PsychologiCALL

Dr Gill Althia Francis is a Research Fellow in Cognitive Psychology and Children's Play at the University of York, who specialises in researching how play impacts development for both neurodiverse and neurotypical children. She is a holder of a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship Award. During this podcast Gill chats to Louisa about a piece of work looking at the impact of play-based interventions on the mental health of autistic children and children with developmental language disorder.

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You can find Gill on Twitter @gillalthia, and you can find out more about her work by visiting her staff page at York.

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Gill has also been featured in a children's book as a 'Play Researcher', and you can find the book here.

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The paper discussed in this podcast is:
Francis, G., Deniz, E., Torgerson, C., & Toseeb, U. (2022). Play-based interventions for mental health: A systematic review and meta-analysis focused on children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and developmental language disorder. Autism & Developmental Language Impairments.

Dr Cathy Manning is a lecturer at University of Reading who researches sensory processing and decision-making in typically developing, autistic and dyslexic children. During this podcast she chats to Louisa about a new study looking at how children with dyslexia perceive and make decisions about visual information.

You can find Cathy on Twitter @CManningPhD, and you can find out more about the work we discuss in this episode in this summary article in The Conversation.

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The paper discussed in this podcast is:
Manning, C., Hassall, C. D., Hunt, L. T., Norcia, A. M., Wagenmakers, E-J., Snowling, M. J., Scerif, G., & Evans, N. J. (2022). Visual motion and decision-making in dyslexia: Reduced accumulation of sensory evidence and related neural dynamics. Journal of Neuroscience, 42 (1) 121-134.

This week is a slightly different format, because we've flipped the script. During this podcast episode, Louisa is interviewed by Jasmine Virhia, a postdoctoral researcher in the inclusion initiative at LSE. They talk about a paper that came out of Louisa's PhD, which explored contagion in autistic and non-autistic participants.

You can find more about Jasmine and her work by checking out her website, and you can find her on Twitter @JVirhia.

You can also find out more about Louisa's research on her website, and you can find her on Twitter @ljthomas1991.

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The paper discussed in this podcast is:
Thomas, L., Lockwood, P. L., Garvert, M. M., & Balsters, J. H. (2022). Contagion of temporal discounting value preferences in neurotypical and autistic adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 52(2), 700–713.

Saloni is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist trying to understand how to help children with communication disorders. During this podcast, she chats with Louisa about her recent work on intrinsic motivation, and its links to learning. This episode also includes a discussion about work life balance in academia.

You can find more about Saloni and her work by checking out her N-CoDe Lab at Royal Holloway, and you can find her on Twitter @salonikrishnan.

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The paper discussed in this podcast is:
  Garvin, B., & Krishnan, S. (2022). Curiosity-driven learning in adults with and without dyslexia. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 75(1), 156–168. 

Connor Keating is an experimental psychologist at the University of Birmingham who specialises in emotion perception and production in autism. During this podcast, he chats to Louisa about a piece of work investigating facial expression recognition in autistic and non-autistic individuals. Connor and Louisa also chat about some pilot data exploring differences in facial expression generation between autistic and non-autistic individuals.

If you want to hear more about the idea that a mismatch in facial expressions may result in bidirectional emotion recognition difficulties for autistic and non-autistic individuals, you can find a paper here, or a summary article here.

To stay up to date with Connor's research, you can find him on Twitter @ConnorTKeating and also his wonderful supervisor @Jennifer_L_Cook.

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The paper discussed in this podcast is:
Keating, C. T., Fraser, D. S., Sowden, S. & Cook, J. L. (2021). Differences between autistic and non-autistic adults in the recognition of anger from facial motion remain after controlling for alexithymia. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

Alex Lloyd is a developmental psychologist at University College London who specialises in cognitive development and mental health. During this podcast, they chat to Louisa about a paper examining the positive sides of adolescents' novelty seeking tendencies and why exploration may be beneficial during this point in the lifespan.

You can find Alex on Twitter @Alex_Lloyd93 and you can watch his TEDx talk about youth justice here.

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The paper discussed in this podcast is:
Lloyd, A., McKay, R., Sebastian, C. L., & Balsters, J. (2020). Are adolescents more optimal decision-makers in novel environments? Examining the benefits of heightened exploration in a patch foraging paradigm. Online preprint. 

Liz Jones is a developmental psychologist at Durham University who specialises in sensory differences in autism. During this podcast they chat to Louisa about a piece of work looking at the the impact of sensory differences at school for autistic pupils.

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The paper discussed in this podcast is:
Jones, E. K., Hanley, M., & Riby, D. M. (2021). Distraction, distress and diversity: Exploring the impact of sensory processing differences on learning and school life for pupils with autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 72, 101515.

Dr Joe Bathelt is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist who investigates how brain and behavioural differences interact as young people grow up. During this podcast, he chats to Louisa about a piece of working looking at the network approach to understanding brain and behaviour.

You can find more about Joe and his research here, and you can find him on Twitter @JoeBathelt

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The paper discussed in this podcast is:
Bathelt, J., Geurts, H. M., & Borsboom, D. (2021). More than the sum of its parts: Merging network psychometrics and network neuroscience with application in autism. Network Neuroscience, 1-33.

Dr Rachel Nesbit is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow based in the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Research Collaboration at the University of Exeter. She specialises in play and mental health in children and young people. During this podcast she chats to Louisa about her recent review looking at the factors that might help or hinder schools in providing children with opportunities for adventurous play*.

*Adventurous play has been defined as exciting or thrilling play where children are able to take age-appropriate risks (e.g., climbing trees, jumping off rocks).

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 Another paper of potential interest is The British Children's Play Survey - the largest study of play in Britain to date: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4334

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You can find out more about Rachel's research here.

You can also find Rachel on Twitter @rachelnesbit.

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The paper discussed in this podcast is:
Nesbit, R. J., Bagnall, C. L., Harvey, K. & Dodd, H. F. (2021). Perceived barriers and facilitators of adventurous play in schools: A qualitative systematic review. Children, 8(8), 681.
 

Beatrice is a social developmental psychologist at Royal Holloway, University of London who specialises in children and adolescents' use of online digital technologies as well as students' use of online learning tools. During this podcast, they chat to Louisa about their recently published paper looking at primary school children's perceptions of the risks and benefits of social media use and to what extent their parents and teachers may mediate these perceptions.

You can find out more about Beatrice's research here.

You can also find Beatrice on Twitter @drbeatricehayes and on LinkedIn

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The paper discussed in this podcast is
Hayes, B., James, A., Barn, R., & Watling, D. (2021). "The world we live in now": A qualitative investigation into parents', teachers', and children's perceptions of social networking site use. The British journal of educational psychology. Advance online publication.