TheAlienGame - A Study of Emotion Recognition in Children

Hello,

My name is Will Turton, and I am a Trainee Clinical Psychologist at the University of East London. As part of my doctoral research, I am running a study designed to explore and improve how we assess emotion recognition in neurodivergent children, aged 8–11.

The project is called ‘The Alien Game: A New Game for Understanding Emotion in Children’, and it has been developed to offer a more accessible, engaging and inclusive approach to understanding how neurodivergent children (those with ASD/ADHD or awaiting assessment) recognise emotions. The research has received full ethical approval from the university, and participation is entirely voluntary and anonymous.

I am writing to ask if you’d be happy to complete a short questionnaire and ask your child to complete the alien game – a short task asking them to identify the emotions of different alien characters. They’ll then be asked to answer some puzzles.

The only requirements:

• Your child is aged 8-11 years
• Your child is autistic, has ADHD or is on a waiting list for either assessment.

Attached is a poster which contains QR codes to take part – one for parents and for children. This will take the children and yourselves approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. 

If you're open to this or would like more information, I’d be happy to answer any questions.

Many many thanks in advance.

Warm wishes,

Will Turton

Trainee Clinical Psychologist

Supervised by Dr Matthew Jones-Chesters

University of East London

U2631824@uel .ac.uk

Child link

https://forms.office.com/e/fZPgxHQiSz

Adult Link

https://forms.office.com/e/Ur8tU2NNXc