Irish Society for Autism

Research into the Impact of the Post-Primary School Environment on
Adolescents with ASD

My name is Margaret Dee and I am an MSc student in Trinity College Dublin looking for participants for a study on the school environment. The aim of the study is to see what the most important environmental factors are that impact on participation in mainstream post-primary education for students with ASD.

To find out what these factors are, I am holding two focus groups for interested participants. One focus group will be for adolescents with ASD who are in mainstream post-primary schools. The other group will be for parents or guardians of adolescents with ASD who are in mainstream post-primary school, and teachers of adolescents with ASD who are in mainstream post-primary school.
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A historic day for Autism. A Private Members Bill by Deputy Michael McCarthy requiring the government to publish a National Autism Strategy passed its first stage with all party support. The Autism Bill now goes to committee stage for further discussion.

Another milestone has been reached. The passing of the Autism Bill will ensure that the future of People with Autism will be protected and enhanced.

My name is Emily Dillon and I am a PhD student in the School of Psychology in Trinity College, Dublin and I am interested in the language development of girls with autism. There is a large gender bias in autism and we hope by exploring the differences in language of girls and boys with autism we can better understand how autism expresses differently between genders. We also hope by looking at the language styles of family members we can see how family language traits may help in autism.
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