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Participatory Design (PD) is an approach for designing new technologies which involves end users in the design process. It is generally accepted that involving users in the design process gives them a sense of ownership over the final product which enhances its usability and acceptance by the target population. Employing a PD approach can introduce multiple challenges especially when working with autistic children. Many approaches for involving autistic children and children with special needs were developed to address these challenges. However, these frameworks introduce their own limitations as well. There is an ethical dilemma to consider in the involvement of autistic children in the design process. Although we established the ethical benefit of involving children, we did not address the ethical issues that will result from involving them in these research projects. Among other issues, the nature of design workshops we as a community currently run require working with unfamiliar researchers and communicating with them while social and communication differences are one of the main diagnostic criteria for autism. When designing for autistic children and other vulnerable populations an alternative (or most often an additional) approach is designing with proxies. Proxies for the child can be one of several groups of other stakeholders, such as: teachers, parents and siblings. Each of these groups may inform the design process, from their particular perspective, and as proxies for the target group of autistic children. Decisions need to be made about what stages in the design process are suited to their participation, and the role they play in each case. For this reason, we explore the role of teachers, parents, autistic adults and neurotypical children as proxies in the design process. To explore the roles of proxies we chose friendship between autistic and neurotypical children as the context we are designing for. We are interested in understanding the nature of children's friendships and the potential for technology to support them. Although children themselves are the ones who experience friendship and challenges around its development and peer interaction, they might find it difficult to articulate the challenges they face. Furthermore, it is unrealistic to expect children to identify strategies to help them overcome the challenges with friendship development that they are facing as it assumes children have the social skills to come up with these strategies in the first place. Hence, it is necessary in this context to consider proxies who can identify challenges and suggest ways to overcome them.

The Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act (YJCEA, 1999) introduced a number of 'special measures' to enable young witnesses to give their best evidence. One of the 'special measures' was the Registered Intermediary (RI) provision. In order to implement this 'special measure' the Witness Intermediary Scheme (WIS) was developed. Despite the Scheme having now been active for over a decade, relatively few studies have examined the work of RIs (Collins et al., 2017). The aim of this thesis was to expand upon the limited body of research regarding the RI provision and pre-interview communication assessments - a central aspect of the RI role (but which can also be conducted by police officers). The thesis comprises of four studies designed to examine different aspects of the RI role. Study one examined RIs' beliefs regarding children's memory and investigative interview practice, and compared these to the beliefs of lay people. Significant gaps in the RIs' knowledge were identified, with the RIs having an increased propensity to express uncertainty relative to lay people. Study two examined the efficacy of pre-interview communication assessments using the 'Unpacking the Box' framework (Triangle, 2015). The framework is used by RIs and police officers, prior to investigative interviews, to assess children's communication abilities. Pre-interview assessments, using the framework, provided a good indication of children's abilities in all areas of cognition, included in the study, other than resistance to suggestion. The pre-interview assessment was also found to be superior to professional judgement in determining children's use of ground rules, responsiveness, and drawing ability. Study three examined the demographic and cognitive variables thought to be associated with children's recall and use of the ground rules. Unlike the cognitive variables (i.e., visuospatial ability, expressive language, receptive language, and attention) age did not enter as a significant predictor in any of the regression models. This suggests that cognitive factors may be more important than age in predicting children's event recall and use of the 'you got it wrong' rule. Study four examined the impact of the RI provision on practice in real-world investigative interviews with children. Significant differences were found, between the RI and no RI interviews, in relation to the prevalence of multiple questions and the use of certain communication aids (e.g., dolls, models, and figures). Although the RI provision appeared to have some impact upon interview practice, it did not lead to child witnesses providing more detailed accounts. The findings of this fourth study suggest that there may be other benefits of the RI provision but that additional training relating to the ABE guidance (Ministry of Justice, 2011) is required. Overall, this thesis has provided an insight into the RI provision and the efficacy of pre-interview communication assessments using the 'Unpacking the Box' framework (Triangle, 2015). However, further research is needed in order to fully understand how effective each is in scaffolding children's communication in an investigative interview context.

