135 papers in Clinical Psychology and 104 papers in Developmental and Educational Psychology. Recurrent topics in Francesca Happé's work include Autism Spectrum Disorder Research (262 papers), Genetics and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (70 papers) and Family and Disability Support Research (69 papers). Francesca Happé is often cited by papers focused on Autism Spectrum Disorder Research (262 papers), Genetics and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (70 papers) and Family and Disability Support Research (69 papers). Francesca Happé collaborates with scholars based in United Kingdom, United States and Australia. Francesca Happé's co-authors include Uta Frith, Angelica Ronald, Chris Frith, Robert Plomin, Patrick Bolton, Rhonda Booth, Tony Charman, Hiram Brownell, Ellen Winner and Rebecca A. Charlton and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Nature Neuroscience.

In The Last Decade

Francesca Happé

316 papers receiving 31.4k citations

Hit Papers

The Weak Coherence Account: Detail-focused Cognitive... 1993 2026 2004 2015 2006 1994 2000 2000 1994 500 1000 1.5k
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. The Weak Coherence Account: Detail-focused Cognitive Style in Autism Spectrum Disorders
    2006 1.9k citations Francesca Happé et al. profile →
  2. An advanced test of theory of mind: Understanding of story characters' thoughts and feelings by able autistic, mentally handicapped, and normal children and adults
    1994 1.6k citations Francesca Happé profile →
  3. Reading the mind in cartoons and stories: an fMRI study of ‘theory of mind’ in verbal and nonverbal tasks
    2000 1.1k citations Francesca Happé et al. profile →
  4. Movement and Mind: A Functional Imaging Study of Perception and Interpretation of Complex Intentional Movement Patterns
    2000 991 citations Francesca Happé et al. profile →
  5. Autism: beyond “theory of mind”
    1994 910 citations Francesca Happé et al. profile →
  6. The Role of Age and Verbal Ability in the Theory of Mind Task Performance of Subjects with Autism
    1995 750 citations Francesca Happé Child Development profile →
  7. Mind Reading: Neural Mechanisms of Theory of Mind and Self-Perspective
    2001 739 citations Francesca Happé et al. profile →
  8. Time to give up on a single explanation for autism
    2006 673 citations Francesca Happé, Angelica Ronald et al. profile →
  9. Communicative competence and theory of mind in autism: A test of relevance theory
    1993 672 citations Francesca Happé profile →
  10. Autism: cognitive deficit or cognitive style?
    1999 659 citations Francesca Happé Trends in Cognitive Sciences profile →
  11. Heritability of autism spectrum disorders: a meta‐analysis of twin studies
    2015 607 citations Patrick Bolton, Francesca Happé et al. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry profile →
  12. The Role of Age and Verbal Ability in the Theory of Mind Task Performance of Subjects with Autism
    1995 576 citations Francesca Happé Child Development profile →
  13. Do triangles play tricks? Attribution of mental states to animated shapes in normal and abnormal development
    2000 512 citations Francesca Happé et al. profile →
  14. How Different Are Girls and Boys Above and Below the Diagnostic Threshold for Autism Spectrum Disorders?
    2012 452 citations Angelica Ronald, Patrick Bolton et al. profile →
  15. Quantifying and exploring camouflaging in men and women with autism
    2016 442 citations Meng‐Chuan Lai, Michael Lombardo et al. Autism profile →
  16. The Structure of Social Cognition: In(ter)dependence of Sociocognitive Processes
    2016 274 citations Francesca Happé, Geoffrey Bird et al. profile →
  17. Annual Research Review: Looking back to look forward – changes in the concept of autism and implications for future research
    2020 220 citations Francesca Happé et al. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry profile →
  18. Autism in England: assessing underdiagnosis in a population-based cohort study of prospectively collected primary care data
    2023 85 citations Elizabeth O’Nions, Irene Petersen et al. The Lancet Regional Health - Europe profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name h Career Trend Papers Cites
Francesca Happé United Kingdom 88 26.0k 10.8k 9.7k 6.3k 5.4k 330 33.0k
Sally Wheelwright United Kingdom 71 22.4k 0.9× 5.9k 0.5× 10.6k 1.1× 6.6k 1.1× 5.0k 0.9× 131 32.4k
Tony Charman United Kingdom 93 27.2k 1.0× 9.3k 0.9× 14.7k 1.5× 8.4k 1.3× 6.3k 1.2× 422 33.6k
Géraldine Dawson United States 94 27.0k 1.0× 7.2k 0.7× 13.0k 1.3× 7.8k 1.2× 6.5k 1.2× 319 32.2k
Uta Frith United Kingdom 89 32.0k 1.2× 19.7k 1.8× 7.9k 0.8× 6.3k 1.0× 3.7k 0.7× 224 44.6k
Helen Tager‐Flusberg United States 83 17.7k 0.7× 9.6k 0.9× 5.6k 0.6× 3.6k 0.6× 4.4k 0.8× 271 22.8k
Sally J. Rogers United States 88 25.6k 1.0× 8.5k 0.8× 12.6k 1.3× 7.8k 1.2× 6.3k 1.2× 281 29.8k
Christopher Gillberg Sweden 111 27.7k 1.1× 7.1k 0.7× 16.4k 1.7× 16.6k 2.7× 12.1k 2.2× 727 45.6k
Marian Sigman United States 78 13.5k 0.5× 6.7k 0.6× 9.2k 0.9× 3.1k 0.5× 2.7k 0.5× 201 20.8k
Sally Ozonoff United States 78 18.3k 0.7× 5.8k 0.5× 7.1k 0.7× 7.7k 1.2× 5.3k 1.0× 179 23.0k
Emily Simonoff United Kingdom 73 12.9k 0.5× 3.7k 0.3× 10.4k 1.1× 7.5k 1.2× 4.3k 0.8× 267 22.3k

