Prof David John Messer

Professional biography

I am an Emeritus Professor at the Open University, an Honorary Professor at City University, London (Language and Communication Sciences) and a Visiting Professor at London South Bank University (Psychology).  

Professional activities have included:

Academic Consultant to the BBC1/OU co-production Child of Our Time 

Membership  of the following British Psychological Society committees: Education Board; Research Board, and Publications & Communications Board.

Membership of the Following Editorial Boards, First Language and Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology.

Reviser of AQA GSCE, AS, and A level Psychology, as well as AEA Psychology

Chair of the British Psychological Society Developmental Psychology Section.  Media Relations Officer of Developmental Section.  Conference Organiser for: Child Langauge Seminar, Society for Reproduction and Infant Psychology.

Research interests

My current research interests concern:

1) the way technology can be used to assist support development, particulary language and literacy.  This has involved the development of an app (Our Story, see  http://www.open.ac.uk/creet/main/projects/our-story), an evaluation of a computer based tutorial system developed by Oxford Learning Solutions using 'trainertxt' for children with literacy difficulties (see  http://www.easyreadsystem.com/info/openuniversitytrials.html) and a computer based game to develop the communication skills of children with pragmatic languiage difficulties (see https://www.beds.ac.uk/ihr/about/centres/mchrc/eplays/what-is-e-plays; PI Dr. Suzanne Murphy).

2) children’s communication and language, particularly children with communication difficulties, such as problems with Word-Finding (WFDs) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD).                                                                                                                                      

3) children’s cognitive development, particularly the progression from implicit to explicit thinking, exectutive functioning and inner speech.
I also have interests in: autism, prospective memory and children’s sleeping.

Recent external funding:

I am a member of a team, mostly based at Linkoping University, Sweden, that is investigating the predictors of decoding and reading comprehension in people with intellectual disabilities (Samuelsson, S., Danielsson, H., Elwér, A., Messer, D., & Henry, L.C.).  Funded by Swedish Research Council. £670,000. 

I am also a member of a team that is evaluating a computer based intervention to help children with pragmatic language difficulties.  A feasability study was conducted by Murphy, S. (University of Bedfordshire), Crafter, S. (Open University), Joffe, V. (City University), Messer, D. (Open University), Torgerson, D. (York University), Corbacho, B. (York University), Fairhusrt, C. (York University), Madhani, N. (NE London NHS Foundation Trust). Funded by NIHR £250,000.  Currently there is a full scal evaluation of the intervention, the team consists of: Murphy, S., Joffe, V., Messer, D., Crafter, S ., Bell, K., Fairhurst, C., Cook, E., & Torgerson, D. (2021 – 2025). National Institute for Health Research, £1,461,792. Evaluating ‘Enhancing Pragmatic Language skills for Young children with Social communication impairment’ (E-PLAYS-2), NIHR131745.  

I have contributed to projects that are designed to increase vegetable consumption by young children involving using electronic and paper booklets.  These projects between 2019 and 2022 have involved funding of approximately £900,000 from European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) with Professor Houston-Price, C. (Reading) as PI with an international team from Italy, Poland, Finland and the UK  (see https://www.seeandeat.org/).  A current project is Houston-Price, Messer, D. & Masento, N.  Publication and distribution of hard copy See & Eat books and activity packs 2022-23.  EIT €46,601

A further research project involves Henry, L.C., Messer, D.J., Poloczek, S., & Danielsson, H. and is concerned with 'Language, literacy and procedural memory in children and adolescents with intellectual disabiliities'.   Bailey Thomas, Charitable Fund, £101,924, 2018-2020.

Teaching interests

I was a member of the course team for ED840, Child Development in Families, Schools and Society. This course is taken by postgraduates studying for the MA in Education, Advanced Diploma in Child Development and as an optional course in the MSc in Psychology.

I was part of the production team for ED814 Understanding Children's Development and Learning which has replaced ED840