Dr Gill Althia Francis is a Research Fellow in Cognitive Psychology and Children's Play at the University of York, who specialises in researching how play impacts development for both neurodiverse and neurotypical children. She is a holder of a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship Award. During this podcast Gill chats to Louisa about a piece of work looking at the impact of play-based interventions on the mental health of autistic children and children with developmental language disorder.

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You can find Gill on Twitter @gillalthia, and you can find out more about her work by visiting her staff page at York.

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Gill has also been featured in a children's book as a 'Play Researcher', and you can find the book here.

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The paper discussed in this podcast is:
Francis, G., Deniz, E., Torgerson, C., & Toseeb, U. (2022). Play-based interventions for mental health: A systematic review and meta-analysis focused on children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and developmental language disorder. Autism & Developmental Language Impairments.