My name is Cassie Short and I am a PhD student in the Psychology department at the University of Bolton, under the supervision of Dr Pedro Vital.
I am writing to you as my research interest is focused on the facilitation of social processing in children who have been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC), and I am looking to recruit children with ASC between the ages of 7-11 years old to take part in my first study.
A lot of research has been and is currently being conducted to explore social interaction abilities in children with autism. However, limited studies are considering this exploration within a more natural context, such as during a real social interaction, where we can achieve a more realistic understanding.
My aims to show that findings can be different if social functioning is measured in a more natural way. I will compare the child’s behaviour and brain activity during a real interaction, compared to during a computer-based social task. I hope for the results of this study to encourage future research to use more realistic methods and therefore produce findings that better reflect children with autism.
I’m recruiting child-parent pairs: children with Autism Spectrum Conditions between 7-11 years old and a parent/guardian. The child will be asked to wear an EEG cap to monitor brain activity while they (1) complete a computer-based social task and (2) while they interact with their parent. The brain activity and imitation behaviour of the child during the two tasks will be compared.

please see link below if you can help

Letter to parents (1)

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