Longitudinal European Autism Project - LEAP

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Longitudinal European Autism Project - LEAP

For instance, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects about 1 in 100 people, but there are few effective treatments and interventions to alleviate its symptoms.

The Longitudinal European Autism Project (LEAP) aims to identify risk factors that contribute to differences in brain development, difficulties in social behaviour and other core symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). By understanding how the brain develops, we can get to understand better if something is out of the ordinary and offer proper interventions to individuals with different developmental conditions. Previous research has shown that a lot of people with learning difficulties also have autistic-like symptoms. Nevertheless, current research often does not include individuals who have learning difficulties because of difficulties adapting the testing materials. In order to gain full understanding of how the brain develops through time across a wide range of individuals, it is crucial to include all ages and a range of abilities. Our aim is to include 3 different groups of people; 1) People who have been diagnosed with any condition, co-presenting mild learning difficulties from the ages of 12 to 30, 2) People with ASD aged between 6 and 30, and 3) Typically developing people aged between 6 and 30 years. This will enable us to gain knowledge on brain development which may help develop treatments that help alleviate core symptoms of autism in different patient groups. In the first two phases, LEAP was part of the EU-AIMS project. The third phase, LEAP3, is now launched as part of AIMS-2-TRIALS. The programme's main financial funder is Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), with in-kind contributions from charities, associated partners and industry partners. More information on funding can be found at https://www.aims-2-trials.eu/funding/

05/12/2024

Dear LEAP families,

May your Christmas be bright and cheerful. Thank you for all your support over the years. Happy holidays! 🥳

Love from the LEAP team

22/07/2024

Happy Monday everyone!

Please see advert below about an "Online Survey on Age-Related Differences in Physical Activity Levels, Physical Activity Preferences, Mental Health, and Quality of Life among Autistic Adults" and share it with your network if anyone is interested.

We hope everyone's having a great summer so far ☀️

02/02/2024

Hello everyone! We've got another interesting study to share, please find a summary below:

This study is looking at autistic and non-autistic people’s attitudes towards research and the sharing of their research data. We would like to know what kind of data they would be happy to share, with whom, and how much involvement they would like to have in the process. We hope to use this information to guide and improve data sharing practices in autism research. For additional information, please visit https://qualtrics.kcl.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_5AyMYMXng4FZvZs.

We are currently recruiting autistic and non-autistic adults (aged 18 years or above) for this project. We wondered if you could offer any help by circulating the attached flyer amongst your members via your newsletter and/or social media post?

If you have any questions or would like more information, please email the research team at datasharingsurvey@kcl.ac.uk and we will answer any queries you may have.

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer and for your consideration.

03/01/2024

Happy New Year everyone! Please find below information about a research study recruiting autistic adults and contact the researcher directly if you're interested:

We know that physical activity may be beneficial for wellbeing, but that some autistic people experience barriers in accessing physical health activities. Our current study has two main goals. Our first goal is to find out what might stop or help autistic adults take part in physical activity. Our second goal is to ask autistic adults for their views on the best design for future studies that will look at the link between physical activity and mental health in autistic adults. Please find the study advert attached to this email, which will explain a little bit more about this research. If you have any questions about the study or are interested in participating, please contact Hollie Storey at h.a.storey@gre.ac.uk.

18/12/2023

Festive greetings and happy holidays from the Longitudinal European Autism Project (LEAP) team at King’s College London.

It has been our privilege to have many of you back with us in the third phase of our study, LEAP3 (October 2021 - December 2023). To our committed volunteers and families who have been back with us in LEAP3, we thank you for your time and for sharing your experience with us.

If you haven’t been back with us for LEAP3 yet, we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at eu-aims@kcl.ac.uk. We are coming to the end of LEAP3 in a few months, and we want to see as many of you as possible. We also have remote assessments for those who cannot travel, so we can do a number of things online or on the phone/video calls.

Additionally, if you have changed your home addresses/contact details, please send us a direct message. We send cards and newsletters regularly to keep you updated, and we want to make sure you are receiving these in the post or email.

We wish you all the best in 2024!

*card designed by Sanjana Gandhi who's part of the LEAP team, you may have met her as a LEAP volunteer!

31/07/2023

Hello everyone, please find below exciting information about an art competition for all autistic people, co-designed with autistic representatives from the AIMS-2-TRIALS consortium!

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More Than Meets The Eye Art Competition Guidelines
Competition brief: Create an art piece that is either inspired by your autism or is an interpretation of autism.
Competition submissions: Opening April 2nd 2023 and closing 31st August 2023.

Competition categories:
• Adult individuals (art created without assistance)
• Adult individuals (art created with assistance)
• Adult groups (art created by a group of people 16 and over)

Division of prizes:
• 3 first prizes of 2000 euros
• 3 second prizes of 1000 euros
• 1000 euros split across 3 third prizes

Who can enter the competition:
• Autistic adults 16 years and over (with parental consent in certain countries, please see terms and conditions)

Website : www.more-than-meets-the-eye.co.uk
Instagram: MoreThanMeetsTheEye_Art
Twitter: MTMTE_Art
Facebook: MTMTE Facebook

15/05/2023

Calling autistic people aged 17-years and above to take part in research to capture views on different questionnaires being used in research to measure anxiety. If you’d like to know more, please contact junmian.lin@kcl.ac.uk

Address

London

Website

https://www.aims-2-trials.eu/leap-front-page/

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