Alexandra Sturrock

Overview

Autism and sex/gender research

My PhD (2014-2020 P/T) explored the language and communication differences of autistic females without learning disability compared to autistic boys and non-autistic matched children. It showed how primary aged girls and boys differed on (1) direct psycholinguistic measures of language and pragmatics, (2) parent, teacher and child self-report using questionnaires and (3) clinical observations. It also qualitatively explored the likely impact of language differences by interviewing both autistic girls and boys (and their parents), and showed broad similarities of experience. It provided new insight into sex/gender differences relating to language and communication in autistic children without learning disability. In so doing it offered guidance to clinicians around accurate diagnosis, accurate assessment and support needs. It was supervised by Dr Catherine Adams & Dr Jenny Freed

In 2021 with the support of LuCID intern, Charley Walker (SLT), we developed materials which will help us identify subtle support needs for a wider population of autistic women and girls. We are currently collecting data with those aged 12-24years.

We continue to explore the impact of social communication differences for autistic women within a co-supervised award winning Master’s project by Arianna Paricos. Together with Dr Katie Twomey and Dr Kathy Leadbitter, a paper on quality of life in autistic women is pending publication.

Most recently, in collaboration with Dr Brendan Dunlop and others, I am co-supervising a postgraduate DClinPsy student to explore the social communication profiles of trans-individuals and its impact on their well-being.

Intervention development for social communication differences

From Jan 2024, I will be working on a Nuffield Trust grant, alongside Dr Colin Bannard (The University of Manchester), Dr Julie Dockrell (UCL), Professor Danielle Matthews (The University of Sheffield) Dr Kirsten Abbot-Smith (University of Kent). In this project we will generate a teacher training programme seeking to provide universal support for social conversation, in the class-room. The programme will be co-created with teachers and then the study will seek to establish effectiveness.

Additionally, alongside Dr Kathy Leadbitter and Dr Penny Bee, I am co-supervising a pre-doctoral fellowship for Katy Baldwin (SLT). She is seeking to establish an evidence base for her HAVEN programme (established with Manchester Foundation Trust), a teacher training project, to facilitate setting up and running neurodiverse affirming social groups for teenagers in schools. Also, alongside Dr Ceri Ellis, I am supporting research into another MFT initiative to provide pre-diagnostic support to autistic infants, (led by Sarah Cameron, SLT).

The EVER measure and exploring interactions between language and emotional difficulties

In collaboration with Dr Jenny Freed, we are exploring how to measure the development of language of emotion across childhood. Developing the EVER measure will allow direct assessment of the emergence of emotion vocabulary in children aged between 5 and 13 years. Leading to a full trial of the measure for clinical application.

The SPAACE project: Speech Perception by Autistic Adults in Complex Environments

This is a rolling set of co-produced projects aiming to shed light on autism-related differences in speech perception. This work, with autism@manchester’s George Hanks, Dr George Bendo and Dr Emma Gowan as well as Audiology’s Dr Hannah Guest and Professor Chris Plack, is building understanding of discrete listening differences and speech perception based on autistic insights. In related work from our STP Master’s student, we have also expanded our understanding of self-help strategies employed by autistic adults to improve speech perception. This is being developed into public facing materials to support clinicians and other autistic adults.

Current PhD students

Alexandra Gillyon, Sabrata Mallick, Elizaveta Nosova