Dr Kate Woodcock BSc, PhD, PGCHET

Dr Kate Woodcock

School of Psychology
Reader in Applied Clinical Psychology
Lead of People and Culture for the School of Psychology

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 6036
Email
k.a.woodcock@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
School of Psychology
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Kate Woodcock’s research interests can be summarised as aiming to investigate and explain human behaviour by considering multiple potential influences at different levels of explanation. For example, people’s genes, their brain structure, their brain functioning, cognitive, physiological and emotional functioning can all affect people’s behaviour both individually and in an interactive way. In addition to this, all individuals exist within a specific environment, as does each level of their functioning (for example a person may behave differently in quiet, relaxed surroundings compared to noisy, chaotic surroundings; and the same cognitive process may have different effects depending on which other cognitive processes are engaged). The environment in the broad sense of the term is therefore also an extremely important factor to consider when aiming to explain human behaviour. Finally, Kate is extremely interested in ultimately being able to bring about a behavioural change when such a change is desired by the individual in question.

Kate Woodcock's personal website

Qualifications

  • PhD in Psychology
  • Postgraduate Certificate of Higher Education Teaching
  • BSc Honours in Psychology

Biography

Dr Kate Woodcock carried out her PhD research at the School of Psychology, University of Birmingham between 2005 and 2008. She worked as a Cerebra Research fellow at the Cerebra Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders from December 2008 until February 2011, before taking up an International Outgoing Marie Curie Fellowship, which she had designed under the European Union’s seventh framework programme. The Marie Curie Fellowship took Kate to Beijing, China until March 2013 and then brought her back to the University of Birmingham until February 2014.  In March 2014, Kate took up her first lectureship position at the School of Psychology, Queen’s University Belfast. In September 2017, Kate returned to the School of Psychology, University of Birmingham to take up a senior lectureship.

Teaching

Kate is a research tutor on the Clinical Psychology Doctoral programme and teaches clinical research methods on the clinical psychology master’s and doctoral programmes.

Postgraduate supervision

Kate is currently principally supervising a PhD student based at Queen’s University Belfast, who is due to complete in autumn 2018.  She is also co-supervising a further PhD student who began at Queen’s University Belfast in September 2017. Kate has funding for PhD projects in areas relevant to the impact of executive functioning and/or emotion regulation on the behaviour and mental health of children and adolescents, due to begin at various points between 2018 and 2022. Interested students can enquire about these opportunities with Kate via email.

Research

Neurodevelopmental disorders, challenging behaviour, mental health, executive functioning, emotion regulation

Other activities

  • Member of the international executive committee of the Society for the Study of Behavioural Phenotypes (September 2016 – ongoing)
  • Member of the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Intellectual Disability Research (August 2016 – ongoing)
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (July 2015 – ongoing)
  • Co-opted governor of Story Wood Primary School (September 2015 – ongoing)
  • External examiner of clinical psychology doctoral theses, University of Manchester (June 2017 – ongoing) 

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Tafla, TL, Woodcock, KA, Mecca, TP & Teixeira, MCTV 2025, 'Cross-Cultural Comparison of Adaptive Behaviour Between British and Brazilian Clinical Samples With Neurodevelopmental Disorders', Child: Care, Health and Development, vol. 51, no. 3, e70098. https://doi.org/10.1111/cch.70098

Bhattacharya, P, Matthews, R, Field, R, Heath, H, Woodcock, K & Surtees, A 2025, 'Experiencing Independence: Perspectives from Autistic Adults', Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-025-06812-0

Whitley-Gronborg, M, Fenton, S-J, Woodcock, KA & Montgomery, P 2025, 'Identifying Key Independent Living Skills for Care Experienced Children to Transition to Independence: A Scoping Review', Children and Youth Services Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/0145935X.2025.2469681

Mitmann, G, Zehetner, V, Barnard, A, Doerfler, S, Zehetmayer, S, Woodcock, K, Wimmer, S & Schrank, B 2024, 'A Serious Game for Emotion Regulation in Adolescents: Player Experience and Pilot Feasibility Study', International Journal of Game-Based Learning, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 1-17. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJGBL.358940

