Stelios Georgiades

Dr. Stelios Georgiades is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, Director of the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster University, and the inaugural holder of the McMaster Children’s Hospital Chair in Autism and Neurodevelopment. His program of research investigates the factors influencing developmental trajectories of children and youth with autism and neurodevelopmental conditions. The overarching objective of this research is to generate new knowledge that will lead to more precise, equitable and personalized evidence-based interventions and service systems for children and their families. For more than a decade he has been working closely with provincial and federal stakeholders to advance science, improve care, and shape autism-related programs and policies for autistic children, youth and their families across Canada.

Dr. Georgiades is the Founder and Co-Director of the McMaster Autism Research Team (MacART), an interdisciplinary collaborative aiming to advance autism care through meaningful research. This includes the Pediatric Autism Research Cohort (PARC) Study, which is bridging the research-to-practice gap by embedding a research protocol within the Autism clinic at McMaster Children’s Hospital. Dr. Georgiades is Co-lead for the McMaster site for the Pathways in ASD study, a Canada-wide longitudinal study of children and youth with autism – the largest of its kind, and the largest longitudinal autism study to date. He is also the McMaster site lead for the Province of Ontario Neurodevelopmental (POND) Network, a provincial research program working on improving outcomes for children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr. Georgiades is a Co-PI on a new national study, “Examination of the Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic Response on Health and Functioning of Canadian Children and Youth” (in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada). 

He also leads the Research and Evaluation work for the new provincial Ontario Autism Program as part of an Independent Intake Organization. Dr. Georgiades is also PI for creating a Pan-Canadian Learning Health System (LHS) for Neurodevelopment, funded by the Azrieli Foundation and being implemented with a pilot project at the Ron Joyce Children’s Health Centre in Hamilton. This project will utilize various data and evidence from children, families, clinicians and administrators to generate new knowledge and apply it to improve patient care and experiences, in a cyclical manner and continuous evaluation. 

Current Activities

Some Active Research Projects:

The PARC Project (Pediatric Autism Research Collective): This study is examining the factors that influence diversity in how autism unfolds over time. The goals are to explore the factors contributing to the diverse pathways and outcomes in Autistic young children, to generate research evidence that can inform families and clinicians as they work together to develop more personalized intervention plans for Autistic children. The study is recruiting newly diagnosed Autistic children who are under 5 years old and inviting their families to complete sets of online questionnaires every 6 months over the study period. 

Pathways Phase 3: The Pathways in ASD study is one of the world’s largest, and longest-running longitudinal studies of the development of young children and adolescents with autism. Researchers launched the study in 2005 at five regional centres across Canada (Vancouver, Edmonton, Hamilton, Montreal, Halifax) and recruited 422 children around the time of their diagnosis (2-4 years old). Phase 1 began in 2005 and sought to describe the developmental trajectories of children with ASD between time of diagnosis and their transition into school. Phase 2 goals were to continue to monitor the developmental trajectories of the original cohort in middle childhood (7 to 11 years old). Phase 3 is currently looking at “Developmental Health” of the original cohort (now up to age 19). Key areas include personal competence, daily living skills, independence, and education. 

POND Network Study (Province of Ontario Neurodevelopmental Network):  The purpose of the POND study is to understand how behaviors, genes, brain images and bodily responses are different in individuals, 21 year of age and younger, with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Intellectual Disability, Tourette syndrome, Rett syndrome, Down syndrome, or Fragile X syndrome. More children and their families will be recruited in the future. 

Examination of the Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic Response on Health and Functioning of Canadian Children and Youth study: The 2023 Longitudinal Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth is a follow-up survey done with children and families who took part in the 2019 CHSCY, in partnership with Statistics Canada. A nationally representative sample of over 42,000 children and families from across Canada will be invited to take part again in order to explore the impact that COVID-19 has had on the physical and mental health of children and youth. In addition, a top-up cross-sectional sample of up to 143,000 children (funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada [PHAC] and the Government of Ontario) will be added, which will permit the estimation of precise population level estimates of prevalence of child health outcomes and their determinants during post-pandemic recovery in 2023, including children and youth with autism.  

Evaluation of Virtual Care Services Offered to Children Across Ontario: An external evaluation of the delivery and outcomes of virtual care services offered by Children’s Treatment Centres (CTCs) across Ontario. 

Publications

Five Most Impactful Publications:

Georgiades, S., Bishop, S. L., & Frazier, T. (2017). Editorial Perspective: Longitudinal research in autism–introducing the concept of ‘chronogeneity’. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 58(5), 634-636. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12690

Chen, Y.J., Duku, E. and Georgiades, S. (2022).  Rethinking Autism Intervention Science: A Dynamic Perspective. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.827406

Kamali, M., Sivapalan, S., Kata, A., Kim, N., Shanmugalingam, N., Duku, E., Zwaigenbaum, L. and Georgiades, S., 2022. Program evaluation of a pilot mobile developmental outreach clinic for autism spectrum disorder in Ontario. BMC Health Services Research, 22(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-07789-7

Gentles, S. J., Duku, E., Kerns, C., McVey, A., Hunsche, M., Ng-Cordell, E., Bednar, E., Banfield, L., Chen, Y.J., Szatmari, P., &  Georgiades, S. (2021) Trajectory research in children with an autism diagnosis: A scoping review.  Autism: International Journal of Research and Practice. (In Press) https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/11/e053443

Georgiades, S., Tait, P. A., McNicholas, P. D., Duku, E., Zwaigenbaum, L., Smith, I. M., … & Szatmari, P. (2022). Trajectories of symptom severity in children with autism: Variability and turning points through the transition to school.  Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 52(1), 392-401. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-04949-2

To read more from Dr. Stelios Georgiades: https://experts.mcmaster.ca/display/georgis