Who we are
The King’s Maudsley Partnership for Children and Young People is home to some of the world's leading experts on ADHD and autism in children and young people. But what sets us apart is not the expertise we hold - it is how we work. We study these conditions in depth. But we also work with children, young people, and their families. We ask the questions that matter to them. We find answers that can make a real difference in their lives.
The scale of the challenge
- Autism affects about 1 in 100 children in the UK. Including families, it touches the daily lives of around 2.8 million people.
- ADHD affects about 1 in 20 young people. This makes it the most common neurodevelopmental condition. Since 2015, the number of patients in England receiving ADHD medication has nearly tripled.
- 70% of people with autism also have a mental health condition. The most common are anxiety, depression and OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)
- A growing awareness of autism and ADHD has led to increased waiting lists
Waiting lists for the assessment of ADHD and autism have risen exceptionally sharply in the last decade. Many people are seeking help from services that are stretched too thin, and people in need are falling through the cracks. We need to understand why so many are seeking help and find the best ways to provide it.
Professor Philip Shaw, Director, King's Maudsley Partnership
The King’s Maudsley Partnership approach
Our research focuses on three key questions:
- Can we better understand the factors that underpin autism and ADHD- focusing both on strengths and challenges?We look at the brain, behaviour and the environment- particularly in schools.
- Can we provide more personalized offers of support for ADHD? We also need to bring this knowledge into the clinic. Currently, we cannot match young people with ADHD to interventions that might work best for them. Instead, our current approaches are delivered in a ‘on-size-fits-all' manner. This means children and families may spend months or even years trying different treatments to find what works.
- We also want to develop better ways of supporting those with ADHD and autistic children and young people. We want to develop new interventions that support them with the mental health difficulties commonly experienced by these groups.
We have made huge strides, but much more needs to be done. Together with those living with ADHD and autistic people we want to shift the needle.
Understanding brain differences in ADHD and autism
We are working to build a clearer picture of how the brains of neurodivergent young people develop -and why some children respond well to certain treatments while others do not.
Our researchers recently contributed to a landmark study examining resting-state brain activity across large groups of children and adolescents with autism and ADHD. Work like this is helping us move away from trial and error, towards treatments that are matched to each individual child from the start.
RESTAR
Most young people experience upsetting events at some point during their school life, but in neurodivergent children this occurs at twice the levels of their neurotypical peers and is strongly associated with anxiety and depression symptoms.
The RE-STAR programme, led by King’s College London, explores new ways to prevent mental health problems in neurodivergent young people, and has culminated in the development of a school-based intervention targeting this mechanism as a means of promoting adolescent mental health.
The intervention - Place Positive - while neurodiversity-informed, is designed to benefit all students in mainstream secondary schools. It is based around two apps – one for school staff and another for students.
The staff app provides tools and resources to transform school culture; while the student app gives practical skills and strategies for navigating everyday school challenges.
Early prototypes of the apps have already garnered much interest from those working in/with schools at recent RE-STAR dissemination events. In this next stage, we are seeking funding to work directly with four partner schools to further develop the two Place Positive apps and gather essential validation data prior to wider implementation.
Neurostimulation
We look at a wide range of safe, forms of brain stimulation, many aim to help those with ADHD with problematic symptoms.
We ensure that we test these new technologies rigorously.
Sometimes we find that they are not effective- and this is important. Such findings will help families avoid often expensive approaches that simply don’t work.
Our specialist teams: SCANND
The Pears Maudsley Centre is home to the Service for Complex Autism and Associated Neurodevelopmental Diagnoses (SCAAND), a specialist service for children and young people who have a wide range of neurodevelopmental conditions.
This includes autistic young people, those with ADHD, intellectual challenges (intellectual disability) or other conditions such as epilepsy, brain injury or language challenges. We support young people from our local communities, throughout the UK.
Our clinicians are among the most experienced in the UK. The team includes psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, teaching specialists and occupational therapists. We also provide support and advice to local teams, working collaboratively and sharing our expertise and experience.
We provide thorough assessments of children and young people and deliver evidence-based treatments that are proven to work, including approaches recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
Through our research and clinical practice, we aim to achieve the best possible outcomes for children, young people and their families.