Academy Fellow

Skye McDonald is a Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of NSW. She leads a NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Brain Recovery. Her research is in disorders in social, emotional and communication processes and neuropsychological rehabilitation more generally. She has developed novel approaches to assess and remediate emotion perception, social skills and communication in adults with traumatic brain injury. Her work extends to other neurological disorders such as dementia and developmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorders.

With colleagues, she developed Psycbite www.psycbite.com a database freely available on the internet that indexes all research ever published in english that provides empirical evidence attesting to the efficacy of treatment for neuropsychological disorders arising from acquired brain disorders. She has also been instrumental in the establishment of a rating scale and reporting guidelines to improve standards for reporting single case experimental studies.

Professor, UNSW

Fellow, Australasian Society for the Study of Brain Impairment

Honan, C. A., McDonald, S., Sufani, C., Hine, D. W., & Kumfor, F. (2016). The awareness of social inference test: development of a shortened version for use in adults with acquired brain injury. Clinical Neuropsychologist, 1-22. doi:10.1080/13854046.2015.1136691

Osborne-Crowley, K., McDonald, S., & Rushby, J. A. (2016). Role of Reversal Learning Impairment in Social Disinhibition following Severe Traumatic Brain Injury. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 22(3), 303-313. doi:10.1017/S1355617715001277

Francis, H. M., Fisher, A., Rushby, J. A., & McDonald, S. (2016). Reduced heart rate variability in chronic severe traumatic brain injury: Association with impaired emotional and social functioning, and potential for treatment using biofeedback. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 26(1), 103-125. doi:10.1080/09602011.2014.1003246

McDonald, S., Fisher, A., & Flanagan, S. (2015). When diplomacy fails: difficulty understanding hints following severe traumatic brain injury. Aphasiology. doi:10.1080/02687038.2015.1070948

Rosenberg, H., Dethier, M., Kessels, R.P.C., Westbrook, R.F. & McDonald, S. (2015) Emotion Perception After Moderate-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: The Valence Effect and the Role of Working Memory, Processing Speed, and Nonverbal Reasoning, Neuropsychology 29(4), 509-21. doi: 10.1037/neu0000171.