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About Dr Karen Oakley at Brain and Mind Matters
Dr Karen Oakley
Dr Karen Oakley is the Principal of Brain and Mind Matters. She is a Clinical Neuropsychologist with her main areas of research and clinical work focussed on neurodevelopmental conditions across the lifespan, and with a particular interest in children and adolescents. Karen has worked with young people with differences in brain and cognitive development for the past 15 years.
Karen's clinical and research work seeks to enhance the lives and experiences of people with neurodevelopmental conditions and to support all people to reach their potential. She does this through assessment, recommendations and reports that aim for an enhanced understanding of the individual, their needs and how the environments in which they live need to be adjusted.
Her research seeks to increase access to best practice assessments and diagnostic processes for all, and to enhance the educational experiences and opportunities for students with neurodevelopmental conditions and neurodivergent students.
Karen obtained her Bachelor in Psychology with first class honours from Charles Sturt University. She has a Masters in Clinical Neuropsychology from Macquarie University and a PhD from the University of Sydney.
Karen is an AHPRA Board Approved Supervisor for provisional psychologists and registrar psychologists working towards clinical neuropsychology endorsement.
Expertise
Karen has worked in private practice, as a consultant to the Child Development Service undertaking autism diagnostic assessments, and as a School Psychologist within the ACT Education Directorate in both mainstream and specialist school settings. Her experience includes assessment and differential diagnosis of neurodevelopmental conditions, developing strategies to assist with behaviours, everyday functioning and academic engagement and development, providing training to organisations, teachers and others (including special needs transport workers) who support students with neurodevelopmental conditions.
Karen is also a Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology within the Faculty of Education at the University of Canberra where she teaches educational psychology and child development within teacher education courses and conducts research into the best ways to support students with neurodevelopmental conditions and neurodivergent students from early childhood through to tertiary education. She also provides clinical supervision to students undertaking the Masters in Clinical Psychology course through the School of Psychology.
Prior to her clinical training, Karen was a CEO of a non-government organisation that undertook mental health consumer consultation and advocacy to ensure service user input into government policies and services related to mental health.
Mission, values and approach
Karen is passionate about supporting individuals to know themselves and to be understood by those around them. She uses supportive interactions, observations, interviews as well as standardised assessments to build this understanding, and works in different ways to communicate this understanding to others. Her goal is to ensure that people with neurodevelopmental conditions receive individualised support in every aspect of their life to facilitate their growth and development as individuals and to enable them to reach their potential.
Research
Karen has been engaged in research for more than 20 years. She has a range of publications focussing predominantly on neurodevelopmental conditions and paediatric rehabilitation and intervention. She also conducted co-designed, policy and systems improvement research in collaboration with mental health consumers, mental health clinicians and the statewide mental health program.
One of Karen's current research projects is investigating how psychologists approach assessment for intellectual disability when clients cannot participate in standardised intelligence tests, with a view to provide guidelines to psychologists. Her other research projects include enhancing the voice of students who have neurodevelopmental conditions and neurodivergent students in early childhood through to tertiary education settings.
Karen has provided research supervision to students undertaking honours, masters and PhD degrees.
For details about Karen's publications, go to
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hhkGao0AAAAJ&hl=en
Media
Karen has been interviewed and provided expert comments on topics relating to typical development, explaining neurodevelopmental disorders, and how to support students with different needs. She has provided comments to a range of media including ABC Radio Canberra and The Canberra Times.
Here's an article she contributed to with the RiotAct - Doctor advises families how best to prepare for autism, ADHD assessments | Region Canberra