Researching the emotional and psychological well-being of young people

Young People

Autism

Ongoing

Autism Spectrum Social Stories™ In Schools Trial 2 (ASSSIST 2)

We are looking for families to take part in helping us answer this question: "Will reading Social Stories™ help children with autism socially and emotionally?" Sometimes, children with autism find it hard to play with other children or express their emotions. This might make them feel upset, angry, or very worried. Even though it is normal to have these feelings, some children might need some help so they can play happily with friends. We want to find out if reading Social Stories™ is a good way to help with this. If you'd like to find out more about this, please see our information sheet below:

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MicroRNA Autism Research Study (MARS)

Millions of people in the world, and around 1 in 100 people in the UK are thought to have autism. At the moment we don’t understand what causes it, but we know that sometimes many people in the same family have autism. We wanted to find out if tests done on blood samples can help us to understand the cause of autism. We compared blood samples of people with and without autism from the same family. We have finished collecting data with families for this study and are in the process of analysing and writing up the findings.

Ongoing

Investigating SOcial Competence and Isolation in children with Autism taking part in Lego-based therapy clubs In School Environments (I-SOCIALISE)

LEGO®-based therapy is a new approach that is designed to help children and young people with autism learn new skills to help them at home, school, and with their friends.

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Diagnostic Instruments for Autism in Deaf children’s Study (DIADS)

At the moment there are no autism spectrum disorder (ASD) assessments for deaf children and young people. A lot of the tools that are used to do ASD assessments have been designed for hearing children and young people. This project wanted to make some changes to the assessments to make them better for deaf children and young people. We then tested the assessments to see if they work well with deaf children and young people. We have finished looking for families to take part in the study and we are currently looking at and writing up the results of the project.

Child Oriented Mental Health Research

We develop child orientated research for children and young people. This moves away from a national trend where child and adolescent research has been based around interventions that have been used in adult populations. We have strong involvement from young people in designing and running our research, and put children and families’ right at the centre of our thinking as we plan further research.

Ongoing

Green & Blue Spaces in Lockdown

We wanted to find out how people have been using Green (e.g. parks, woodlands and meadows) and Blue (e.g. the seaside, lakes and rivers) spaces during lockdown. We know from research that being outdoors in nature can help us to feel good and we wanted to see if people had been using them more or less during lockdown.

Ongoing

The White Rose Child & Adolescent Sleep Network

Over the last 10 years there has been a 300% increase in the number of children accessing specialist sleep support from Sheffield Children’s Hospital. The impact of sleep problems in childhood is wide-ranging in terms of physical and mental health, quality of life, behaviour and educational outcomes. Child sleep problems are also associated with poor outcomes for parents and other household members. Promoting healthy sleep is therefore a public health priority. Research investigating potential interventions to promote healthy sleep in children is limited, particularly in school and community settings.

Ongoing

Routinely used interventions for improving attachment in infants and young children: a systematic review and comprehensive UK survey

The COMIC team will work with UCL to carry out a comprehensive survey of current practice in the UK. They will then conduct a systematic review of the current evidence around these routinely used interventions.

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Trial on Improving Inter-Generational Attachment for Children Undergoing Behaviour problems

TIGA-CUB is an NIHR Research for Patient Benefit-funded pragmatic, individually-randomised, controlled feasibility trial that aims to test the feasibility and acceptability of running a large scale RCT of manualised Child Psychotherapy vs. usual treatment for children with treatment resistant conduct disorders. The child psychotherapy manual was written by Child Psychotherapists at the Northern School of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy (NSCAP).

Ongoing

Investigating SOcial Competence and Isolation in children with Autism taking part in Lego-based therapy clubs In School Environments (I-SOCIALISE)

LEGO®-based therapy is a new approach that is designed to help children and young people with autism learn new skills to help them at home, school, and with their friends.

Ongoing

Alleviating Specific Phobias Experienced by Children Trial (ASPECT)

How can we help children who are scared of some things? Sometimes children can be scared of things like animals, places and objects. This can make them feel scared and worried and can also mean they miss out on doing the things they like to do, or even need to do. This is called a phobia and it affects between 5 and 10% of children. Phobias can last for a long time (up to 20 years!) and people can find it difficult to ask for help with this. We want to find out the best way to help children who are scared of things.

Deaf Child Mental Health

Ongoing

A systematic review of early interventions for parents of deaf babies

The Child Oriented Mental health Intervention Centre (COMIC) research team, led by Professor Barry Wright, has been awarded funding by The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to conduct a systematic review of early support interventions for parents of deaf babies.

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Translation into British Sign Language and validation of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: Impact

Although there are an estimated 125,000 Deaf people in the UK who use British Sign Language (BSL), there are no child mental health screening instruments accessible to children whose first or main language is BSL. The Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is commonly used in the assessment of children’s mental health problems and is available in 60 languages. We translated the SDQ into BSL, for deaf young people, deaf parents and deaf teachers. We seek resources to enhance awareness of the availability of the SDQ in BSL among the Deaf community, with the aim of building confidence in its reliability and increasing its use. By doing so, we aim to enhance access to, and increase uptake of, mental health services among Deaf children and adolescents, ultimately leading to better mental health outcomes among this community.

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