Current research projects

Research involving learning-disabled individuals who do not communicate in traditional ways has tended to be carried out using quantitative measures and through parent or carer reporting. Our project is designed to help the UK research and innovation community to develop data collections infrastructure that is genuinely inclusive of learning-disabled people, so that learning-disabled individuals have the option to take part in research. We will be working with learning-disabled young people (aged 16-25 years) and those who support them to develop:

• An open-access library of evidence-informed data collection tools and strategies. 

• A set of principles for including learning-disabled people in research.

• A set of research priorities identified by learning-disabled young adults and those who work with them. 

We are doing this by carrying out an ethnographic study of the communication choices made by learning-disabled young people in a special school and a residential college, where we will spend time getting to know young people and the people who work with them. We will then run co-production workshops to assess the acceptability and viability of the data collection tools and inclusion principles to establish an open-access library, which will house our guidance for inclusion and evidence-informed data collection tools.

For an overview of where the project is currently, you can access our most recent seminar talk here.

We know that supporting a child with special SEND can pose additional stressors beyond those experienced when parenting neurotypical children and that these stressors are linked to increased mental health difficulties in some parents. However, mental health support is often not easy for this population to access. 

This project will explore the mental health experiences of parents of children and young people (CYP) with SEND in the York area to help identify what mental health support parents would like to see in their community. The study will include the voices of parents to identify gaps and strengths in the current mental health support provided in York, with an aim to develop co-produced recommendations for what may best support parents of SEND in the local region and beyond. 

This project is currently analysing data. An overview report can be accessed here. 

This study is exploring teachers’ experiences of working with students who present with persistently challenging behaviour and also show particular traits such as low empathy, restricted emotions, and a lack of care for their academic performance.

The study is currently seeking class teachers (with QTS), working in schools in England, to participate in a questionnaire study during the academic year 2024-25. Participants must be able to think of one student in a class they are currently teaching, who they would identify as presenting with persistently challenging behaviour and who does not have a diagnosis of ASD. The study will involve completing one online questionnaire each term, making a total of three questionnaires across the year.

For more details, please contact Dr Laura Oxley on education-building-connections@york.ac.uk