New and Upcoming Linked Studies
STAARS Phase 4
Since 2013, the STAARS team has seen over 300 wonderful families. After more than a decade of research, and to reflect the latest scientific advancements, we are making some exciting updates to our study design!
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Aims:
The core mission of the STAARS study remains unchanged: to identify early markers of autism and ADHD, with the aim of developing more effective early interventions. In Phase 4, we're adding new, naturalistic play activities during visits at 10- 14- and 24-months, while keeping the 1- and 5-month visits as they are. These new tasks aim to further our understanding of the multi-level processes that drive infant attention and communication across different contexts. By measuring infants’ physiological activity in both the lab- and home-based settings, we will evaluate how early differences in behaviour support the development of focused attention in childhood.
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What does Ph4 involve?​​
We're continuing with the familiar activities you know, including developmental assessments, a sit-down EEG whilst watching social and non-social videos, and eye-tracking to see what captures your baby's attention. Click here to watch a video which breaks down what we do at each visit.
For Phase 4, we are adding three new play-based activities:
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EEG Playtime: A fun, naturalistic playtime during the EEG session! We'll see how your baby explores toys, plays independently, and interacts with you. Both you and your baby will wear special heart rate stickers to capture those special moments of connection.
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Portable fNIRS: You and your baby will wear comfortable caps that let us see which parts of the brain are active during play.
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Optional Home Wearables: We'll provide small, comfy devices to wear at home, tracking heart rate, activity, proximity, and even audio/video for a few hours. This gives us a glimpse into your everyday adventures. (Privacy controls are included for your comfort.)
Birkbeck Babylab, Henry Wellcome Building, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, 32 Torrington Square, London WC1E 7JL
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SleepySTAARS
​Children with autism spectrum conditions often experience significant sleep challenges, such as sleep apnea, frequent night awakenings, and difficulties falling asleep. These problems can persist from infancy, affecting both autism symptom severity and family well-being. Given that good sleep is essential for crucial developmental skills like socialisation, attention, learning, and emotional regulation, we need more accurate ways to understand these sleep issues beyond relying solely on parent questionnaires.
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Study Aim:
We will collaborate with neurodivergent families to design a home-based sleep study using neurotechnology. Our goal is to determine if we can reliably collect detailed sleep data remotely, which will help us create personalized sleep solutions in the future.
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What will the study involve?
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Study Design & Collaboration: We'll start by working with a group of parents of children with autism to help us design the study. We'll discuss the technology and how to share data safely.
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Participants: We'll ask 25 families with babies (10-14 months old) who have a family history of autism to participate.
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Data Collection & Technology: We'll use special, comfortable bands called Gabi SmartCare bands, which measure movement and heart activity, to track your baby's sleep at home for two weeks. This will measure both naps and nighttime sleep.
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Parental Participation and Support: Parents will also fill out some questionnaires about their baby's sleep and keep a sleep diary. We'll provide easy-to-follow online training on how to use the bands.
SENSE
​SENSE is a research project led by UCL, UCLH, and Birkbeck, funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC). Each year, around 60,000 babies in the UK are born prematurely. Thanks to advances in neonatal care, more preterm babies are thriving—but some may experience challenges with sensory processing as they grow which can impact on their development.
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Study Aim:
Our goal is to understand how sensory processing develops in the brain, how prematurity affects it, and whether early differences can help predict later sensory and developmental conditions.
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What does the study involve?
We’re inviting families of both preterm and full-term toddlers to take part in our study at the Babylab. Families will visit us twice—once at 1.5 years and again at 2.5 years. During these sessions, we use fun and interactive methods to see how toddlers respond to different sensory experiences. We observe their reactions and measure their brain activity in a safe and child-friendly environment. Some families may have joined the study earlier while their baby was in the UCLH neonatal unit, where we measured newborn brain responses to touch and sound to understand individual trajectories over the first years of life.
Birkbeck Babylab, Henry Wellcome Building, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, 32 Torrington Square, London WC1E 7JL
STAARS adolescent follow up
Many of the children who have taken part in the BASIS/STAARS studies are now in their adolescence or even early-adulthood. We are currently in the process of securing funding to run an adolescent follow-up study to see all our participants again. Collecting longitudinal data will allow us to look at participant’s pathways from infancy to adolescence with the aim to understand more about neurodevelopment and mental health outcomes and trajectories. We will engage with the families themselves to create an engaging study protocol and to understand individual experiences.
