My research is mainly focussed on societal responses and health service provision for people with intellectual disabilities. Four core themes in current and recent research:

1. Lay perceptions of intellectual disability
Lay perceptions and responses can have a strong influence on the well-being and social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities. We have studied lay knowledge and attitudes regarding intellectual disability, as well as causal and intervention beliefs in different cultural, religious and national contexts, with a view to identifying the processes involved in intellectual disability stigma and discrimination (see publications). In order to understand these processes further in cross-cultural contexts, joint studies are currently underway with colleagues at the Universities of Kuwait and Vienna. 

To date, the evidence on lay attitudes towards this population is almost entirely derived from explicit, self-report attitude measures, which render the findings questionable at best. We have developed a test to examine implicit associations, that is attitudes less accessible to consciousness, to intellectual disability and have examined the relationship between explicit attitudes, implicit attitudes and stigma among lay people in the UK (Wilson & Scior, in preparation).

A new project aimed at applying our understanding of causal and intervention beliefs about intellectual disability to clinical settings is currently underway (Blundell & Scior, in progress).

2. Interventions aimed at tackling prejudice and discrimination towards people with intellectual disabilities

Past research indicates that direct contact with individuals with intellectual disabilities is the most promising route to achieving positive attitude change. However, contact based interventions are hard to provide and control on a large scale, thus limiting their widespread use. We are piloting several brief internet delivered interventions aimed at tackling prejudice and discrimination towards people with intellectual disabilities at general population level (Walker & Scior, under review; Seewooruttun & Scior, in preparation).

3. Health service delivery for people with intellectual disabilities
We have completed a number of projects examining the experiences of people with  intellectual disabilities and their carers of both specialist and mainstream services for individuals who experience mental health problems secondary to their intellectual disability (see publications). To enhance our understanding of health inequalities experienced by people with intellectual disabilities, we are currently studying potential barriers to high quality health care at primary care level (Ryan, Buczewisz, Strydom & Scior, in progress).

4. Clinical Psychology Training
I am committed to ensuring fair access to the profession of clinical psychology. To this end we have studied potential causes of the underrepresentation of individuals from BME backgrounds among DClinPsy students (see publications). We have recently completed a project examining the effect of educational background on selection for clinical psychology training across UK training providers, funded by the Clearing House for Clinical Psychology (Scior, Williams & King, under review).