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Andrew Videos Whitehouse Watch and listen to Andrew PhD Deputy Director (Research); Angela Wright Bennett Professor of Autism Research at The Kids

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Maternal exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) has been linked to child neurodevelopmental difficulties. Neuroimaging research has linked these neurodevelopmental difficulties to white matter microstructure alterations, but the effects of PFAS on children's white matter microstructure remains unclear.

Research

Individuals exhibiting pronounced autistic traits (e.g., social differences and specialised interests) may struggle with cognitive empathy (i.e., the ability to infer others' emotions), although the relationship with affective empathy (i.e., the ability to share others' emotions) is less clear in that higher levels of autistic traits may be linked with increased affective empathy for negative emotions but reduced affective empathy for positive emotions. The current study investigates this empathy profile and whether alexithymia and emotion dysregulation help to explain it.

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Prenatal depressive symptoms are linked to negative child behavioral and cognitive outcomes and predict later psychopathology in adolescent children. Prior work links prenatal depressive symptoms to child brain structure in regions like the amygdala; however, the relationship between symptoms and the development of brain structure over time remains unclear.

Research

Our previous cross-sectional investigation (Chetcuti et al., 2020) showed that infants with autism traits could be divided into distinct subgroups based on temperament. This longitudinal study builds on this existing work by exploring the continuity of temperament subgroup classifications and their associations with behavioral/clinical phenotypic features from infancy to toddlerhood.

Research

With increasing demands for health, disability and education services, innovative approaches can help distribute limited resources according to need. Despite an increased focus on support needs within the clinical pathway and policy landscape, the body of research knowledge on this topic is at a relatively early stage. However, there appears to be a sense of unmet support needs and dissatisfaction with the provision of required support following an autism diagnosis amongst caregivers of young people on the spectrum.

Research

Anxiety is a leading mental health concern in childhood. Whilst a range of therapeutic approaches effectively reduce anxiety in young children, several barriers impact their implementation into practice. Digital interventions could help overcome some of these challenges; however, whether these can effectively target anxiety for children with and without Neurodevelopmental Conditions is unknown.

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Masculine norms influence internalizing problems in men. The processes that explain this association are not yet comprehensively understood. However, there exists a compelling argument to highlight the role of emotional functioning in explaining how conformity to the traditional Western conceptualization of masculine norms confers risk for internalizing problems.

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LiL' STEPS (Language development & Intervention Lab's SupporTing Early social-communication and language by Promoting caregiver Sensitive responsiveness) is a novel, manualized, caregiver-mediated early support program developed in India and delivered online for infants at elevated familial likelihood for autism. The program has been found to be feasible and acceptable. The preliminary efficacy of the LiL' STEPS program, which remains to be evaluated, was assessed in this study using a feasibility randomized controlled trial design. 

Research

We performed a genome-wide association meta-analysis of 290,134 attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptom measures of 70,953 unique individuals from multiple raters, ages and instruments.