Congratulations to Ishita for passing her PhD viva in 2023! Ishita originally joined the Developmental Diversity Lab as a research assistant in 2017. During her time as a PhD student, supervised by Dr Sarah White, she studied how deception detection abilities change throughout development and if this might be an area of difficulty for autistic individuals. She also explored how these abilities might be related to mentalizing, bullying, and mental health. Ishita is now a Lecturer at University of Surrey, but she continues to collaborate with the DevDivLab at UCL.
Between September 27 and 29, 2023, David Ruttenberg took on the roles of chair, panel participant, and presenter at the Multimodality and Future Landscapes event at ICOM-11, delving into topics like Meaning Making, AI, Education, Assessment, and Ethics. The presentation focused on data extracted from his thesis, which outlines improved approaches to alleviate sensory sensitivity experiences, attentional challenges, and mental well-being disturbances in autistic adults. This information was shared with an academic audience, emphasizing an ethical perspective geared towards protecting at-risk autistic individuals from security and harm issues when gathering their personal data through environmental and psychophysiological sensors.
PhD student Nevin Ozden presented her poster on delay discounting at the 3rd edition of the social cognition workshop “From self-knowledge to knowing others”, held in Brussels. This workshop brings together researchers to share their experience in measuring the processes underpinning others’ and self-understanding in general and clinical populations. Nevin shared results from her study on how mentalizing and executive function abilities affect delay discounting performance in autistic and non-autistic children.
After completing a 3-year term as Chairperson for the Florida Atlantic University’s Centre for Autism and Related Disabilities (FAU-CARD), David Ruttenberg was re-elected to the Executive Board for an extended 5-year term. FAUCARD, a community-based program, provides direct assistance to 7,500+ individuals with autism spectrum disorder and related disabilities, offering support to families, schools, and community agencies. Services include training for family members, professional development for educators, support groups, community education, information dissemination, referrals, newsletters, and email updates. The center also supports businesses working with individuals with autism, among other initiatives.
Katherine Ellis presented at the National Cornelia de Lange Syndrome (CdLS) conference in April 2023, hosted by the CdLS Foundation UK and Ireland. CdLS UK and Ireland host these conferences twice a year as a way for families to meet each other and talk to one another about the condition. These conferences also serve as an opportunity for professionals to give presentations that focus on specific elements of CdLS – at the April 2023 conference, Katherine presented on sensory processing differences in CdLS.
Several DevDivLab members and alumni presented at the ITAKOM Conference from Monday 13 – Tuesday 14 March 2023 at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre and online. These included posters from:
Ruihan Wu who presented on "Are the social abilities of neurodivergent individuals measured accurately? An intergroup bias in smile discrimination in autism."
David Ruttenberg who presented on "Sensory, Attention And Mental Health Interventions For Autism: A Technological Patient And Public Involvement Study."
To mark World Autism Awareness Day, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society (formerly the Institute of Education) rounded up a selection of the many ways our researchers, lecturers, and students are working to transform the narrative around autism in a recent twitter post. The DevDivLab was featured also featured in a Q&A Article featuring David Ruttenberg’s research.
Dr Katherine Ellis, in collaboration with Prof Raja Mukherjee (Clinical lead of the National FASD clinic) and Dr Jo Moss (Co-lead of the Cerebra Network for Neurodevelopmental Disorders), organised the fetal alcohol syndrome research meeting and workshop. Hosted at University of Surrey in January 2023, this research meeting served as a networking event to establish collaboration between clinicians, practitioners, and researchers.
PhD Student Researcher David Ruttenberg recently contributed to the UK Parliament’s Office of Science and Technology (POST) by helping to author a POSTnote entitled Invisible Disabilities in Education and Employment. This work provide an overview of invisible disability in the UK and outlines types of invisible differences and relevant legislation and policy. It also discusses the experiences of adults with invisible disabilities, and strategies aimed at increasing access and inclusion for adults with invisible disabilities, focusing on employment, and higher and further education. David drew from his research, and in particular, his focus group and questionnaire data that were part of his Patient and Public Information studies.
