Maria Ashworth

Maria Ashworth PhD researcher

Maria is a PhD student at CRAE, tracking and evaluating an education to employment programme for autistic young people called Employ Autism, which was set up by the autism charity Ambitious about Autism.

Anna Remington (CRAE) and Brett Heasman (York St John University) supervise Mariaโ€™s research. Maria’s PhD research is tracking and evaluating an education to employment initiative for autistic young people, the Employ Autism network, set up by the education and employment charity, Ambitious about Autism. This is a three-year longitudinal evaluation, and collects data from the autistic young people, employers, and parents/carers to get a more holistic understanding about the transition from education to work for autistic people, and the Employ Autism network.

Before starting as a PhD student, Maria joined CRAE as a Research Assistant in May 2019, working on the Research Passport project and Research Toolkit funded by Autistica, as well as assisting on a number of other projects at CRAE.

Maria completed her BSc in Psychology and MSc in Social and Applied Psychology at the University of Kent. Since graduating, Maria worked as a Research Assistant on two developmental psychology research projects about Education Health and Care plans and a transition to secondary school in autistic children and children with Williams syndrome and Down syndrome. Maria has also volunteered with mental health charities, including Mind and SLV Global.

On the web: LinkedIn | ResearchGate

Recent publications:

Palikara, O., Castro-Kemp, S., Ashworth, M., & Van Herwegen, J. (2022). All views my own? Portraying the voices of children with complex neurodevelopmental disorders in statutory documentsResearch in Developmental Disabilities, 129, 104321. doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2022.104321

Sideropoulos, V., Palikara, O., Burchell, E., Ashworth, M., & Van Herwegen, J. (2022). Anxiety during Transition from Primary to Secondary Schools in Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Cross-syndrome Comparison. Charlottesville, VA, USA: OSF Preprints. doi:10.31219/osf.io/vzjrc

Ashworth, M., Palikara, O., Burchell, E., Purser, H., Nikolla, D., & Van Herwegen, J. (2021). Online and Face-to-Face Performance on Two Cognitive Tasks in Children With Williams SyndromeFrontiers in Psychology, 11, ARTN 594465. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.594465

Crane, L., Davies, J., Fritz, A., O’Brien, S., Worsley, A., Ashworth, M., & Remington, A. (2021). The transition to adulthood for autistic young people with additional learning needs: The views and experiences of education professionals in special schools (OSF Preprints). doi:10.31219/osf.io/84tvs

Crane, L., Davies, J., Fritz, A., Oโ€™Brien, S., Worsley, A., Ashworth, M., & Remington, A. (2021). The transition to adulthood for autistic young people with additional learning needs: the views and experiences of education professionals in special schoolsBritish Journal of Special Education. doi:10.1111/1467-8578.12372

Ashworth, M., Crane, L., Steward, R., Bovis, M., & Pellicano, E. (2021). Towards empathetic autism research: Developing an autism-specific Research PassportAutism in Adulthood.

Crane, L., Hearst, C., Ashworth, M., Davies, J., & Hill, E. L. (2020). Supporting newly identified or diagnosed autistic adults: an initial evaluation of an autistic-led programmeJournal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Harvey, H., Ashworth, M., Palikara, O., & Van Herwegen, J. (2020). The Underreporting of Vision Problems in Statutory Documents of Children with Williams Syndrome and Down SyndromeJournal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. doi:10.1007/s10803-020-04520-5


Full list of publications

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