Autism Science Foundation Seeks Applicants for 2021 Undergraduate Summer Research Grants

Priority will be given to diverse applicants and studies that focus on understanding and narrowing service gaps among underrepresented populations

NEW YORK — January 13, 2021 — The Autism Science Foundation (ASF), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting and funding innovative autism research, is inviting grant applications from highly qualified undergraduates interested in pursuing basic and clinical research relevant to autism spectrum disorders during the summer. With the RFA (request for applications), ASF noted it will give priority to students from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds and/or studies that focus on understanding and narrowing the diagnosis and service gaps across race, ethnicity and/or socioeconomic status.

“All of us at ASF were moved by the racial justice movement that rightfully gained momentum in 2020,” said Alison Singer, President of the Autism Science Foundation. “It reinforced the importance of supporting diverse researchers and ensuring there are no barriers to any autism families receiving the high quality and efficient diagnoses and treatment options they all deserve.”

Applications are due by February 22 and any proposed research must be scientifically linked to autism or a closely related field. ASF will consider all areas of related basic and clinical research including but not limited to: human behavior across the lifespan (language, learning, communication, social function, epilepsy, sleep, self-injurious behavior, catatonia), neurobiology (anatomy, development, neuro-imaging), pharmacology, neuropathology, human genetics, genomics, epigenetics, epigenomics, immunology, molecular and cellular mechanisms, studies employing model organisms and systems, and studies of treatment, service delivery, policy and employment.

This is the eighth year ASF has offered grants to promising young researchers. In 2018, Inside Philanthropy praised ASF’s focus on young scientists, writing that funding undergraduates “is not something we see very often. In fact, we almost never see it. A key to achieving (medical) breakthroughs is first to win the battle to engage and retain young investigators. That means getting to promising researchers early. ASF says it’s alone among funders in its view that support for undergrads is a worthwhile use of research dollars. As far as we know, that’s true.”

“Supporting promising young scientists who have an interest in autism research is central to ASF’s mission,” said ASF Chief Science Officer Dr. Alycia Halladay. “We have always believed that encouraging qualified students at the very start of their careers is an important way to attract budding researchers who could eventually make a real difference in the lives of people with autism.”

For more information, or to apply for ASF’s 2021 Undergraduate Summer Research grant, please visit HERE.

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About the Autism Science Foundation
The Autism Science Foundation (ASF) is a 501(c) (3) public charity. Its mission is to support autism research by providing funding to scientists and organizations conducting autism research. ASF also provides information about autism to the general public and serves to increase awareness of autism spectrum disorders and the needs of individuals and families affected by autism. To learn more about the Autism Science Foundation or to make a donation, visit www.autismsciencefoundation.org.   

Media Contact
Kathy Ehrich Dowd
Forefront Communications for Autism Science Foundation
617-970-5842
kdowd@forefrontcomms.com

Latest grants will measure the validity of new online autism assessments and examine the mental health consequences of the pandemic on individuals with autism spectrum disorder

NEW YORK — December 22, 2020 — The Autism Science Foundation (ASF), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting and funding innovative autism research, today announced its third round of COVID-19 Research Grant recipients. The grantees are Dr. Hannah Rea of the University of Washington, Shalini Sivathasan of Emory University and Dr. Marika Coffman of Duke University.

The latest grants will support a study investigating the validity of new virtual autism assessments and will also enable a team of scientists to study the mental health consequences of the pandemic on individuals with autism.

The first round of COVID-19 grants were announced in June, with funding to enable continued collection of data from a cohort of children who were participants in a long-term longitudinal study whose participation was in jeopardy because of COVID-19 restrictions. Another June grant funded a study to understand the unique needs of culturally diverse families in low-resource households during the pandemic. The second round of grants, in September, provided funds to study how best to employ telehealth solutions for children with ASD, and to help adapt a mathematical instructional program for special education teachers to use with autistic children.

“2020 has been a challenging year for everyone, but the autism community has been hit especially hard,” said Alison Singer, Co-Founder and President of ASF. “We are proud that this latest round of COVID-19 grants will help fund research projects that focus on two critically important issues that have arisen this year: the mental health impact of the pandemic on people with autism, and the efficacy of virtual autism assessments. We expect the findings from these projects will serve a valuable role in helping people with autism more effectively get the support they need during the pandemic.”

ASF’s grant will enable Sivathasan and Dr. Rea to collaborate and combine their resources to study the impact of the sudden shift from in-person autism assessments to telehealth-delivered diagnoses. Together, they will examine these new assessment practices in both children and adults with ASD to determine the validity of these measures, as well as determine which changes should be continued and which need to be further improved. The ultimate goal of the research is to help clinicians conduct better ASD assessments virtually.

