Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences
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EPIC research

About the research programme, our publications and funders.

EPIC  is a research programme that is dedicated to improving thinking, learning and wellbeing in children and young people.  

EPIC stands for 'Edinburgh Psychoeducation Intervention for Children and Young People'.

It is  is a research programme led by Dr Sinead Rhodes, Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh.

Research

At the heart of EPIC is understanding an individual child’s strengths and difficulties regardless of age, sex, or diagnosis (e.g. ADHD or ASD). The Intervention involves psychoeducation, aiming to ensure that everyone understands the strengths and difficulties of an individual child. Strategies are then paired with difficulties to meet an individual child’s needs.

The EPIC intervention has been co-produced with children, families, teachers and clinicians. An 8-week, 16-session intervention with children, parents and teachers is currently being evaluated with children referred for ADHD (some also autistic). We will run the intervention with children with DCD in 2022.

An array of ADHD-relevant tool-kit components has been developed, from memory to emotional regulation, and some autism-relevant e.g. thinking flexibility. DCD-related components e.g. sensory processing will be developed in 2022.

The intervention foundations are:

  • Psychoeducation
  • Multi-component
  • Play, game and activity based
  • Active learning
  • Individualised
  • Transdiagnostic
  • Pairing psychoeducation with strategies
  • Embedded across child, parent and teacher contexts
  • Personalised  

Funders

The development and initial evaluation of the intervention is funded by the Waterloo Foundation. The booklets were funded by a Wellcome Trust Institutional Translation Partnership Award (University of Edinburgh) An extension of running EPIC with children with a diagnosis of DCD has been funded by the RS Macdonald Seedcorn Fund (Edinburgh Neuroscience). Co-production work involved in the creation of EPIC was funded by the University of Edinburgh Wellcome-funded Institutional Strategic Support Fund.

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