The Centre for Interaction, Development and Diversity (CIDD), has a commitment to studying psychological phenomena in relation to the contexts and situations in which they emerge. Our focus on situation and context sees the body and the social and material worlds as fundamental to development.

Many of our studies focus on the processes through which humans are not only influenced by, but actually shape their immediate worlds. In this vein, ‘things’ in the world – often seen as physical objects – are seen as deeply social as well. Many of our researchers study the implicit and often non-verbal ways in which we engage with others, and the way in which these processes influence social understanding, identity, and culture itself.
As such, our work covers a multitude of methods – such as naturalistic observations, experiments, conversation analysis, cross-cultural studies, and longitudinal studies.

Our research focuses on the following topics:

• Developmental psychology
• Human movement 
• Neurodiversity
• Disability and empowerment
• Communication and identity

A substantial part of our research is devoted to shifting societal and research perspectives of neurodiversity. We conduct research with, and for, the autism community and produce tools to improve educational and employment outcomes of neurodivergent children and adults. For more information about this work please visit the Autism Centre for Research on Employment page.