On Christmas Day this year, multiple clinicians and academics wrote to The Guardian newspaper to express their concern about the impact of ‘screentime’ on children’s health. In this post, we will extract key phrases from the letter, which can be seen in its entirety here, and explore whether the evidence upholds the statement. In this, I am joined by…
The other day I tweeted, having just had my first mentoring meeting with Kabie. I am an academic, a psychologist, about eight years out from my PhD. Kabie is an autistic advocate, and campaigner. We are both mothers, Scottish residents, and care deeply about getting a better deal for autistic people (and using research to help…
In a new(ish) paper (first published a year ago), Lorcan Kenny of the Centre for Research in Autism and Education asks “Which terms should be used to describe autism?“. The paper provides a much-needed empirical analysis of this question which has beset the autism community for years. Conflict over the appropriate terminology to describe both autism itself and specific…
This guest blog comes from the keyboard of Felicity Sedgewick, a PhD student at UCL Institute of Education, based at CRAE (Centre for Research in Autism and Education). I invited Felicity to write the post after supporting her recruitment of participants by sharing her study website on twitter. This sparked a debate which extends beyond her specific research topic…
This is the third part in a mini-series of blog posts all aiming to address the big concerns that parents and practitioners tend to have about children using technology. The themes were derived from a series of discussions, but particularly a pair of workshops on technology and autism held in February 2016 as part of Innovative…
Health Warning: this blog is about to get political. Reading this post requires you to endorse two statements which I will not address with evidence, but instead take as a priori assumptions. Expert advice, based on empirical evidence and data-based forecasts, was overwhelmingly in support of voting to remain in the EU Therefore the public’s…
So here’s the second in a series of blog posts which I’m aiming to write over a fairly condensed period of time, all drawing on recent discussions which were particularly crystallised by a pair of workshops as part of Innovative Learning Week 2016. All the posts are aiming to provide an evidence-based response to current concerns…
In February 2016, together with my colleague Alyssa Alcorn, I held a couple of workshops at the University of Edinburgh as part of the annual Innovative Learning Week. The theme of ILW2016 was ‘Ideas in Play’. So we decided so gather a bunch of people interested in technology and autism, give them some iPads and apps, and get…
This is just a note to introduce a guest post from a colleague looking for participants for her research. Please read and share with your networks. Thanks! During our childhood we learn to recognise the emotions we feel. As babies, we begin to learn basic emotions such as happiness through our carer’s facial and vocal…
A week ago I returned from spending a few days in the USA attending the International Meeting for Autism Research – an annual academic conference, which took place in Baltimore this year. IMFAR, as it is known, is one the highlights of my year. An opportunity to get together with researchers from all disciplines who share a…