Larissa Pliska studied Rehabilitation Pedagogy at the TU Dortmund University for her Bachelor's degree and Rehabilitation Sciences for her Master's degree. After graduating, she worked as a scientific staff at TU Dortmund University in various departments (Music and Movement in Rehabilitation and Pedagogy [9/22-3/23], Psychology and Diagnostic [4/23-9/25], Methods of empirical educational research [4/23-9/24], Language and Communication [9/22-12/25; third-party funded project IDEAS, funded by BMFTR]). Since October 2025, Larissa Pliska has been back in the Department of Music and Movement in Rehabilitation and Pedagogy. In November 2025, she successfully completed her doctorate in the IDEAS project on the topic "Digital media and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Media usage, parental concerns, and the potential for digital clinical screening". In addition to her work as a scientific staff at TU Dortmund University, she works in an autism therapy center.

Awards:

2024: Best Presentation Award based on the best overall score from the review of the abstract/paper and the evaluation of the quality of the presentation, awarded at the ICA 2024: XVIII. International Conference on Autism.

2022: Lotte Kaliski Prize for extraordinary academic achievement (Master's thesis) as well as intra- and extramural commitment, awarded by the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences at TU Dortmund University.

Selected presentations:

• Pliska, L., Neitzel, I., Buschermöhle, M., Kunina-Habenicht, O., Ritterfeld, U. (2025, March). Visuelle Präferenzen von Grundschulkindern mit Autismus-Spektrum-Störung: Eine experimentelle Studie (Visual preferences of primary school children with autism spectrum disorder: An experimental study). Poster at the 16th Scientific Conference Autism Spectrum (WTAS), Heidelberg.
• Pliska, L., Neitzel, I., Kunina-Habenicht, O. & Ritterfeld, U. (2024, September). Emotionserkennung und Situationsbeschreibung von Kindern mit Autismus-Spektrum-Störung (Emotion recognition and situation description of children with autism spectrum disorder). Poster presented at the 53rd Congress of the German Psychological Society, Vienna, Austria.
• Pliska, L., Neitzel, I., Buschermöhle, M., Kunina-Habenicht, O., Ritterfeld, U. (2024, July). Visual Preferences of Elementary School Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Experimental Study. Presentation at the 18th International Conference on Autism (ICA 2024), Berlin.
• Brandenburg, J. & Pliska, L. (2023, November). Diagnostik und Förderung bei Entwicklungsauffälligkeiten im Schulkontext (Diagnostics and support for developmental disorders in the school context). Workshop at the symposium „Forschung trifft Praxis“ ("Research meets practice"), Münster.
• Sartor, T., Pliska, L. & Kunina-Habenicht, O. (2023, September). Risikofaktoren für das Belastungserleben von Alleinerziehenden während der COVID-19-Pandemie (Risk factors for the stress experience of single parents during the COVID-19 pandemic). Workshop at the 22nd Symposium on Early Intervention 2023, University of Cologne.
• Pliska, L., Neitzel, I. & Ritterfeld, U. (2023, September). Versorgungssituation bei Kindern mit Verdacht auf eine Autismus-Spektrum-Störung: neue Wege in der Diagnostik (Care situation for children with suspected autism spectrum disorder: new approaches in diagnostics). Presentation at the 22nd Symposium on Early Intervention 2023, University of Cologne.
• Pliska, L., Neitzel, I., Buschermöhle, M. & Ritterfeld, U. (2023, July). Comparison of Different Interaction Formats for Automatized Analysis of Symptoms in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Paper presented at the 25th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2023), Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Pliska, L., Neitzel, I. & Ritterfeld, U. (2023, March). Der Einsatz digitaler Diagnostik bei Kindern mit Autismus-Spektrum-Störung – Impulse der Dortmunder Gruppe (The use of digital diagnostics in children with autism spectrum disorder - Impulses from the Dortmund group). Poster presented at the 23rd scientific dbs symposium, Dortmund.