Shenton, BDK, Chung, JCY & Woodcock, KA 2024, 'Characterising the behaviours in most severe and least severe emotional outbursts in young people', Scientific Reports, vol. 14, no. 1, 2957. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-52732-x

Turner, S, Fulop, A & Woodcock, K 2024, 'Loneliness: Adolescents’ Perspectives on What Causes it, and Ways Youth Services Can Prevent it', Children and Youth Services Review, vol. 157, 107442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2024.107442

Triguero Veloz Teixeira, MC, Lichtenszteijn Tafla, T, Lowenthal , R, Silvestre Paula, C, Balbueno, B, Mevorach, C, Chung, J & Woodcock, K 2024, 'Preliminary psychometric properties of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the emotional outburst questionnaire', Scientific Reports, vol. 14, no. 1, 984. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-49834-3

Triguero Veloz Teixeira, MC, Lowenthal, R, Rattazzi, A, Cukier, S, Valdez, D, Garcia, R, Garrido Candela, G, Rosoli Murillo, A, Pereira da Silva Leite, F, Pinheiro, G, Woodcock, K, Chung, JCY, Mevorach, C, Montiel-Nava, C & Silvestre Paula, C 2024, 'Understanding Emotional Outbursts: A Cross-Cultural Study in Latin American Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder', Brain Sciences, vol. 14, no. 10, 1010. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci14101010

Stiehl, KAM, Krammer, I, Schrank, B, Pollak, I, Silani, G & Woodcock, KA 2023, 'Children’s perspective on fears connected to school transition and intended coping strategies', Social Psychology of Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-023-09759-1

Krammer, I, Schrank, B, Pollak, I, Stiehl, K, Nater, U & Woodcock, K 2023, 'Early Adolescents’ Perspectives on Factors That Facilitate and Hinder Friendship Development With Peers at the Time of School Transition', Journal of School Psychology, vol. 98, pp. 113-132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2023.03.001

Pollak, I, Stiehl, KAM, Schrank, B, Birchwood, J, Krammer, I, Mitic, M, Rogers, JC & Woodcock, KA 2023, 'Engaging Children in Intervention Development: A Comparison of Four Qualitative Methods and Their Suitability to Elicit Information Relevant for Early Intervention Development', International Journal of Qualitative Methods, vol. 22, pp. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069231204775

Bozhilova, N, Welham, A, Adams, D, Bissell, S, Bruining, H, Crawford, H, Eden, K, Nelson, L, Oliver, C, Powis, L, Richards, C, Waite, J, Watson, P, Rhys, H, Wilde, L, Woodcock, K & Moss, J 2023, 'Profiles of autism characteristics in thirteen genetic syndromes: a machine learning approach', Molecular Autism, vol. 14, no. 1, 3. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-022-00530-5

Conference contribution

Kriglstein, S, Mittmann, G, Barnard, A & Woodcock, K 2023, Making A Real Connection: Pro-Social Collaborative Play in Extended Realities – Trends, Challenges and Potentials. in MUM '23: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia. Association for Computing Machinery , pp. 544–547, 22nd International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia, Vienna, Austria, 3/12/23. https://doi.org/10.1145/3626705.3626708

Letter

Tafla, TL, Teixeira, MCTV, Woodcock, KA & Sowden-Carvalho, S 2024, 'Autism spectrum disorder diagnosis across cultures: Are diagnoses equivalent?', Neurodiversity, vol. 2. https://doi.org/10.1177/27546330241226811

Review article

Spahl, W, Motta, V, Woodcock, K & Rubeis, G 2024, 'Gamified Digital Mental Health Interventions for Young People: Scoping Review of Ethical Aspects During Development and Implementation', JMIR Serious Games, vol. 12, e64488. https://doi.org/10.2196/64488

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

behaviour problems; challenging behaviour; neurodevelopmental disorders/ genetic syndromes/ autism spectrum disorder; intellectual disability; psychological interventions; digital interventions