Page 1: Informed Consent

Registration is currently OPEN: 

Thank you for your interest in our research on music-assisted language interventions in 24-60 month-old nonverbal or minimally verbal autistic children at the CAASD laboratory in the School of Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences at the University of Reading.

Our research is supported by the European Research Council through an ERC Proof of Concept Grant to Dr Fang Liu.

We are looking for participants who fit the following criteria to join our new online, parent-delivered MAP (Music Assisted Programmes) study:

  • Children aged between 24 and 60 months at entry with an official diagnosis of autism.

  • Who are either: nonverbal OR minimally verbal, using fewer than 20 words to communicate everyday wants, needs, feelings and ideas (e.g., "hello", "more", "stop"). 

  • Willingness to complete the parent-led intervention which will involve two 45-minute sessions a week for 18 weeks

  • Have a high speed broadband internet connection capable of streaming video to a device, ideally a laptop e.g the broadband connection should allow you to watch videos on iplayer with no connectivity issues. 

If your child/dependent meets our requirements from the information provided on this form, we will video call you for an informal chat about your child/dependent. We will ask you to sign a consent form and complete two eligibility screening questionnaires to ensure your child/dependent meets the criteria to take part in the study.

 

If your child/dependent meets the criteria to participate in the study, they will be allocated participation in one of two possible groups, receiving either music-assisted language intervention OR treatment as usual (speech and language therapy) delivered by a parent/caregiver. A computer will be used to allocate your child/dependent randomly to one of the groups. 

 

Please note: You should have another parent/caregiver in the house if you have caring responsibilities for other family members at the same time, to ensure that interventions would not be disrupted.

You will receive £202.50 as compensation for your child/dependent’s participation in our research, which will be paid at the end of the study in a lump sum.

All proposals for research using human participants are reviewed by an ethics committee before they can proceed. This study has been reviewed by the University Research Ethics Committee at the University of Reading and has been given a favourable ethical opinion for conduct.

All researchers on this project have obtained criminal record clearances through enhanced DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) checks that cover vulnerable adults and children, and they have also been approved by the School to work with children. The researchers coaching parents for the intervention are appropriately qualified to do so.

If you have any comments or concerns about this study, you should discuss these with the project leader, Dr Fang Liu (E-mail: f.liu@reading.ac.uk; Tel: +44 (0)118 378 8122).