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.
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