Projects

• The Headaches Project 

  Programme:

  Mental Health, Physical Health

  Exploring whether there is a link between neurodiversity, mental health, and headaches.  

  

• The Needs Project

  Programme:

  Education, Interventions

  Aiming to better understand the factors that may lead to educational challenges for some autistic children.

  

• The Autism GP Diagnosis Project

  Programme:

  Screening and Diagnosis

  This study will investigate whether GPs can accurately assess autism in a Primary Care setting when compared to specialist clinicians.

  

• The Cambridge Baby Study

  Programme:

  Perception and Cognition

  This study aims to explore whether there are sex differences in newborn social attention, and how these early preferences relate to parental characteristics and future outcomes.

  

• The APEX (Autism Prenatal Sex Differences) Consortium

  Programme:

  Genetics and Environmental Factors, Hormones, Neuroscience

  APEX is a Cambridge-led research program that explores the links between prenatal biology, sex differences, neurodevelopment and autism.

  

• Vulnerability, mental health and autism

  Programme:

  Mental Health

  Autistic people have social and communication difficulties which can leave them at greater risk of being vulnerable. This project explores areas of vulnerability and their triggers in autistic children and adults.

  

• The National Pupil Database and autism

  Programme:

  Education, Employment

  This study explores if autistic teenagers are more likely to become "Not in Education, Employment or Training" (NEET).

  

• The Longitudinal European Autism Project (LEAP): AIMS-2-TRIALS

  Programme:

  Neuroscience, Screening and Diagnosis

  The EU-AIMS Longitudinal European Autism Project (LEAP) is a long-term study across seven sites in Europe with hundreds of participants, looking at how brain development is different in autistic and typical people.

  

• Autism and the Criminal Justice System

  Programme:

  Criminal Justice

  This project investigates if autism is recognised and whether reasonable adjustments are made so that autistic people are treated fairly within the criminal justice system.

  

• The Autism-CHIME Project

  Programme:

  Education

  The Autism-CHIME study tests whether improvisational music therapy is helpful for autistic children aged 7-11 years old.

  

• The Autism and Exceptional Memory Project

  Programme:

  Neuroscience, Perception and Cognition

  The aim of this study is to explore exceptional memory skills in both autistic and neurotypical people.

  

• Autism and mathematical ability

  Programme:

  Genetics and Environmental Factors, Perception and Cognition

  Mathematicians are talented at systemising, a common trait in autism, and autism is more common among mathematicians than we might expect by chance. This study explores links between maths, autism and genes.

  

• Empathy and autism

  Programme:

  Perception and Cognition

  The ARC began work in empathy studying 'theory of mind' (ToM) difficulties in autism, and has since developed a series of tests and teaching methods to aid the development of empathy. We are also studying the "double empathy problem".

  

• Cambridge Ultrasound Sibling and Parent Study (CUSP) and autism

  Programme:

  Hormones, Neuroscience

  This study uses 3D ultrasound to look at babies' brains in the womb, and then follows their development for 18 months after birth to see if markers found during gestation might predict autism.