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Lucia Wright is a happy, confident 16-year-old who loves her family, friends, drama, science and making the most of her newfound independence.

Strawberries, slime and sliced bread are being used as tools to educate and inspire the next generation of researchers, as part of the The Kids Discovery Centre Schools & Outreach Program.

Study found children aged 2–5 years from dog-owning households had increased pro-social behaviours like sharing and cooperating, when compared to children without a dog.

A new website for parents of trans children and young people across Australia is expected to improve family wellbeing and ultimately save lives after launching in May 2023.

On this Research Impact page, we list stories helping demonstrate how we collaborate with other leaders, innovators, communities, and international stakeholders to ensure excellent research results. The better our results, the better the chances of research making a real difference.

Research

Low vitamin D status and intake are prevalent among the Australian population, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We hypothesised that some traditional foods could contain vitamin D, and measured vitamin D in foods from Nyoongar Country, Western Australia. Samples of kangaroo, emu, squid/calamari and lobster/crayfish were collected and prepared by Aboriginal people using traditional and contemporary methods.

Research

Alexithymia—a trait characterized by difficulties in emotion processing—is of high interest in the autism field. However, the lack of validated alexithymia measures for autistic individuals limits progress. This study aimed to address this gap by examining the psychometric properties of the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (PAQ) across autistic and non-autistic samples. Using the PAQ, we investigated how alexithymia manifests in autistic individuals and its links with poor mental health outcomes (anxiety).

Research

Parents and caregivers often turn to the internet for information about their child's health and development. Research investigating content related to parenting on the world's most popular social media platform, TikTok, has not been conducted.

Research

Approximately 8% of all children experience developmental and mental health conditions. Similarities in characteristics across neurodevelopmental conditions-such as difficulties in communication and language, social interaction, motor coordination, attention, activity regulation, behavior, mood, and sleep-make it challenging to attribute these characteristics exclusively to specific diagnoses and assessments. The purpose of this study was to identify symptomatic domains across neurodevelopmental conditions in children and to explore dimension reduction for transdiagnostic assessment. 

Research

Preemptive pharmacogenomic (PGx) testing in pediatric oncology patients could reduce toxicity and improve efficacy of medications yet remains underutilized. Consumer identified implementation barriers have not been extensively explored nor included adolescent or young adult (AYA) patient perspectives. This study describes Australian pediatric oncology consumer perspectives on PGx testing, elucidating barriers to implementation.