Rachael Bedford
Biographic Data
| ID | 7053396 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rachael Bedford |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rachael |
| FAMILY NAME | Bedford |
| SIGNATURE | BEDFORD R |
| AFFILIATIONS | King's College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8581-055X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 9 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Testing the social motivation theory of autism
BACKGROUND: The Social Motivation Theory proposes that social reward processing differences underlie autism. However, low social motivation has also been linked to higher anxiety. Given the co-occurrence between autism and anxiety, it is possible that anxiety drives the association between social motivation and autistic characteristics. This study tests the mechanisms underlying the association between social motivation and autistic traits. METHO…
An Examination of the Relations Between Effortful Control in Early Childhood and Risk for Later Externalizing Psychopathology
Are Movies Making Us Smarter
IQ tests have charted massive gains over the last century, known as the Flynn Effect . Over the same period, the time society spends with screens has massively increased and intensified, for example, shorter and closer shots, increasing narrative complexity. In Movies on our Minds (2021), James Cutting suggests a potential bidirectional link between the two effects: generational increase in visual processing abilities led to movie makers increasi…
Do pre-schoolers with high touchscreen use show executive function differences
The recent increase in children's use of digital media, both TV and touchscreen devices (e.g., tablets and smartphones), has been associated with developmental differences in Executive Functions (EF). It has been hypothesised that early exposure to attention-commanding and contingent stimulation provided by touchscreens may increase reliance on bottom-up perceptual processes and limit the opportunity for practice of voluntary (i.e., top-down) att…
Associations between emotion recognition and autistic and callous‐unemotional traits
BACKGROUND: Although autism and callous-unemotional (CU) traits are distinct conditions, both are associated with difficulties in emotion recognition. However, it is unknown whether the emotion recognition difficulties characteristic of autism and CU traits are driven by comparable underpinning mechanisms. METHODS: We tested whether cueing to the eyes improved emotion recognition in relation to autistic and CU traits in a heterogeneous sample of …
Predictors of language regression and its association with subsequent communication development in children with autism
BACKGROUND: Language regression, broadly defined as the loss of acquired language skills in early childhood, is a distinctive feature of autism. Little is known about the factors underlying regression or the prognosis of children who exhibit regression. We examine potential predictors of language regression and test its association with language development in a prospective longitudinal sample of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from …
Investigating the Mechanisms Driving Referent Selection and Retention in Toddlers at Typical and Elevated Likelihood for Autism Spectrum Disorder
It was suggested that children's referent selection may not lay memory traces sufficiently strong to lead to retention of new word-object mappings. If this was the case we expect incorrect selections to be easily rectified through feedback. Previous work suggested this to be the case in toddlers at typical likelihood (TL) but not in those at elevated likelihood (EL) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Bedford et al., 2013). Yet group differences …
From early markers to neuro-developmental mechanisms of autism
A fast growing field, the study of infants at risk because of having an older sibling with autism (i.e. infant sibs) aims to identify the earliest signs of this disorder, which would allow for earlier diagnosis and intervention. More importantly, we argue, these studies offer the opportunity to validate existing neuro-developmental models of autism against experimental evidence. Although autism is mainly seen as a disorder of social interaction a…
Failure to learn from feedback underlies word learning difficulties in toddlers at risk for autism
Children's assignment of novel words to nameless objects, over objects whose names they know (mutual exclusivity; ME) has been described as a driving force for vocabulary acquisition. Despite their ability to use ME to fast-map words (Preissler & Carey, 2005), children with autism show impaired language acquisition. We aimed to address this puzzle by building on studies showing that correct referent selection using ME does not lead to word learni…
No prominent works on this page.
Failure to learn from feedback underlies word learning difficulties in toddlers at risk for autism
Children's assignment of novel words to nameless objects, over objects whose names they know (mutual exclusivity; ME) has been described as a driving force for vocabulary acquisition. Despite their ability to use ME to fast-map words (Preissler & Carey, 2005), children with autism show impaired language acquisition. We aimed to address this puzzle by building on studies showing that correct referent selection using ME does not lead to word learni…
From early markers to neuro-developmental mechanisms of autism
A fast growing field, the study of infants at risk because of having an older sibling with autism (i.e. infant sibs) aims to identify the earliest signs of this disorder, which would allow for earlier diagnosis and intervention. More importantly, we argue, these studies offer the opportunity to validate existing neuro-developmental models of autism against experimental evidence. Although autism is mainly seen as a disorder of social interaction a…
Predictors of language regression and its association with subsequent communication development in children with autism
BACKGROUND: Language regression, broadly defined as the loss of acquired language skills in early childhood, is a distinctive feature of autism. Little is known about the factors underlying regression or the prognosis of children who exhibit regression. We examine potential predictors of language regression and test its association with language development in a prospective longitudinal sample of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from …
Investigating the Mechanisms Driving Referent Selection and Retention in Toddlers at Typical and Elevated Likelihood for Autism Spectrum Disorder
It was suggested that children's referent selection may not lay memory traces sufficiently strong to lead to retention of new word-object mappings. If this was the case we expect incorrect selections to be easily rectified through feedback. Previous work suggested this to be the case in toddlers at typical likelihood (TL) but not in those at elevated likelihood (EL) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Bedford et al., 2013). Yet group differences …
Are Movies Making Us Smarter
IQ tests have charted massive gains over the last century, known as the Flynn Effect . Over the same period, the time society spends with screens has massively increased and intensified, for example, shorter and closer shots, increasing narrative complexity. In Movies on our Minds (2021), James Cutting suggests a potential bidirectional link between the two effects: generational increase in visual processing abilities led to movie makers increasi…
Do pre-schoolers with high touchscreen use show executive function differences
The recent increase in children's use of digital media, both TV and touchscreen devices (e.g., tablets and smartphones), has been associated with developmental differences in Executive Functions (EF). It has been hypothesised that early exposure to attention-commanding and contingent stimulation provided by touchscreens may increase reliance on bottom-up perceptual processes and limit the opportunity for practice of voluntary (i.e., top-down) att…
Associations between emotion recognition and autistic and callous‐unemotional traits
BACKGROUND: Although autism and callous-unemotional (CU) traits are distinct conditions, both are associated with difficulties in emotion recognition. However, it is unknown whether the emotion recognition difficulties characteristic of autism and CU traits are driven by comparable underpinning mechanisms. METHODS: We tested whether cueing to the eyes improved emotion recognition in relation to autistic and CU traits in a heterogeneous sample of …
Testing the social motivation theory of autism
BACKGROUND: The Social Motivation Theory proposes that social reward processing differences underlie autism. However, low social motivation has also been linked to higher anxiety. Given the co-occurrence between autism and anxiety, it is possible that anxiety drives the association between social motivation and autistic characteristics. This study tests the mechanisms underlying the association between social motivation and autistic traits. METHO…
An Examination of the Relations Between Effortful Control in Early Childhood and Risk for Later Externalizing Psychopathology
Psychology (9 works) · Developmental psychology (8 works) · Autism Spectrum Disorder Research (7 works) · Cognition (7 works) · Autism (6 works) · Cognitive psychology (4 works) · Neuroscience (4 works) · Autism spectrum disorder (3 works) · Child Development and Digital Technology (3 works) · Language development (3 works)