Countries citing papers authored by Francesca Happé

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Francesca Happé's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Francesca Happé with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Francesca Happé more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Francesca Happé

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Francesca Happé. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Francesca Happé. The network helps show where Francesca Happé may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Francesca Happé

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Francesca Happé. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Francesca Happé based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Francesca Happé. Francesca Happé is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
Yorke, Isabel, Jennifer Murphy, Frühling Rijsdijk, et al.. (2025). Alexithymia may explain the genetic relationship between autism and sensory sensitivity. Translational Psychiatry. 15(1). 75–75. 1 indexed citations
2.
Roper, Steven N., Rebecca A. Charlton, Francesca Happé, & Gavin R. Stewart. (2025). Self-harm and suicidality experiences of autistic and non-autistic adults in midlife and old age. Molecular Autism. 16(1). 58–58.
3.
Kuja‐Halkola, Ralf, Agnieszka Butwicka, Ebba Du Rietz, et al.. (2025). Sex differences in psychiatric diagnoses preceding autism diagnosis and their stability post autism diagnosis. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 66(8). 1170–1181. 1 indexed citations
4.
Francis, Daniel, et al.. (2025). “Bigger lows, but higher highs”: A qualitative exploration of the similarities and differences in quality of life of middle-aged and older autistic and non-autistic adults. Research Portal (King's College London). 123. 202533–202533. 3 indexed citations
5.
Happé, Francesca, et al.. (2024). Individual differences in autonomy and sociotropy in relation to autistic traits, camouflaging and interpersonal functioning. Personality and Individual Differences. 227. 112715–112715.
6.
7.
Spain, Debbie, Francesca Happé, Chris R. Brewin, et al.. (2024). Differential diagnosis of autism, attachment disorders, complex post‐traumatic stress disorder and emotionally unstable personality disorder: A Delphi study. British Journal of Psychology. 116(1). 1–33. 3 indexed citations
8.
Happé, Francesca, Timothy R. Nicholson, Francesca Morgante, et al.. (2024). Functional Neurological Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Complex and Potentially Significant Relationship. Brain and Behavior. 14(12). e70168–e70168. 5 indexed citations
9.
Stewart, Gavin R., et al.. (2023). A Qualitative Study of Autistic Adults' Quality of Life During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdowns. Autism in Adulthood. 5(3). 311–324. 4 indexed citations
10.
O’Nions, Elizabeth, Dan Lewer, Irene Petersen, et al.. (2023). Estimating life expectancy and years of life lost for autistic people in the UK: a matched cohort study. The Lancet Regional Health - Europe. 36. 100776–100776. 19 indexed citations
11.
Stewart, Gavin R., Anne Corbett, Clive Ballard, et al.. (2022). The cognitive profile of middle‐aged and older adults with high vs. low autistic traits. Autism Research. 16(2). 429–440. 15 indexed citations
12.
Stark, Eloise, et al.. (2021). 'Uncertainty attunement' has explanatory value in understanding autistic anxiety. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 25(12). 1011–1012. 4 indexed citations
13.
Murray, Kim, et al.. (2018). Cognitive and affective associations with an ecologically valid test of theory of mind across the lifespan.. Neuropsychology. 32(6). 754–763. 28 indexed citations
14.
Spain, Debbie, et al.. (2016). Conceptualizing and Treating Social Anxiety in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Focus Group Study with Multidisciplinary Professionals. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities. 30(S1). 10–21. 9 indexed citations
15.
Lai, Meng‐Chuan, Michael Lombardo, Amber Ruigrok, et al.. (2016). Quantifying and exploring camouflaging in men and women with autism. Autism. 21(6). 690–702. 442 indexed citations breakdown →
16.
Taylor, Mark J., Elise Robinson, Francesca Happé, et al.. (2015). A longitudinal twin study of the association between childhood autistic traits and psychotic experiences in adolescence. Molecular Autism. 6(1). 44–44. 22 indexed citations
17.
McEwen, Fiona, Catherine Stewart, Emma Colvert, et al.. (2015). Diagnosing autism spectrum disorder in community settings using the Development and Well‐Being Assessment: validation in a UK population‐based twin sample. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 57(2). 161–170. 23 indexed citations
18.
Ronald, Angelica, Francesca Happé, & Robert Plomin. (2006). What parents, teachers and children can tell us about different autistic traits: a twin study. Behavior Genetics. 36(6). 982–982. 1 indexed citations
19.
Hughes, Claire, Sara R. Jaffee, Francesca Happé, et al.. (2005). Origins of Individual Differences in Theory of Mind: From Nature to Nurture?. Child Development. 76(2). 356–370. 165 indexed citations
20.
Ronald, Angelica, Francesca Happé, & Robert Plomin. (2005). The genetic relationship between individual differences in social and nonsocial behaviours characteristic of autism. Developmental Science. 8(5). 444–458. 186 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

Explore authors with similar magnitude of impact

Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Sally Wheelwright Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Tony Charman Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Géraldine Dawson Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Uta Frith Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Helen Tager‐Flusberg Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Sally J. Rogers Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Christopher Gillberg Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Marian Sigman Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Sally Ozonoff Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Emily Simonoff
Rankless by CCL
2026