Background

Up to 15% of children and adolescents worldwide experience neurodevelopmental difficulties that vary widely in scope and impact. Strict diagnostic criteria have constrained our understanding of these difficulties and limited our theories about why these might occur. “Embracing complexity in neurodevelopment” aims to challenge our thinking around diagnostic categories and hopes to make discoveries to benefit the lives of children and young people experiencing barriers to learning.

Funding and partners

The engagement elements of the ‘Embracing Complexity’ project have been led by Drs Elia Benhamou and Silvana Mareva, and the overall programme of work, supported by James S. McDonnell Foundation, is led by Professor Duncan Astle and Dr Dan Akarca (from the 4D lab, University of Cambridge) and Professor Sue Fletcher-Watson (principal investigator of DART lab, University of Edinburgh). These digital stories were created in collaboration with the Centre for Attention, Learning, and Memory (CALM), a research clinic based at the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, which is funded by the Medical Research Council.