Fionnuala Larkin

Fionnuala Larkin is a Senior Lecturer at University College Cork. Fionnuala trained as a Clinical Psychologist at University College Dublin, where she conducted research on parent-child interaction in autism under the supervision of Dr Suzanne Guerin (University College Dublin) and Dr Jessica Hobson (University College London). On qualifying in 2012, she worked with the Brothers of Charity in Waterford, providing assessment and intervention to children and adults with intellectual disability, where she became increasingly interested in family functioning and parent-child relationships in the context of disability. To pursue these interests, she moved to University of York in 2014 to work as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with Professor Elizabeth Meins, conducting research on mind-mindedness: the tendency for parents to focus on mental states when thinking and talking about their children. She has since worked in a number of academic roles, including Associate Lecturer at the University of York, Senior Lecturer at York St John University, and Senior Clinical Psychologist at University of Limerick. Fionnuala has worked in clinical practice alongside academia, in the area of autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She worked as a clinical psychologist with the NHS North Yorkshire Autism and ADHD service at The Retreat, York from 2017, and provides clinical supervision. She is qualified to provide training and supervision on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2. Fionnuala is open to hearing from people interested in undertaking a PhD in any of her areas of interest.

Fionnuala’s research focuses on developmental psychology and psychopathology and bidirectional influences within the parent-child relationship that shape children’s social and emotional development. She has published on topics related to mind-mindedness, infant and maternal mental health, parent-child interaction, autism and other developmental disorders. She was Co-Investigator on a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/R004706/1) to evaluate the influence of early mind-mindedness on children’s self-regulation and emotion understanding. Her research has previously been funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust (SG162395). Most recently, she has been conducting research on the experiences of autistic mothers, utilising a participatory research approach. She has supervised doctoral, Master’s and BSc student projects.