Tizard News and Events

The PAsSA trial is a research project looking at the effectiveness of group CBT for people with Asperger syndrome and anxiety.  The project is funded by NIHR and headed by Dr Peter Langdon at UEA.  Dr Langdon is coordinating the four CBT groups running in Norfolk with Prof Glynis Murphy coordinating four CBT groups (each of 21 sessions) in Kent and South East London.  Two of these groups have run at the Tizard Centre in the evenings to fit in with participants’ working lives.  The first one finished late last year.  The second, led by Glynis Murphy and Nicky Wood, finished recently concluding with a trip to the Gulbenkian Theatre and some refreshments.  Of the two South East London groups, coordinated by Prof Murphy, one finished earlier this year and one is still running.  All partcipants will be reassessed as their groups finish so it can be seen if the treatment has been effective.

Prof Glynis Murphy will be in Japan next week for the IASSIDD Asia Pacific conference – see www.iassid.org . Prof Murphy is Immediate Past President for IASSIDD and is responsible for leading on a number of issues for IASSIDD. She will be attending Executive and Council meetings and will also be giving papers at the conference, with Dr Neil Sinclair, a previous PhD student at Tizard.

 In addition, Prof Murphy and Dr Neil Sinclair will be providing 3-day basic training in SOTSEC-ID for Japanese colleagues who want to run the SOTSEC-ID programme in Japan. The powerpoint files have already been sent over to japan for translation. See http://www.kent.ac.uk/tizard/sotsec/index.html for details of SOTSEC-ID.

Beckie Hardiman, PhD student studying at the Tizard Centre is undertaking a triathlon at the end of September, hoping to complete an 800m open water swim, 40km bike ride and 8km run.  She is hoping to raise money for the Fragile X Society (www.fragilex.org.uk). The charity does fantastic work to support families affected by Fragile X Syndrome, which is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability (affecting 1/3600 boys and 1/6000 girls) and the leading known single-gene cause of autism.

 If you would like to sponsoring Beckie please go to her justgiving account (www.justgiving.com/Becky-Hardiman-FXS)

Rebecca Hardiman, PhD student at the Tizard Centre, is recruiting for an applied pilot study investigating the relationship between hormonal indicators of stress/arousal (measured through saliva samples) and challenging behaviours (such as self-injurious behaviour and aggression) in boys with Fragile X Syndrome. Rebecca is looking to recruit families in England with a son with confirmed full-mutation Fragile X Syndrome (without a dual-diagnosis of autism) and an unaffected sibling, both in the 5-15 year age range. For more information contact Becky Hardiman on 01227824770 or email rh432@kent.ac.uk.

Costs and Benefits of Social Care Support for Ex-offenders with Intellectual disabilities’ (OFFSCA-ID); a research project that is currently run by Prof Glynis Murphy and funded by the SSCR, are providing a scholarship for one exceptional PGIDD candidate who is interested in conducting a qualitative research project looking at experiences of ex-offenders with ID when they leave prison. This project would then become your dissertation on the PGIDD course. If you wish to find out more about the study, please follow the link:

http://www.kent.ac.uk/tizard/research/research_projects/OFFSCA_ID.html

The scholarship will cover the PGIDD fees of the student, although the student will need to be studying part time to fit the timing of the project. In order to apply for this scholarship, you will need to register your interest with Vivi Triantafyllopoulou as soon as possible and write three paragraphs where the following points need to be discussed:

• What do you know about people with intellectual disabilities in the Criminal Justice System and the difficulties they face?
• Your relevant experience/ background (clinical or research based) with offenders with intellectual disabilities.
• Why do you think you are the best candidate for this scholarship?

Email your application to P.Triantafyllopoulou@kent.ac.uk

The Autism Research at Kent (ARK) team would like to invite you to a networking and information event on 19 Sep 2013 from 12.30pm onwards in Keynes Lecture Theatre 4.

ARK (Autism Research at Kent) is a collaboration recently set up by researchers at the School of Psychology and Tizard Centre. Our aim is to develop a single identity for conducting excellent research on autism at the University of Kent. This will be facilitated through the development of a website (see: www.autismresearchkent.co.uk ^[1]), a database of willing participants in the Kent area and beyond (across the spectrum and ages), and a coordinated recruitment and dissemination agenda.

To kick things off, we are organising a networking and information event for UoK staff and PhD students, in order to establish a network of researchers across the University of Kent and other health-related groups, with shared interests in ASD research on 19 September. The ARK team will introduce the new website and database, and invite you to become a part of the collaborative venture. To help us get to know each other, we invite you to join us in sharing your experiences in the field, through a short 10-minute presentation on your current/future research interests and plans, and as part of a group discussion regarding ideas/suggestions/requests for the website, database and recruitment. We have also invited a few representative ‘users’ (including individuals with ASD and their carers, and local ASD support groups) to tell us what they want from our research and database. We hope that this event will inspire our new venture to put the University of Kent ‘on the map’ as an innovative centre for ASD research.

A proposed timetable of the day’s events is:

12.30pm Buffet lunch (supplied)
1.30pm Welcome by ARK team
1.45pm Short presentations
3 pm Coffee break
3.30pm Open group discussions/networking

We will send on a final schedule nearer the time, with details of speakers etc. You are welcome to attend either the full event or stay for a shorter period.

At this stage, we would like to hear from you if you would like to attend the event on 19 September. Please let us know if you will join us for lunch, and whether you would like to contribute with a 10-minute presentation outlining your interests and/or your (proposed) research with ASD populations.

Thank you for your interest, we look forward to seeing many of you there.

Aida Malovic and Heather Ferguson
email: ark@kent.ac.uk

 The first focus group was held in Athens on Saturday 7th July 2013 with a view to helping develop Services in Intellectual Disabilities in Greece.  This was run by Paraskevi Triantafyllopoulou (Vivi) with Anta Kapsouri, 2nd year Psychology student at Panteion University volunteering to assist Vivi in the runnning of these groups.

The meeting was very successful being attended by 10 people all of whom were alumni, current and even prospective students of the Tizard Centre.  It is hoped that the data will be transcribed and disseminated in the next few weeks.