Current projects
Cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology
What you can't ignore: examining distraction in autism
This project will investigate whether autistic people's experience of distraction is determined by the nature and context of the stimuli.
The study will combine subjective accounts from autistic people with experimental testing to provide a comprehensive insight into the nature of distraction.
This integrated approach should provide rich detail and robust measurement. This project is funded by the ESRC.
Lead researcher: Dr Daniel Poole
Project mentor: Professor Elizabeth Milne
Speech, language and communication in children with genetic conditions
The information this project produces will help families, doctors/nurses and educators better understand the needs for communication interventions in children affected by genetic conditions. Funding from the Baily Thomas Charitable Fund.
Lead researcher: Dr Harriet Smith
Project supervisors: Dr Alisdair McNeill, Dr Megan Freeth, Prof Danielle Matthews, Dr Silke Fricke
Social and applied studies
ICF CoreSets-platform for autism: UK-based pilot study
The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, known more commonly as ICF, is a classification of health and health-related factors. With Autistic adults, someone’s strengths and support needs can vary widely depending on a series of environmental factors and what support they have or don’t have in place. This study aims to develop a platform where those environmental factors can be assessed and broken down into different components in order to create an individualised strengths-based report to help people understand their Autistic profile.
This project has received funding from the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI). This project is being conducted in collaboration with Professor Sven Bolte from the Karolinska Institute and Markus Blomqvist from Civic Innovation, both of whom are based in Sweden.
Read more about the study here and associated work in collaboration with Autistica.
Autistic advisor: Kelly Scargill
Co-investigators: Susanna Crowson; Dr Daniel Poole; Prof Ian Kellar
Principal investigator: Dr Megan Freeth
Understanding and Tackling the Barriers to Employment Experienced by Autistic Adults
This project will explore barriers to employment experienced by autistic people. We will survey a sample of employers to identify the factors which influence their intentions and willingness to employ autistic people. These findings will then inform the development of an employer intervention to address identified barriers. The survey and intervention will be based on established models of behaviour (COM-B and the Theoretical Domains Framework).
The intervention will be piloted for feasibility and acceptability with a sample of employers. A steering group of autistic adults will provide guidance around the design and delivery of the study.
The study is funded by The Colt Foundation.
Lead researcher: Dr Marianne Day
Principal investigator: Dr Megan Freeth
Co-Investigators: Dr Chantelle Wood; Dr Elizabeth Corker; Nick Pearson (Sheffield Occupational Health Advisory Service)
The lived experiences of SOX-11 and MYT1L- syndromes
This project is being carried out by Louis Stokes as part of his PhD. The genetic bases of these syndromes were identified by Dr Alisdair McNeill (SiTRAN)
Project supervisors: Dr Megan Freeth and Dr Alisdair McNeill
A cross-cultural study of autistic camouflage in the UK and China
This project is being carried out by Jiayi Chen as part of his PhD.
Project supervisors: Professor Elizabeth Milne, Dr Agata Debowska and Dr Megan Freeth
The role of psychological processes in clinical and subclinical paranoia
This project is being carried out by Anton Martinez as part of his PhD.
Project supervisors: Professor Richard Bentall, Dr Georgina Rowse and Professor Elizabeth Milne
Autistic people's experiences of unemployment and under-employment
This project is being carried out by Laura Smethurst as part of her doctoral training in Clinical Psychology.
Project supervisor: Dr Megan Freeth
Autistic people's experiences of pregnancy
This project is being carried out by Charlotte Grahame as part of her doctoral training in Clinical Psychology.
Project supervisor: Dr Megan Freeth
Autistic people's experiences of diagnostic disclosure
This project is being carried out by Dr Sheena Au-Yeung as part of her doctoral training in Clinical Psychology.
Project supervisor: Dr Megan Freeth