COMIC: Help with our research into autism in deaf children (and get an Amazon voucher!)

Did you know there are currently no suitable assessments for Autism in deaf children?

This is worrying because Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is more commonly diagnosed in deaf children compared to hearing children. Without a suitable test, this could mean there are deaf children being misdiagnosed or not being diagnosed at all.

This is where the Child Orientated Mental Health Intervention Centre (or COMIC for short!) research team come in. We are working on a project called Diagnostic Instruments for Autism in Deaf Children’s Study (DIADS for short – all these long names require lots of abbreviations!).

This is funded by the Medical Research Council. This team have really grown over the past few months and we have now have staff members based over the whole of England from London to the Midlands to York!

The whole team believes passionately in improving services for deaf children and this project has been years of work in the making, with knowledge and experience of 39 international experts who work with deaf children with autism!

We have adapted three different autism assessments to make them more accessible for deaf children. They have been translated into British Sign Language (BSL) for those where BSL is their preferred language. We want to find out if these three assessments can detect deaf children with ASD and deaf children without ASD.

To make this happen, we are currently recruiting 260 families across the country to take part in the research.

We are looking for:

• 65 deaf children without ASD
• 65 deaf children with ASD
• 65 hearing children with ASD
• 65 additional deaf children without ASD to do the screening assessments.

This is really important research and we could make a real difference to deaf children’s lives in the future. We would love for you to get involved and every single person really makes a different to this project!

As another additional inventive incentive – you get a £40 Amazon Voucher per child once you’ve finished to spend on whatever you like! All travel expenses are also covered.

If you would like further information, or are interested in your child taking part in the study then please contact the research team at:

Email: researchdiads.lypft@nhs.net

Telephone: 01904 294828

Text: 07973630595

Address: COMIC, IT Centre, Innovation Way, Heslington, York, YO10 5NP

https://www.comic.org.uk/research/diagnostic-instruments-for-autism-in-deaf-children