Developmental Science and Neurodiversity

Change and diversity are essential characteristics of the cognition, behaviour, and brains of children, adolescents, and adults. This MSc course will take neurodiversity as a framework for understanding development across the whole human lifespan and how development varies between people.

The course will provide a unique opportunity to gain advanced training in how to characterise diversity and development, and how to study them with the latest research designs and statistical methods.

Neurodiversity refers to variation in brain and cognitive functions including learning, attention, social ability, mood, and sleep. It provides a framework for understanding the factors that influence brain and behaviour across the whole population and the whole lifespan; for understanding conditions such as autism and ADHD as a part of that variation; and for addressing the need for variation to be recognised, valued, understood, and accommodated.

You will have opportunities to interact with a wide range of researchers from the University of Birmingham's Centre for Developmental Science, practitioners, and people with lived experience of neurodivergence. Optional modules let you combine your interest in development and diversity with training in advanced data analysis, neuroscience methods, and mental health.