Dr Pedro Vital

Dr Pedro Vital is Lecturer in the School of Education and Psychology and Co-ordinator of the Autism Research Group at The University of Bolton.

He teaches on the Psychology undergraduate degree and is also involved in some postgraduate courses.

During his BSc (Hons) in Psychology, Pedro developed a keen interest in autism, mainly in the specific proficiencies that tend to characterise these conditions. He has pursued this interest during his MSc in Cognitive Neuropsychology at University College London and PhD at the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King’s College London. During his PhD, which he completed in 2009, he examined the relationship between specific autism-like traits and parent-reported abilities in a number of domains. He has worked as a lecturer in the University of Greenwich, the University of Lisbon, and the University of Bolton since August 2014.

His present research is focused on emotion expression and mimicry in autism, and its association with imitation and motor learning. He is exploring facial expression of emotions and facial mimicry of emotions in autism using the Face Reader software.

The postgraduate students he currently supervises are investigating the association between behavioural interventions and changes in the social brain in children with autism, and wellbeing, happiness and joy in adults.

As a research group they are focused on promoting a more positive view of autism by emphasising proficiencies and aspects in which there are no differences to neurotypical performance. View Dr Pedro Vital’s profile on the University of Bolton website.