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Teen Talk Study

In 2024–2025, we listened to 40 siblings from across Australia share their experiences of family life and social connection. Most had a brother or sister with developmental disability, and others did not. Together, they offered open and thoughtful reflections on roles and responsibilities at home, friendships, fam

Professor Mirko Uljarević

Mirko is a medically trained research-focused academic with a background in developmental psychology, psychometrics, and big data science. His research takes a life-span perspective and is driven by the urgent need to improve outcomes for people on the autism spectrum and with other neurodevelopmental and neuropsy

Multimodal brain features at 3 years of age and their relationship with pre-reading measures 1 year later

Pre-reading language skills develop rapidly in early childhood and are related to brain structure and functional architecture in young children prior to formal education. However, the early neurobiological development that supports these skills is not well understood.

‘It depends entirely on the nature of those supports’: Community perceptions of the appropriateness of early support services for autistic children

We do not know much about what support services people think are okay for young autistic children. This study was a survey of 253 people. We asked autistic adults, parents, and professionals from Australia and New Zealand whether they thought it was okay to provide support services to autistic children.

Empathy and Autism: Establishing the Structure and Different Manifestations of Empathy in Autistic Individuals Using the Perth Empathy Scale

There is a common mischaracterisation that autistic individuals have reduced or absent empathy. Measurement issues may have influenced existing findings on the relationships between autism and empathy, and the structure of the empathy construct in autism remains unclear.

Do parent-reported early indicators predict later developmental language disorder? A Raine Study investigation

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental conditions. Due to variable rates of language growth in children under 5 years, the early identification of children with DLD is challenging. Early indicators are often outlined by speech pathology regulatory bodies and other developmental services as evidence to empower caregivers in the early identification of DLD.

Improving the Journey Before, During and After Diagnosis of a Neurodevelopmental Condition: Suggestions from a Sample of Australian Consumers and Professionals

The current study used a transdiagnostic approach to explore experiences of consumers and professionals on how the process of assessing and diagnosing neurodevelopmental conditions can be improved.

Caregiver sensitivity predicts infant language use, and infant language complexity predicts caregiver language complexity, in the context of possible emerging autism

While theory supports bidirectional effects between caregiver sensitivity and language use, and infant language acquisition-both caregiver-to-infant and also infant-to-caregiver effects-empirical research has chiefly explored the former unidirectional path. In the context of infants showing early signs of autism, we investigated prospective bidirectional associations with 6-min free-play interaction samples collected for 103 caregivers and their infants (mean age 12-months; and followed up 6-months later).