Devon Ramey

The focus of my doctoral research was on improving the happiness and quality of life of young autistic children by encouraging their self-determination. I am particularly interested in how behavioral indicators of happiness and unhappiness can be evaluated as quality of life measures for individuals with disabilities. My research to date has shown that these individualized mood indices can be operationally defined and reliably measured among young autistic children. I have also found that the indices of happiness of autistic children can be improved through child-centered approaches such as providing choice. Using wearable technology, I am looking to further validate these mood indices through physiological measures.

I am particularly interested in technology-based supports for autistic individuals and I was recently the winner of the QUB Innovation Challenge, in partnership with Cogniss. Cogniss is a no-code platform for patient and consumer-facing digital health apps. As the winner of the competition, I will be developing an app to teach social and emotional learning (SEL) skills to young autistic children using customizable content. I am also supervising a doctoral research project on the use of immersive technology to reduce social anxiety in autistic youth.

Along with my colleagues from Dublin City University, I was recently involved in a SCoTENS-funded research project as a principal investigator. By using community-based participatory research methods, we compared the language preferences and IEP goal priorities of the autistic community with educators working directly with autistic learners in Ireland. By centring autistic voices throughout the research project, we aimed to reduce the use of pathologizing and stigmatizing language within educational settings and improve individual education planning for autistic learners.

I have a strong commitment to research, as I believe the dissemination of behaviour analysis can help to improve the quality of life of individuals with and without disabilities around the world. I am an Editorial Board Member for Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders and a Peer Review College Member for the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). My research has been published in high-impact and respected journals (h-index = 5) and I have been invited to act as a peer reviewer for several key journals within my field. This service and publication record has given me a certain level of expertise in single-subject research methodology and systematic literature reviews. 

I have supervised a wide variety of doctoral and master's-level research projects, but my research interests lie in the following areas: (a) improving services for the autistic community through community-based participatory research; (b) measuring indices of happiness and unhappiness as quality of life indicators among individuals with disabilities; (c) improving the psychosexual development of adolescents on the autism spectrum through education; (d) naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions; (e) technology-based instruction and virtual reality for autistic learners, and (g) practical functional assessment and skills based treatment. I am open to supervising research projects in any of these areas, but my focus remains on improving the quality of life of individuals with disabilities and their caregivers.