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News & Events

Autism researcher Professor Andrew Whitehouse has been named this year’s Western Australian of the Year in the HBF Professions category.

News & Events

The Kids Research Institute Australia welcomes today’s Federal Government announcement of a new pilot program to support babies showing early social communication differences in Western Australia.

News & Events

Professor Andrew Whitehouse has been awarded an Autism Spectrum Australia Recognition Award for his work communicating scientific findings to families.

Sibling Support and Teen Talk Studies form

Research

Sex-specific developmental differences in brain structure have been documented in older children and adolescents, with females generally showing smaller overall brain volumes and earlier peak ages than males. However, sex differences in gray matter structural development in early childhood are less studied. We characterized sex-specific trajectories of gray matter volume development in children aged 2–8 years.  

Research

Autism early intervention research has indicated a research-to-practice gap, including continued use of practices with inadequate research support, and insufficient use of empirically supported practices. The present study explored the processes and mechanisms through which providers working with young children on the autism spectrum learn, select, and implement the various practices in their clinical repertoires. 

Research

Harmonizing the scores obtained by different instruments that measure the same construct enable researchers to combine them in one analysis. An important step in harmonization is checking whether there is measurement invariance across populations.

Research

Social motivation is posited as a key factor in the expression of the autism phenotype. However, lack of precision in both conceptualization and measurement has impeded a thorough understanding of its diverse presentation and associated outcomes. This study addresses this gap by identifying subgroups of autism characterized by deficits in distinct facets of social motivation, relative to normative benchmarks.

Research

There is a common mischaracterisation that autistic individuals have reduced or absent empathy. Measurement issues may have influenced existing findings on the relationships between autism and empathy, and the structure of the empathy construct in autism remains unclear.

Research

This study aimed to understand how parents describe the most challenging behaviors exhibited by their children diagnosed with autism and/or ADHD, how those behaviours impact their family, and whether challenges are directly related to the core characteristics of these conditions.