William Mandy

As a psychologist who practices clinically and is engaged in research, I am interested in the ways in which autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are best conceptualised. It is likely that current conventional definitions of ASDs represent a false syndrome, in which distinct dimensions of impairment have been mistakenly thought to share underlying gene-brain-behaviour pathways. In fact, different aspects of autistic behaviour are likely to have distinct underlying impairments, and it is this principle that guides my research into the cognitive correlates of autistic spectrum disorders. I am particularly interested in the relationship between various aspects of executive function and the insistence on sameness that is seen in many children with an ASD. Additional research interests include the autism phenotype in females and how it differs from that seen in males; consequences of sub-threshold social-communication impairments; development of social cognition in non-clinical populations; autistic traits in non-autistic populations, including people with disordered eating.