Michael English
Senior Research Officer
BSc Honours (Psych.); PhD
michael.english@thekids.org.au
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-cw-english/Dr Michael English is a Senior Research Officer with the Healing Kids, Healing Families research team and ‘Embrace’ research collaboration unit. He is involved in most projects undertaken by the team, including research projects aiming to:
- improve the understanding and treatment of dissociation in children and adolescents
- improve cultural safety for Aboriginal families accessing mental health services
- better understand paediatric hospital experiences to improve the psychological wellbeing of young patients
- develop guidelines to help reduce anxiety and distress for parents whose new babies require emergency transport to a hospital
Before joining The Kids, Michael was a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Psychological Science at the University of Western Australia. His research focus was in the area of autism, cognition and attention. He helped lead an ARC Discovery Project to develop a new measure of autistic traits in adults, which has been translated into over 10 different languages in the first 3 years since it was published. He remains involved with the School as an Honorary Research Fellow and continues to supervise multiple Honours and PhD students within the school.
For a complete list of his research activity, you can view his profile on the UWA Research Repository.
On Saturday mornings, you can find Michael participating at a local parkrun. He also helps produce a podcast (‘Mental Work’) with his partner that discusses topics and issues relevant to early career psychologists working in Australia.
Projects
Parental Accounts of Infant Retrieval Project
Our aim is to improve the emergency transfer of very ill babies by the NETS WA team such that it better supports parents and enhances infants’ recovery and long-term outcomes.
Understanding children and families' hospital experiences to reduce stress and support wellbeing
Our research focuses on identifying practical ways to provide trauma-informed care for children and families visiting the hospital.
An Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parenting program
The aim of this project is to develop and implement a culturally safe, responsive and trauma-informed parenting program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.
Published research
Psychometric evaluation of the Comprehensive Autistic Trait Inventory in autistic and non-autistic adults
Measures of autistic traits are only useful – for pre-diagnostic screening, exploring individual differences, and gaining personal insight – if they efficiently and accurately assess autism as currently conceptualised while maintaining psychometric validity across different demographic groups. We recruited 1322 autistic and 1279 non-autistic adults who varied in autism status (non-autistic, diagnosed autistic, self-identifying autistic) and gender (cisgender men, cisgender women, gender diverse) to assess the psychometric properties of the Comprehensive Autistic Trait Inventory, a recently developed measure of autistic traits that examines six trait domains using 42 self-report statements.
Education and Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy – University of Western Australia
- Bachelor of Science with Honours (Psychology) – University of Western Australia
Awards/Honours
- 2022 - Rising Stars of Science Finalist, University of Western Australia
- 2018 – Best Student Presentation, Australian Society for Autism Research