Dr Lauren Powell
BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD, SFHEA
School of Education
Co-Director for the MSc Psychology and Education
+44 114 222 8179
Full contact details
School of Education
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
- Research interests
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Lauren’s research interests focus on placing the voices of young people at the centre of her work through the use of innovative participatory methods. She aims to shift the field of psychoeducation to ensure that in addition to their proxies, children and young people are informed about their neurodiversity in an age appropriate and accessible way to empower them to accept and live well with their neurodiversity.
To this end, Lauren has led the development of two psychoeducational resources for 1) young people with ADHD and 2) autistic young people. This involved collaborations with young people, their support networks and services, Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Derby and NIHR Children and Young People MedTech. These resources are used nationwide by NHS services, schools, local authorities, and charities and can be accessed here:
Lauren also provides consultancy on a project ‘Safety Nets’, which provides a weekly physical activity and psychoeducation group for children and young people with mental health difficulties across the UK.
More recently, Lauren has used her own research and lived experiences to provid presentations and training for higher education institutions, schools, and local authorities around neuroinclusive approaches in these settings. She is passionate about ensuring neurodiverse individuals are celebrated, included and not disadvantaged.
Lauren would love to supervise doctoral students adopting predominantly qualitative methods in the following areas:
- Developing collaborations with those who are interested in developing psychoeducational resources and interventions for neurodiverse children and young people such as those with ADHD and Autism as well as the psychoeducational needs of parents/carers and teaching professionals.
- Exploring transitions of neurodiverse young people such as from primary to secondary school and from secondary school to higher education.
- Exploring the experiences of neurodiverse girls and women.
- Exploring neurodiversity in a positive light, working to reduce harmful stigma through psychoeducation and neurodiversity celebration.
- Exploring what motivates adults to seek a diagnosis of ADHD and/or autism.
- Publications
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Journal articles
- The suitability and acceptability of a co-designed prototype psychoeducational activity book for autistic children aged five-eleven years. Autism & Developmental Language Impairments, 9.
- ‘Safety Nets’: a community based social prescribing intervention involving combined physical activity and psychoeducation for young people on mental health service waiting lists: a pilot service evaluation. Advances in Mental Health.
- Investigating the impact of at‐home learning on secondary school‐aged children with ADHD : a qualitative study. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs.
- The suitability and acceptability of a co-designed prototype psychoeducational activity book for seven- to eleven-year-olds with ADHD. Design for Health.
- The use of a smartphone app and an activity tracker to promote physical activity in the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease : randomized controlled feasibility study. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 8(6). View this article in WRRO
- Effectiveness of Upper Limb Wearable Technology for Improving Activity and Participation in Adult Stroke Survivors: Systematic Review.. J Med Internet Res, 22(1), e15981. View this article in WRRO
- Using recurrent neural networks to compare movement patterns in ADHD and normally developing children based on acceleration signals from the wrist and ankle. Sensors, 19(13). View this article in WRRO
- Guideline development for technological interventions for children and young people to self-manage ADHD: A realist evaluation. Journal of Medical Internet Research. View this article in WRRO
- The effectiveness of group exercise for improving activity and participation in adult stroke survivors: a systematic review. Physiotherapy. View this article in WRRO
- Automatic Extraction and Detection of Characteristic Movement Patterns in Children with ADHD Based on a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Acceleration Images. Sensors, 11. View this article in WRRO
- Upper limb activity in chronic post-stroke survivors: A comparison of accelerometry data with the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT). Annals of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, 61, e187-e187.
- Making Telecare desirable rather than a last resort. Ageing and Society, 38(5), 926-953. View this article in WRRO
- Recruitment of older adults to three preventative lifestyle improvement studies. Trials, 19. View this article in WRRO
- What is the level of evidence for the use of currently available technologies in facilitating the self-management of difficulties associated with ADHD in children and young people? A systematic review. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. View this article in WRRO
- ADHD: Is There an App for That? A Suitability Assessment of Apps for the Parents of Children and Young People With ADHD. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 5(10). View this article in WRRO
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Is There an App for That? Suitability Assessment of Apps for Children and Young People With ADHD. Journal of mHealth and uHealth, 5(10). View this article in WRRO
- A preventative lifestyle intervention for older adults (lifestyle matters): a randomised controlled trial. Age And Ageing, 46, 627-634. View this article in WRRO
- Identification of walking strategies of people with osteoarthritis of the knee using insole pressure sensors. IEEE Sensors Journal, 17(12), 3909-3920. View this article in WRRO
- Sensor optimization in smart insoles for post-stroke gait asymmetries using total variation and L1 distances. IEEE Sensors Journal, 17(10), 3142-3151. View this article in WRRO
- Involving Users in the Evaluation of Apps for Specific Health Conditions. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 242, 646-653. View this article in WRRO
- The Effectiveness of Lower-Limb Wearable Technology for Improving Activity and Participation in Adult Stroke Survivors: A Systematic Review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 18(10). View this article in WRRO
- Identification of walking strategies of people with osteoarthritis of the knee using insole pressure sensors. Sensors. View this article in WRRO
- Addressing design and suitability barriers to Telecare use: Has anything changed?. Technology and Disability, 26(4), 221-235. View this article in WRRO
- Are you ‘Ready, Steady, Go?’: Development of a telehealth implementation toolkit. International Journal of Integrated Care, 13(7).
- Psychoeducation intervention effectiveness to improve social skills in young people with ADHD: a meta-analysis. Journal of Attention Disorders.
- The co-design of a psychoeducational tool for children and young people with ADHD. Design4Health. View this article in WRRO
- The suitability and acceptability of a co-designed prototype psychoeducational activity book for autistic children aged five-eleven years. Autism & Developmental Language Impairments, 9.
- Teaching interests
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Lauren is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) and teaches across the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the School of Education including the BA Education, Culture and Childhood, MA Education and is co-director of the MSc in Psychology and Education (Conversion). She is the module lead for the undergraduate module 'Child Psychology' (EDU107), the MSc module in qualitative research methods (EDU6167) and the MSc dissertation module (EDU6197). Lauren's teaching in the school mainly focuses on child psychology, psychoeducation, research methods and neurodiversity in children and young people with a focus on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism.
- Professional activities and memberships
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- University of Sheffield School of Education Chair of Ethics
- Co-Director for the Msc Psychology and Education (Conversion) Programme
- Senior Fellow of and assessor for the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
- Research Cluster lead for the School of Education's Education and Psychology Research Cluster.
- Member of the editorial boards for:
- Humanities & Social Sciences Communications (2024-present)
- Frontiers in Psychiatry: ADHD (2023-present)
- Frontiers in Psychology (2023-present)
- British Journal of Educational Technology 2018-2023
- External examiner for Bournemouth University's MSc Health Research (2022-present)
- External examiner for Cardiff Metropolitan University MSc Psychological Research and MSc Health Research (2023-present)
- Member of the iHuman group