Grade 5, £16,396.80 - £16,885.80 per annum (£27,328 - £28,143 per annum FTE) plus £1,393.80 London Weighting Allowance per annum (£2,323 per annum FTE)

This post will be fixed term for 28 months.

This is a Part time position – 60 % full time equivalent

We are seeking a part-time (0.6FTE) Postgraduate Research Assistant to work on a new multi-site autism intervention trial: Paediatric Autism Communication Trial – Generalised (PACT-G): http://www.pact-g.org/. PACT-G builds on the work from the same groups of investigators (University of Manchester; King’s College London and Newcastle University) undertaken in the previous PACT trial (see: www.bbmh.manchester.ac.uk/pact). The study is funded under the Efficacy and Mechanisms Evaluation programme co-funded by the NIHR and the MRC. The study is currently in its pilot phase with the main trial due to start in January 2017.

The Postgraduate Research Assistant would join Professor Tony Charman’s team at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London. They will work alongside a Postdoctoral Research Associate to evaluate children before, during and after the treatment (and equivalent time-points for the control sample).  The therapy will be overseen and delivered by an independent research team of expert clinicians. The research assessments will comprise a comprehensive battery of both standardised and ‘bespoke’ research assessments of the children with autism, their parents and teaching staff. Training and ongoing monitoring in all of the research assessments will be given by the supervisors and the expert PI team and cross-site reliability and blinded coding of the core assessments is built into the study design. The Research Assistant will report to the research lead in London, Professor Tony Charman, and work closely with the Trial Management Office, colleagues in other University sites, and the rest of the study team. As well as working with children with autism and their caregivers, the post will involve liaison with local clinical services and schools for recruitment, as well as close and supportive working with families taking part in the study. 

We expect applicants to possess a degree in psychology, speech sciences or another related field, or have equivalent experience. You should have experience in conducting clinical and/or research assessments with young children, preferably with autism or other related developmental disorders. Experience of working with caregivers and of interacting with clinical teams and schools/teachers would be advantageous. You should have excellent written and spoken communication skills to facilitate work with children with autism and a wide range of caregivers and professionals. In addition, experience of observational coding schemes and handling of complex datasets would be advantageous.

The PACT-G trial will be a landmark study in the autism intervention field and the successful applicant will be working with some of the leading scientists in the early autism field with a strong track record of career development, and enabling with respect to early career researchers. The successful candidate will receive a state of the art training in autism assessment and developmental approaches to understanding autism.

The selection process will include competency based questions with a panel interview.

Interviews are scheduled to be held Wednesday 7 September 2016.

For an informal discussion to find out more about the role please contact Professor Tony Charman at [log in to unmask]

To apply for this role, please go to the King’s College London HireWire Job Board and register to download and submit the specified application form.