Welcome

The mission of the Autism Research Centre is to understand the biomedical causes of autism spectrum conditions, and develop new and validated methods for assessment and intervention.

Some research projects only involve filling in questionnaires online, or taking psychological tests online and so are open to volunteers worldwide. Other studies involve testing gene-mind links and these too are open to volunteers world-wide because a gene-kit can be posted to you and returned by post, even via air-mail. Some of our studies involve being assessed by one of our team (such as our brain scanning studies) and so are limited to volunteers in the UK.

All of our studies, whether psychological or biological, are carefully designed to protect your confidential information and are governed by the University of Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee, which approves all of our work.

We also investigate individual differences in cognitive styles. This includes profiling peoples’ interests and preferences, and we have a separate website describing that work.

This website is maintained by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Dr Carrie Allison, and Simon Braschi.

Who can take part?

We are interested in hearing from two groups of people:

1. Adults (people aged 16 years and over) with a diagnosis on the autism spectrum, e.g. autism, Asperger Syndrome.
2. Parents/guardians of children (under 16 years old) with a diagnosis on the autism spectrum, e.g. autism, Asperger Syndrome.

Please note that the diagnosis must have been made by a suitably qualified professional, such as a psychiatrist or psychologist. If you are currently waiting for a diagnosis or you suspect that you may have autism or Asperger Syndrome but do not have a diagnosis, then at this point you would not be eligible to take part in our research.

What happens if you volunteer?

If you volunteer to take part in research, we will ask you to fill out some questionnaires online. We will then contact you from time to time to tell you about projects which might be of interest to you. You are under no obligation to participate in all or even any of the projects.

Any information you provide is entirely confidential and will only be available to researchers at AutismResearchCentre.com. You may opt out at any time and we will remove your details from our volunteer database. See our Privacy Policy and our Terms and Conditions for more information about how we use the data you provide.

If you would like to volunteer, please register.