be part of a PhD study - for children with ASD 10-16 years and their parents

The other day I was contacted by a PhD student from Deakin University in Melbourne. She will be in Canberra shortly and is hoping to be able to interview children with and without an ASD aged between 10-16 years old.

Her email, below, explains more about it. please feel free to contact me or leave a comment on this post to find out more information, I can forward her email which contains flyers, consent forms etc.

It was lovely to talk to you yesterday - and very serendipitous indeed! As I said yesterday, I’m planning on making (a very last minute) trip to Canberra from October 3rd to 5th. I’m hoping that you might be able to help me find some families (Specifically, boys and girls aged between 10 and 16 years and one of their parents) to participate in my research.

Specifically, my area of research is in regard to the lower rates of autism diagnosis of girls and women. At the moment I’m trying to find a large number of individuals to participate in my research, both boys and girl, both with and without Autism (High Functioning or Aspergers).

The current study is examining the friendships of children with autism. Essentially, my theory is that a potential reason for the under diagnosis of girls with autism is that the sociability and friendship styles of girls with High Functioning Autism (HFA) and Aspergers Syndrome (AS) are markedly different to that of boys with HFA and AS. As such, this study is a questionnaire and an interview which aim to examine the differences in friendships between boys and girls with and without HFA and AS. I am in desperate need of boys with HFA and AS so that I am able to compare to girls with HFA and AS.

I would like to set up a time that works best for the children and their parents. I will travel to them and sit down for around 15 – 20 minutes with your child and work through a structured interview which I will set up as a conversation about their friends. Meanwhile, the parent would be answering the same questionnaire about their child in a separate area.

I separate parents and children for two reasons. First, I don’t want the child to be looking to Mum or Dad for the “right” answers and second, as you will know, often the perception that the child has about their friendships and the reality can often to be two very different things and so I want to make sure I am getting a clear idea of their perceptions as well as yours.