The seminar series started in 2012-2013 as a collaboration between Jo Van Herwegen, Emily Farran and Deborah Riby and provided a platform for early career as well as established researchers to discuss the application of recently developed tools and innovative research methods to the study of neurodevelopmental disorders. This year, the event took place at UCL Institute of Education and was hosted by Emily Farran and members of the CoGDev lab.
            On 23rd June, delegates including academics and established researchers, as well as post-graduates, post-doctoral researchers and early career researchers battled through the rain to gather at the UCL Institute of Education for a fantastic all-day seminar on research in Neurodevelopmental Disorders.
            The morning kicked off with a series of talks divided into two sessions, with one on the theme of ‘Motor Development’ and the other on ‘Executive Function’. In the Motor Development session, we heard an assortment of talks detailing current research in typical and atypical development of motor skills and cognition (of particular interest to members of the CoGDev lab!). For example, we heard from Xavier Job that in Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), a relatively under-researched condition, adults are over-reliant on visual information when planning movements. Also, we heard about the implications of protracted motor development in Down Syndrome from Hana D’Souza, on social skills in both DCD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) from Hayley Leonard, and oculomotor control in ASD, as Emma Sumner discussed the findings from her innovative research. Across both sessions, the conditions and topics covered were diverse and extremely informative. The Executive Function (EF) session focussed on the link between cognitive and phenotypic presentation of executive function throughout the developmental trajectory, in ASD and DCD. Presentations included research into formation of subgroups and interventions based on EF profiles presented by Lien van Eylen; how comorbidity with ADHD influences EF in children with ASD presented by Alexandra Hendry; predicting behavioural difficulties in ASD presented by Lorcan Kennyand how motor difficulties had a negative impact on aspects of EF for children with DCD presented by Marialivia Bernardi.
            The second set of talks was divided into two sessions, one based on ‘Visual and Spatial Processing in ASD’, and on research in ‘Social Cognition/Face Processing’.  Those with interests in ASD were given chance to hear about current research in aspects of visual and spatial processing: with evidence for both typical and atypical aspects of visual processing in ASD from Catherine Manning, Julian Tillman and Emma Gowen; and some interesting findings from Hide Komeda, a visiting researcher from Japan regarding poor time perception in ASD individuals, and how this group rely on spatial information for perspective taking, rather than time information. Research in ASD featured predominantly in the parallel session on Social Cognition and Face Processing, as well as a talk from Louise Ewing on face processing in William’s Syndrome, who provided evidence that although individuals with WS show a particular strength in face processing, they seem to show differences from typical on how they go about this. When WS participants were asked to examine facial expressions, it was found that these individuals need much more information than typical children to make accurate judgements.
Next up was the first of our keynote speakers, Megan Freeth from University of Sheffield who spoke about putting the ‘social’ into the understanding of Autistic social cognition.  Freeth argued that social cognition in autistic individuals is generally understood based on findings that come from the lab, and that there is a need for the development of more realistic paradigms to study the ’social world’. Additionally, Freeth gave examples from her own studies and discussed how social attention tasks must take into account live situations, as ASD traits in live interactions did not correlate with the behaviour recorded in experimental settings
            After a busy morning of research talks and a fascinating first keynote speech, lunch was served alongside the first of two poster sessions. These sessions provided an opportunity for researchers at all levels to display and to prompt discussion about their work with the conference delegates. Two members of the CoGDeV Lab presented posters of their recent research findings in this session, with Professor Emily Farran demonstrating poor configural knowledge of large-scale space in individuals with WS and DS, and Leighanne Mayall presenting evidence of poor motor functioning as a limiting factor for the development of some aspects of spatial cognition in individuals with WS.
            The third and final set of research talks commenced after lunch, with a session focussing on ‘Reading and Numerical Development’ and the other covering ‘Neurodevelopmental Risk Factors’. An assortment of themes came up in the Reading and Numerical Development session, from Emma Campbell from the CoGDeV lab who demonstrated co-occurring spatial and maths deficits in children with Cerebral Palsy, to Ann Dowker discussing the contribution that neuroscience has offered in the understanding of mathematical difficulties. We heard about the importance of early arithmetic skills for later learning, based on the findings from an evaluation of ‘Catch Up Numeracy’, an intervention designed to address multiple components of mathematical ability.   Jo Van Herwegen compared the trajectory of number development in Williams and Down Syndrome, and the importance of domain-general/specific abilitiesThis session ran alongside a session on Neurodevelopmental Risk Factors, which once again covered an array of different issues present in neurodevelopmental disorders research. Gaia Scerif introduced the session discussing the implications of investigating genotypes in rare neurodevelopmental disorders, followed by Magda Glod who spoke about sensory processing in autism, and using this as predictive factors in diagnosis. Janet Parsons discussed gaze and attention in infants at risk of autism, showing that although these infants were able to follow gaze, but were unable to learn from it. This was followed by Carla Startin, who provided evidence that there is a relationship between recurrent infections and a decline in cognitive abilities in Down Syndrome. Finally, a particularly interesting talk from Dean D’Souza focused on the association between sleep and language in a range of neurodevelopmental disorders such as Down Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome and Williams Syndrome, showing that individuals with NDD do not improve on cognitive tasks such as finger tapping and language tasks after sleep, which is not what we see in typical development.
The day finished off with a talk from the second keynote speaker, Elisabeth Hill, who discussed “Moving on up: the importance of the motor system in studying atypical development across the lifespan”. This talk began by highlighting the importance of successful motor development in typical children, with evidence suggesting that good motor ability leads to better employment opportunities and better daily living; this is also the case in neurodevelopmental disorders. This lead to discussion about how even though motor ability has been found to be essential for daily living, it is a relatively neglected area of research. Elisabeth’s talk highlighted to the audience how essential it is to consider motor skills when assessing individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders.
Overall, the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Annual Seminar Series 2016 was a massive success, with a wide range of talks from researchers from all over the country (and even a few international guests!) bringing together their exciting new ideas, and most importantly, making connections and sharing thoughts to promote future research into neurodevelopmental disorders.

Written by Emma Campbell and Leighanne Mayall