Professor Christopher Jarrold

Summary

My research focuses on children’s cognitive development, and particularly on the processes that underpin goal-directed behaviour and the maintenance of information in immediate memory.  These abilities in turn affect children’s control of behaviour, and aspects of their language learning and educational attainment.  Although my work is grounded in a detailed understanding of typical development, much of it is applied to developmental conditions including autism, Down syndrome, and Williams syndrome, and consequently it has both educational and clinical relevance.

Recent and current grants

• Jarrold C. & Towse J. N. ‘The development of working memory’. ESRC research award. £460k (plus £52k grant-linked studentship), 36 months funding from January 2011.
• Williams, D., Boucher, J., & Jarrold C. ‘Time-based and event-based prospective memory in autism: The roles of executive function and theory of mind’. ESRC research award. £80k, 11 months funding from January 2011.
• Townsley, R. & Jarrold. C. Evaluation of the parenting support programme for parents of 9-18 year olds with autistic spectrum disorder. NHS Bristol competitive tender. £18k, 22 months funding from March 2010.
• Bayliss, D. M., & Jarrold, C. ‘Memory consolidation and educational achievement in children’. Australian Research Council grant. AUS$ 150k, 36 months funding from January 2009.
• Oberauer, K., Farrell, S., & Jarrold, C. ‘Modeling working memory’. . ESRC research award. 674k, 36 months funding from September 2008.
• Bright-Paul, A. M., Jarrold C., & Wright, D. B. ‘Children’s eyewitness testimony: social contamination of memory and theory of mind development’. ESRC research award. 79k, 10 months funding from October 2007.
• Jarrold C. & Thorn A. S. C. ‘New word learning in Down syndrome’. ESRC research award. £77k, 12 months funding from October 2006.
• Jarrold C. & Baddeley A.D. ‘The causes and consequences of forgetting in working memory’. ESRC research award. £353k, 36 months funding from October 2006.

Biography

I completed a degree in Cambridge in 1990, followed by a Ph.D. on pretend play in autism in Sheffield. In 1993 I returned to Cambridge to work on executive control in autism. I came to Bristol in 1996, becoming a lecturer in 1998, a Reader in 2003, and Professor in Cognitive Development in 2009. I was Honorary Secretary of the Experimental Psychology Society from 2007 to 2010, and am a core member of the Bristol Autism Research Group. In 2000 I received the British Psychological Society’s Neil O’Connor Award for research in developmental disabilities.

Teaching

Current Undergraduate and Taught Postgraduate Units

• PSYC 31027 Developmental Disorders of Communication

This is a third year course that attracts approximately 90 students.  I am the course coordinator and have full responsibility for all aspects of the unit, including giving all lectures (12 hours) and tutorials (8 hours) and carrying out all marking.  The lectures are supplemented by videoed material and in class demonstrations, and tutorials involve structured, student-led discussions.  Summative assessments are essay based, but the course also contains some formative assessment.

PHD students supervised and co-supervised

• Liz Smith: 'The effects of interventions in improving verbal short-term memory performance in Down syndrome and the implications for verbal shortterm memory capacity', 2010-
• Nena Adams: 'The validity of the Stroop task as a test of inhibition, and its relation to reading comprehension in children with autism', 2006-2010
• Emma Mosse: 'The consequences of a verbal short-term memory in Down syndrome', 2005-2010
• Catherine Ames: ‘Investigating the influence of central coherence and executive function on the putative precursors of autism’ 2003-2007
• Harry Purser: ‘A neuropsychological approach to language and short-term memory in Down syndrome’, 2002-2006
• Matt Brett: ‘The structure of executive functioning and its relation to intelligence’, 2000-2004
• Yvonne Wren: ‘The development and evaluation of software for use in remediating phonological impairments in children’, 2000-2005 (includes period of suspended study)
• Alex Bright-Paul: ‘Children’s eyewitness testimony’, 1998-2004 (includes period of suspended study)
• Emily Farran: ‘Visuo-spatial cognition in Williams syndrome’, 1998-2001

Keywords

• Developmental Psychology
• Memory

Expertise

I am a psychologist whose primary focus is the development in children of cognitive abilities such as memory and thinking. Much of my research focusses on these abilities among children with learning difficulties, and conditions such as autism, Down syndrome, and Williams syndrome

Memberships

Organisations

School of Experimental Psychology

Other sites

• Neuroscience

Experimental Psychology staff

• Experimental Psychology academic staff

Research themes

• Cognitive Processes

Research groups

• Developmental Group
• Memory Group

Links

•   home page

Recent publications

• Purser, HRM & Jarrold, C 2013, ‘Poor phonemic discrimination does not underlie poor verbal short-term memory in Down syndrome’. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol 115., pp. 1-15
• Jolley, RP, O'Kelly, R, Barlow, CM & Jarrold, C 2013, ‘Expressive drawing ability in children with autism’. The British journal of developmental psychology, vol 31., pp. 143-149
• Oberauer, K, Farrell, S, Jarrold, C, Pasiecznik, K & Greaves, M 2012, ‘Interference between maintenance and processing in working memory: The effect of item-distractor similarity in complex span’. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, vol 38., pp. 665 - 685
• Bright-Paul, A & Jarrold, C 2012, ‘Children's eyewitness memory: Repeating post-event misinformation reduces the distinctiveness of a witnessed event’. Memory, vol 20., pp. 818-835
• Williams, D, Boucher, J, Lind, S & Jarrold, C 2012, ‘Time-Based and Event-Based Prospective Memory in Autism Spectrum Disorder: The Roles of Executive Function and Theory of Mind, and Time-Estimation’. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
• Jarrold, C & Hall, D 2012, ‘Commentary: Theoretical and methodological challenges to the study of working memory in developmental disorders - a comment on Rhodes et al. (2012)’. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, vol 53., pp. 138-140
• Jarrold, C & Citroën, R 2012, ‘Reevaluating Key Evidence for the Development of Rehearsal: Phonological Similarity Effects in Children Are Subject to Proportional Scaling Artifacts’. Developmental Psychology.
• Williams, D, Bowler, D & Jarrold, C 2012, ‘Inner speech is used to mediate short-term memory, but not planning, among intellectually high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder’. Development and Psychopathology, vol 24., pp. 225 - 239
• Roch, M & Jarrold, C 2012, ‘A follow-up study on word and non-word reading skills in Down syndrome’. Journal of Communication Disorders, vol 45., pp. 121 - 128
• Bright-Paul, A, Jarrold, C, Wright, DB & Guillaume, S 2012, ‘Children's memory distortions following social contact with a co-witness: Disentangling social and cognitive mechanisms’. Memory, vol 20., pp. 580-595

View complete publications list in the University of Bristol publications system