Research into autism

Hi everyone, 

I realise there are lots of different people here, but I thought I would introduce myself. 

My name is Jayne Hamilton, I am 24 years old and I do not have autism, but I am very interested in the area. After years of voluntary work with children and young people with autism, I decided to do a PhD in this area. I am currently in my second year of this and I am looking at 'How do autistic people think about and make plans for their future?' 

I know that many people like to research autism and indeed can make people who have a diagnosis feel they are just test materials, but it is for that reason that I chose a very applicable area that can be easily applied to real life situations to improve the quality of life of people with autism. I am looking at their time managment and their reasoning abilities. 

At the minute, I am recruiting over 18s for a study, it involves some paper and pen tasks and some computer tasks. It lasts less than 60 minutes and as a thank you for your time, you are given £8.00 at the end. 

I am also currently recruiting for a study with 13-17 year olds, which will be starting in March, although I do not yet have an exact date. 

If you, or your children would like to take part in either of these studies, or would like more information on them I would love to hear from you. You can either reply to this comment or you can email me at jhamilton40@qub.ac.uk 

I really hope I hear from many of you soon. I can and will also update you on the results of what I find, and how I think it applies to improving their quality of life. I have already completed and analysed my first study, so I have some interesting results to date that I hope to expand on! 

Thanks for reading!