PsychologiCALL

Since 2017 Teresa Tavassoli has been working at the University of Reading, first as a Lecturer and since 2019 as an Associate Professor.  Her research is dedicated to deepening our understanding of sensory reactivity in autism and its variation across the population. Her work is using multidisciplinary approach to identify reliable ways to measure sensory reactivity as well as to elucidate underlying mechanisms, and examine links to mental health symptoms.

You can find out more about Teresa's work by checking out the Centre for Autism's webpages and you can follow her on twitter here.

The paper discussed in this episode is:
MacLennan, K., Roach, L., & Tavassoli, T. (2020). The relationship between sensory reactivity differences and anxiety subtypes in autistic children. Autism Research, 13(5), 785-795.

Many thanks to Naomi Meiksin for editing the transcript for this episode. 

Professor Courtenay Norbury is a psychologist and speech-language therapist at UCL who specialises in language, cognition, and social interaction across a range of neurodevelopmental conditions.

You can read more about Courtenay's work at her lab website here and follow her on twitter here.

During this podcast she chats to Sue about SCALES, a 10-year longitudinal study that has been tracking the development of a large cohort of young children from school entry to Year 9.

The following is one paper from the study discussed in the podcast:
Norbury, C. F., Vamvakas, G., Gooch, D., Baird, G., Charman, T., Simonoff, E., & Pickles, A. (2017). Language growth in children with heterogeneous language disorders: a population study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 58(10), 1092-1105.

Many thanks to Naomi Meiksin for editing the transcript for this episode. 

Laura Crane is an academic researcher at the Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE) whose work focuses on improving educational experiences and outcomes for autistic young people.

During the podcast, she chats to Sue about her research with Norah Richards, a practitioner-researcher from Prior's Court School, on the development and initial evaluation of a 'Talking Wall' to meaningfully elicit the voices of autistic young people with complex needs.

You can find out more about Laura's work at her online profile, and follow her on twitter here.

The reference for the paper being discussed in this podcast is:
Richards, N., & Crane, L. (2020). The development and feasibility of a multimodal ‘Talking Wall’ to facilitate the voice of young people with autism and complex needs: a case study in a specialist residential school. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 50, 4267-4279. doi: 10.1007/s10803-020-04476-6

Many thanks to Naomi Meiksin for editing the transcript for this episode. 

Sue Gathercole is a cognitive psychologist with interests in memory, learning and language. Until 2018 she was the Director of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (CBU) in Cambridge and is now based in Developmental Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge.

In this podcast Sue talks about a classic paper in which she examined how memory for words was affected in children with language disorders and whether this might provide an explanation for those language problems. She reflects on the paper's influence and how developmental psychology research has changed since it was published.

You can find out more about Sue's work at her online profile.

The full reference for the paper being discussed in this podcast is:
Gathercole, S. E., & Baddeley, A. D. (1990). Phonological memory deficits in language disordered children: Is there a causal connection?. Journal of memory and language, 29(3), 336-360.

Many thanks to Naomi Meiksin for editing the transcript for this episode. 

Tony's main research interest is development in autism and the clinical application of this work via screening, diagnostic, epidemiological, intervention, and family studies. During this podcast he chats to Sue about a piece of work looking at outcomes from an autism early screening study that taught him a lot about the value of sample, cohorts and methods.

You can find out more about Tony's work at his online profile. You can follow Tony on Twitter here.

The paper being discussed in this podcast is:
A screening instrument for autism at 18 months of age: a 6-year follow-up study. Baird G, Charman T, Baron-Cohen S, Cox A, Swettenham J, Wheelwright S, Drew A. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2000 Jun;39(6):694-702. doi: 10.1097/00004583-200006000-00007.

Dr Lucy Livingston is a psychologist and Lecturer at Cardiff University in the Wales Autism Research Centre, who specialises in neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism spectrum disorder. During this podcast, she chats to Sue about a piece of work looking at compensatory mechanisms in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder.

You can find Lucy's lab group pages here and follow her on twitter here.

The article discussed in the podcast is:
Livingston, L. A., Colvert, E., Social Relationships Study Team, Bolton, P., & Happé, F. (2019). Good social skills despite poor theory of mind: exploring compensation in autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 60(1), 102-110.

Elizabeth Meins has been studying how parents interact with their infants for 30 years. Her research has shown how “tuning in” to your child (so-called mind-mindedness) has a positive impact on parenting and children’s development. During this podcast she chats to Sue about her recent work in developing a smartphone app that has proved effective in boosting parents' mind-mindedness.

You can follow Elizabeth on twitter here.

The paper discussed in this episode is:
Larkin et al. (2019) Proof of concept of a smartphone app to support delivery of an intervention to facilitate mothers’ mind-mindedness. PLOS One, 14(8): e0220948

Dr Sam Wass is a developmental psychologist at the University of East London who specialises in investigating how early development is affected by the environments we grow up in, and by people around us. He talks to Sue about why children exposed to noisy and chaotic home environments show such widespread patterns of impairment during later life - affecting both academic performance, and long-term mental health outcomes.

You can see Sam's website here and his lab site here. You can also follow him on Twitter.

The paper we discussed in this podcast is:
Wass, S. V., Smith, C. G., Daubney, K. R., Suata, Z. M., Clackson, K., Begum, A., & Mirza, F. U. (2019). Influences of environmental stressors on autonomic function in 12‐month‐old infants: understanding early common pathways to atypical emotion regulation and cognitive performance. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 60(12), 1323-1333.

Dr Umar Toseeb is a Lecturer in Psychology in Education at the University of York. He is interested in children's mental health and wellbeing, specifically children with developmental differences such as developmental language disorder and autism spectrum conditions. During this podcast he chats to Sue about his recent paper on how prosocial behaviours (helping, sharing, caring etc.) develop during childhood and how they are related to mental health and wellbeing in children at risk of developmental language disorder.

You can follow Umar on Twitter here.

The paper discussed in this episode is:
Toseeb, U., & St Clair, M. C. (2020). Trajectories of prosociality from early to middle childhood in children at risk of Developmental Language Disorder. Journal of communication disorders, 105984.

Dr Jenny Murphy is a psychologist at Royal Holloway University of London who specialises in interoception and social perception. During this podcast she chats to Sue about a piece of work looking at the relationship between interoceptive attention and interoceptive accuracy.

You can follow Jenny on Twitter here.

The paper discussed in this episode is:
Murphy, J., Brewer, R., Plans, D., Khalsa, S. S., Catmur, C., & Bird, G. (2020). Testing the independence of self-reported interoceptive accuracy and attention. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73(1), 115-133.