Very excited to be offering this opportunity for the right person, please share as this is a rare opportunity:
We
are welcoming applications for a fully funded PhD studentship for an
interdisciplinary project between the Autism Research & Innovation
Centre and the Animal, Behaviour, Cognition & Welfare Research
Group, supported by the Doctoral Training Alliance for Applied
Biosciences in Health. The project aims to develop an Animal-Assisted
Intervention (AAI) toolkit of learning activities for promoting
social-communication skills and well-being in children on the autism
spectrum. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the project, it is
centred at The Lincoln Institute for Health.
The
Lincoln Institute for Health (LIH) is a university-wide
multidisciplinary research collaboration linking schools, colleges and
external partners to investigate key issues of concern for health,
social care and well-being using a ‘cell to community’ approach. The LIH
is led by Professor Chris Bridle, and comprises a wide range of active
research groups, including the Molecular Basis of Disease Research
Group, Drug Design and Delivery Research Group, the Animal Behaviour,
Cognition and Welfare Research Group, the Lincoln Centre for Autonomous
Systems, the Laboratory of Vision Engineering, the Health Advancement
Research Team, the Perception Action and Cognition Research Group, the
Healthy Ageing Research Group, the Community and Health Research Unit,
the Policy Studies Research Centre, and the Autism Research &
Innovation Centre.
The LIH conducts internationally
excellent and world-class research to develop innovative health and
social care technologies, treatments and improve health systems. In the
recent Research Excellence Framework (2014) assessment the LIH was
ranked 9th out of 98 UK University submissions for the quality of the
research conducted by its researchers.
By
integrating psychology and pedagogy in human-animal interactions, the
current PhD research project has the potential to deliver new
intervention strategies for strengthening fundamental core skills
crucial in social communication, aligned with current educational and
clinical practices used in autism. Specifically, this project will build
upon existing work in human-animal interaction and educational
interactive activities for children on the autism spectrum conducted at
the University of Lincoln, to deliver an evidence-based AAI for
facilitating the development of core socio-communicative skills (e.g.,
joint attention, pointing, social-emotional reciprocity, verbal and
non-verbal language) in children across the autism spectrum and
developmental stages. Due to the unique innovative nature of our project
we have formed a multidisciplinary supervisory team of academic experts
in autism, animal behaviour and education to support the PhD student.
Applicants
from psychology, clinical psychology, education or related areas are
all eligible to apply. For further information contact Dr Niko Kagras
(01522 886 726 / nkargas@lincoln.ac.uk).
Applicants should have a first or upper second class honours degree or
equivalent in a relevant area. An application of a 1-page CV and a
1-page covering letter should be e-mailed to Susan Leigh (sleigh@lincoln.ac.uk).
Discipline: Psychology and Life Sciences
Subject: Autism interventions
Keywords: Autism, Animal-Assisted Interventions, Education
Stipend: £14,529 per annum
Closing Date: 16 June 2017
Interviews: Provisional date w/c 26 June 2017
Reference: LIH