Research Network
Talking Mats were developed after many years of dedicated research and they continue to be a subject of research for clinicians and academics around the world. This research is encouraged an supported by our research network, which is coordinated by Dr Joan Murphy (Founding Director of Talking Mats) and Dr Jill Bradshaw (Tizard Centre, University of Kent) who was appointed as our Honorary Associate in November 2019.
It is a virtual network, open to anyone who has an interest in Talking Mats (both as a research tool and in clinical practice) and who has completed at least the Foundation Training. We have over 35 members from all around the world.
We are a mix of both researchers and clinicians and we meet every couple of months as a main group. It is a great way of finding out what is happening with TM around the world. We are currently exploring the following topics in our subgroups:
- Reviewing the literature – we have created a data base of publications that have used TM. We are using this for a couple of projects, including reviewing ways in which data generated using TM is analysed and developing some practice-guidelines around the reporting of projects that have used TM. Once completed, we will make the data base available and we think it will be a very valuable resource. It includes the populations and topics that have been investigated.
- Conversation analysis – we have been looking at the ways in which CA might be used as a method of analysing transcripts generated from TMs. This is one of our newer subgroups and so watch this space for more information.
- Evidence-based resources – always keen to make sure that TMs were developed from practice, we have just set up a group to explore some new TM resources that are evidence-based and that have been developed through user feedback.
If you are interested in joining please fill out this application form and return it to info@talkingmats.com. We look forward to sharing our work with everyone!
As well as the numerous publications by the Talking Mats team, we are proud to have featured in many other research publications which you can see below: