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FAQ about CliniKids, The Kids' clinical service for children with autism and/or developmental delays, and their families.

Evidence-based paediatric speech therapy in Perth, tailored to each child’s needs.

In this blog, Occupational Therapist Ally Raphael offers tips for successful toilet training.  

There’s a couple of new faces at our Joondalup clinic! Mikali is a Speech Pathologist and Katie is an Occupational Therapist. Both are taking on new clients.

We’re currently celebrating Speech Pathology Week at The Kids!

Deputy Director (Research); Angela Wright Bennett Professor of Autism Research at The Kids Research Institute Australia; Director, CliniKids

The number of words children produce (expressive vocabulary) and understand (receptive vocabulary) changes rapidly during early development, partially due to genetic factors. Here, we performed a meta-genome-wide association study of vocabulary acquisition and investigated polygenic overlap with literacy, cognition, developmental phenotypes, and neurodevelopmental conditions, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. 

Past research has highlighted the importance of early identification of developmental differences to improve targeted access to early interventions or supports. As such, it is of particular importance in the context of children at elevated likelihood of autism (such as where an older sibling has a diagnosis of autism), to better understand when and which early concerns are important as predictors of which children will benefit from pre-diagnostic supports.

The identification of reproducible subtypes within autistic populations is a priority research area in the context of neurodevelopment, to pave the way for identification of biomarkers and targeted treatment recommendations. Few previous studies have considered medical comorbidity alongside behavioural, cognitive, and psychiatric data in subgrouping analyses.

A broad range of interests characterized by unusual content and/or intensity, labeled as circumscribed interests are a core diagnostic feature of autism. Recent evidence suggests that a distinction can be drawn between interests that, although characterized by unusually high intensity and/or inflexibility, are otherwise common in terms of their content (e.g., an interest in movies or animals), labeled as restricted interests and interests that are generally not salient outside of autism (e.g., an interest in traffic lights or categorization), labeled as unusual interests.