The neurodiversity movement has gained momentum in the last number of years with many neurodevelopmental conditions now being part of a person's identity and not just medical disorders. With this, more researchers have become interested in the experiences of neurodiverse people as well as their families and carers. However, some people have remained neglected in the literature including autistic women and the siblings of people with disabilities. We conducted a systematic review into the experiences of siblings of people with learning disabilities and a novel qualitative study focusing on the experiences of autistic women and mothers of autistic daughters going through the diagnostic process. Several themes were elicited and discussed, giving voice to these often overlooked groups. Results show that the siblings and women engaging in the diagnostic process for autism had unique experiences and these people's perspectives offer an interesting insight into how neurodiverse people can be supported. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Background: Adolescence is a developmental period during which there is rapid physical, cognitive and psychosocial growth. Social cognitive processes, such as taking others' perspectives, regulating emotions, and interacting appropriately with others, are particularly important for navigating the social environment during this time and can promote resilience to mental health problems. However, aggressive behaviours, such as hitting, biting or kicking another person or object, are found in a large proportion of adolescents, especially within autistic adolescents, and result in long-term negative implications for these individuals. Despite this, the causes of such behaviours are poorly understood. This thesis aimed to investigate the factors that contribute to the development of appropriate social and emotional cognitive and behavioural abilities in adolescence. Specifically, this thesis aimed to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the association between two factors linked to the ability to regulate emotions: attachment style and alexithymia traits. It also aimed to explore the underlying mechanisms of aggressive behaviour in both autistic and non-autistic adolescents within a proposed conceptualised framework. Methods: Firstly, a systematic search of the literature was completed, and two meta-analyses were carried out to determine the size of the effect found between secure and insecure attachment styles and alexithymia traits within adolescents. Secondly, a cross-sectional study was conducted using standardised caregiver-report questionnaires to identify the associations between several factors linked to aggressive behaviour in autistic and non-autistic adolescents: autistic traits, emotion dysregulation, alexithymia traits, avoidance from caregiver, sensory processing difficulties and aggressive behaviour. Exploration of this data involved serial mediation and moderated serial mediation analyses to evidence a conceptualised framework of these factors. Results: The systematic review and meta-analysis included 16 studies. Both meta-analyses revealed moderate effects: a secure attachment style was negatively associated with higher alexithymia traits, while an insecure attachment style was positively associated with higher alexithymia traits. The results from the second study indicated that within both autistic and non-autistic adolescents higher autistic traits was associated with more emotion dysregulation, which was associated with more avoidance by their caregiver, which was also associated with more aggressive behaviour. Several of the associations found, particularly in relation to avoidance from the caregiver, were conditional upon the level of alexithymia traits and sensory processing difficulties of the adolescents. Conclusion: The significant associations between secure and insecure attachment style and alexithymia traits support theories proposing there is a potential underlying mechanism between attachment style and emotion processing abilities in the development of social cognitive abilities during adolescence. The findings of the second study highlight difficulties with emotion regulation and avoidance from caregivers are associated with increased aggressive behaviour in adolescents with higher autistic traits. Screening for these difficulties when an adolescent presents to services with aggressive behaviour would provide clinicians with an in-depth understanding of the adolescent's difficulties, to which they could tailor interventions. Moreover, interventions targeted at improving an adolescent's attachment style, emotion recognition and regulation abilities, their caregiver's emotional and behavioural responses and sensory processing difficulties, may aid in reducing both mental health difficulties and aggressive behaviour. Future research would benefit from investigating these associations within a longitudinal design to establish causality.

BACKGROUND: The detrimental impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is increasingly recognised. Research links such experiences to poor outcomes such as aggression, violence and other serious harmful behaviour; however, the processes by which adversity has this effect are still not fully understood. Various evidence points to the potential role of social cognition in the journey from ACEs to aggression and serious harmful behaviour. METHOD: A systematic review was conducted to identify and evaluate studies that had explored the link between ACEs and social cognition in the forensic population. A final sample of 11 studies were identified and reviewed using a quality assessment tool. An empirical study was conducted to explore the role of social cognition in the relationship between childhood adversity and aggression or violence. A total of 144 adults from the general population completed measures of ACEs, emotion recognition, empathy, attachment, aggression and violence. RESULTS: The studies identified in the systematic review varied in the constructs explored and measures used. Overall, findings were mixed but with some evidence to suggest childhood adversity was related to changes in social cognition in forensic samples. Results from the empirical study suggested a positive association between childhood adversity and both aggression and violence. While childhood adversity, aggression and violence were associated with some specific changes in sociocognitive processes, none of these processes were found to mediate the relationship between childhood adversity and aggression or violence. CONCLUSION: Some evidence is provided for a link between childhood adversity and deficits in social cognition, although further research is needed to clarify this link in the forensic population. While findings suggest that childhood adversity is also linked to aggression and violence, the findings suggest that deficits in social cognition do not contribute to this relationship.