This is an information page for families and schools interested in My Emotions and Me

We are particularly interested in how young people with ADHD and/or autistic traits talk and think about their emotions. In My Emotions and Me, we will be collecting ideas and descriptions through our qualitative interview study. We will then use these ideas and themes to develop a new self-report questionnaire for young people: the My Emotions in School Index (MESI)

Interested in taking part?

The study is open to all families with children aged 11-15 years, attending mainstream secondary school in the UK.  Click here and enter password ‘Happy’ to take part!  Participating families will receive up to £20 in online shopping vouchers.

The five phases of the study are illustrated below:

Aims

The aim of this study is to understand and characterise emotion regulation in young people from the perspective of young people:

How do young people manage their emotions in the face of everyday stresses and hassles? 

Through My Emotions and Me, we will:

• Work with the Youth Researcher and Advisory Panel (Y-RAP) using qualitative and machine learning approaches to characterise emotion regulation from the point of view of neurodiverse young people
  • Qualitative: Interviews with adolescents aged 11-16 - Georgia is our expert in this area
  • Machine learning: Natural Language Processing - Angus is our expert in this area
• Co-develop, and validate, a new report measure for neurodivergent Young People – My Emotions in School Index (MESI)

Information for participants

For those interested in the development of our new measure:

• Information for Schools
• Information for Parent/Carers – Main Questionnaire Study
• Information for Young People – Main Questionnaire Study

For more information, email us at re-starinfo@kcl.ac.uk

Meet the Team!

Steve and Myrto will be working with you throughout My Emotions and Me, leading on interviewing the young people.  

Our researchers:

• Dr Steve Lukito, KCL
• Dr Myrto (Myrofora) Kakoulidou, KCL

Our My Emotions and Me project leads:

• Dr Angus Roberts, KCL
• Dr Sylvan Baker, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
• Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou, Anna Freud Centre
• Prof Edmund Sonuga-Barke, KCL

Dr Susie Chandler is our project manager, and Jane Offerman is our administrator. 

More about RE-STAR

My Emotions and Me is part of a wider project called RE-STAR (Regulating Emotions - Strengthening Adolescent Resilience). To find out more, watch this video from our principal investigator, Prof Edmund Sonuga-Barke:

News & Events

Podcasts

• We are working with Lucinda Powell to document RE-STAR through a series of episodes on her podcast, Psychology in the Classroom. Click here to listen to listen to all of the RE-STAR episodes so far!
• Edmund was a guest on 'Extraordinary Brains Podcast', in which he spoke about his own experiences growing up with ADHD. Listen to the episode here
• Edmund was also a guest on BBC R3's Arts & Ideas Podcast. Listen to the episode here

This research is funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC)