Research

Ever wondered how your information helps?

TEDS uses your valuable information to look at a range of topics. Our researchers work as a team, although each has their own particular area of interest.

Emma Meaburn

Language impairment is a common childhood disorder affecting five percent of children, and research has shown that it has a strong genetic component.
I hope to identify some of the genes that contribute towards language impairment in the TEDS sample, and investigate how these genes interact and unfold developmentally in the environment.
Identification of the genes involved in language impairment will not only aid its description and diagnosis, but may also lead to interventions that will help prevent the social and emotional problems that can often arise as a result of language difficulties.

Bonny Oliver

My main focus is on the stories we ask children to write at 9 years old.  I am looking at lots of different aspects of these stories including grammar, use of language, and spelling…to name a few!  I am particularly interested in the relationship between early language development and later story writing skills. I hope that my research will help to identify the origins of strengths and difficulties in written communication, and thereby eventually help to inform early intervention programs and educational approaches.

Emma Hayiou-Thomas

Talking is terribly important. It's the best way we humans have of getting across to another person what our thoughts and feelings are; of connecting our mind to somebody else's. I am interested in how young children learn to do this: they arrive in the world knowing no language at all, and by the time they're five can speak and understand perfect English (or French, or Russian or Japanese). The information you have given us about how the children in TEDS developed language as they grew up helps us begin to work out how this amazing process works. It also helps us understand what can go wrong with language development: some children (about 1 in every 20) have real difficulty learning to speak and understand language, even though they're good at many other things. This can make life very difficult at school, both in lessons and in making friends, precisely because language is such an important part of how we learn and communicate. If we can work out what's going wrong with these children, we have a much better chance of being able to figure out the best way to help them.

Yulia Kovas

I am interested in how various cognitive abilities develop and how they are linked to each other. I am currently involved in research into Mathematics ability and disability. The goal of this research is to increase the understanding of why people differ in their Mathematical abilities. Another goal is to understand better the different types of learning disabilities in mathematics. This understanding will help us to inform mathematical education and lead to the prevention of learning disabilities in mathematics. We are hoping that the families will provide the valuable data for this research by participating in our new exciting web-based project.

Kathryn Asbury

I am interested in how childrens' experiences affect their development so I study relationships between childrens' lives and their behaviour and performance at school. I hope that by understanding these relationships better we will be able to help children to reach their full potential, whatever life throws at them.

Essi Viding

Angelica Ronald

I am interested in children's everyday behaviour. In particular, I am collecting information about behaviours shown by children that are characteristic of autism spectrum disorders. Children with autism spectrum disorders find it difficult to understand and communicate with other people. As well as the social difficulties, children with autism spectrum disorders also have 'non-social' features, for example, having a strong interest in an unusual topic, or insisting on doing something over and over so that it interferes with normal life. Most people recognise these types of behaviours in themselves or someone they know, though they may not be severe. One way of understanding autism spectrum disorders is to think that everyone shows autistic-like features to some extent, but some show them much more than others. This is why we are interested in everyone in TEDS. These behaviours are shown throughout childhood and adolescence to varying degrees, which is why it is important for the study that TEDS continues as the twins grow up. My findings will help us to understand what causes the behaviours characteristic of autism spectrum disorders. We think that both genes and environment play a role. One new finding suggests there might be a different set of genes influencing the social features and the non-social features that are characteristic of autism.

Oliver Palfrey-Davis

I am interested in the different types of school learning activities and what is shared between them. For example, what are the links between how we solve puzzles and the way we use words when we're growing up? When you do the activities on the website, one of the things you're helping us to look at is how genes and environment work together to affect how we develop the ability to learn.

Claire Haworth

I have a twin brother, and I've always been interested in twins. The great thing about twins is that we are useful in helping researchers to learn more about people. So for example, twins allow us to study what makes people differ on some things but be very similar on others. I am particularly interested in studying how you are getting on at school, and how much your success at school is due to different factors as you get older.

Sophia Docherty

I'm particularly interested in mathematical ability, and how it relates to other skills, such as reading. With your help - via the web-based activities and questionnaires - we can look at how our genes might affect these separate learning activities

TEDS Publications

TEDS researchers have published many academic papers based on analysis of the data you have provided. If you would like to browse through these papers, please visit our publications list.