Dr. Alexandra Hendry

Biography

Alexandra Hendry's research focuses on developing ways to identify and help children who are likely to struggle with executive functions—skills related to thinking, regulation, planning, problem-solving, and impulse control. She leads the START (Supporting Toddlers with a Family History of Autism/ADHD to develop strong Attention, Regulation, and Thinking skills) early intervention programme, which is aimed at supporting children with neurodivergent conditions such as autism and ADHD as well as those who are neurotypical. In collaboration with the Oxford Early Executive Functions project, she works on a longitudinal study examining the development of attention and executive function from 10 months of preschool age during the Covid-19 lockdown in the BICYCLE (Born In Covid Year - Core Lockdown Effects) study, which aims to understand the impact of the pandemic on early language and cognitive development. Hendry joined the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford in January 2018 to work on a project investigating executive functions from infancy into early childhood, led by Dr. Karla Holmboe. The project developed new games and tasks for measuring executive functions in infants as young as 10 months. In 2021, she was awarded the NIHR Castang Foundation Advanced Fellowship (2021-2026) to further develop the pilot START early intervention programme.

Research Interests