Dr. Coffman’s grant will be used to study the mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on children with autism. Mentored by Dr. Geraldine Dawson, and in conjunction with colleagues Dr. Kimberly Carpenter and Dr. Naomi Davis, this funding will allow for the expansion of an existing project at Duke University examining mental health issues in families with an ASD. It will track families with an ASD, as well as individuals with co-occurring psychiatric issues, to determine the effects of the pandemic on autism-related behaviors. The findings will help inform future efforts to understand who is most susceptible to mental health issues and what contributes to resilience.

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About the Autism Science Foundation
The Autism Science Foundation (ASF) is a 501(c) (3) public charity. Its mission is to support autism research by providing funding to scientists and organizations conducting autism research. ASF also provides information about autism to the general public and serves to increase awareness of autism spectrum disorders and the needs of individuals and families affected by autism. To learn more about the Autism Science Foundation or to make a donation, visit www.autismsciencefoundation.org.

Media Contact
Kathy Ehrich Dowd
Forefront Communications for Autism Science Foundation
617-970-5842
kdowd@forefrontcomms.com

ASF grant will enable PEERbots to expand to iOS and develop user-friendly applications for the autism community

NEW YORK — October 13, 2020 — The Autism Science Foundation (ASF), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to funding autism research, today announced that it has awarded a grant to PEERbots, a nonprofit organization that develops social robot puppet software to support telehealth for children, especially beneficial to those with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs).

“Over the course of the pandemic, we have heard from countless distraught families who are watching their children struggling through telehealth therapy sessions,” said Dr. Alycia Halladay, Chief Science Officer at the Autism Science Foundation. “PEERbots is exactly the kind of solution that can help in many of these cases. Having an extension of the therapist in the room via a beloved doll or toy with the child increases the chance of the child engaging with the material, thus improving their outcome.”

PEERbots and related technology have been used for the past seven years by Fine Art Miracles, a Pittsburgh- based service nonprofit that promotes the benefits of creative expression and social robotics. The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent surge in demand for telehealth services has validated the desire to bring this product to the wider autism community to enhance and expand telehealth delivered therapies.

The PEERbot system is currently available only on Android devices. ASF’s grant will be used to develop an iOS version and to expand the prototypes that a project of this scale requires. The project will be led by Aubrey Shick, Executive Director and Program Manager at PEERbots, and John Choi, Lead Developer at PEERbots, both of whom have significant experience with developing socially assistive technology.

“2020 has been a difficult year for all of us, but it also put into focus the reality that there is a large and growing slice of the autism community that relies on telehealth to access critical interventions,” said Shick. “Developing an iOS app will greatly expand the number of individuals who can benefit from our offering. As people become generally more reliant on remote solutions, the need for PEERbots will only increase, and these funds will help us meet this crucial need.”

“This is a new type of grant for us,” said ASF President Alison Singer, “but it reflects our organization’s
decision to pivot toward investing in practical, evidence-based solutions our families need, especially now during the pandemic. We intend to conduct focus groups with therapists and parents, and to study the effectiveness of this intervention as we continue to work with PEERbots to develop this new product.”

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About the Autism Science Foundation
The Autism Science Foundation (ASF) is a 501(c) (3) public charity. Its mission is to support autism research by providing funding to scientists and organizations conducting autism research. ASF also provides information about autism to the general public and serves to increase awareness of autism spectrum disorders and the needs of individuals and families affected by autism. To learn more about the Autism Science Foundation, or to make a donation, visit www.autismsciencefoundation.org.

Media Contact
Kathy Ehrich Dowd
Forefront Communications for Autism Science Foundation
617-970-5842
kdowd@forefrontcomms.com

New grants will seek to measure social communication skills in children with autism who are stuck at home, and will help expand a special education math curriculum for use online.

ASF also announces a request for applications for a third round of pivot grants and launches a new funding mechanism to study the effects of covid-19 on people with autism.

NEW YORK — September 8, 2020 — The Autism Science Foundation (ASF), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting and funding innovative autism research, today announced its second round of COVID-19 Pivot Grant recipients. The grantees are Jacquelyn Moffitt of the University of Miami and Dr. Jenny Root of Florida State University.

Announced in April, the COVID-19 Pivot Grants are meant to help scientists fund needed adaptations or modifications of an original research plan as a result of ongoing shutdowns across research institutions. They are intended to be a fast-turnaround mechanism to accommodate an uncertain situation for the research community. This second round of pivot grants focused on early career investigators (scientists currently pursuing a doctoral degree to those up to seven years post-doctorate).

“Several months into the pandemic, the research community continues to face unprecedented challenges with carrying out planned projects,” said Alison Singer, Co-Founder and President of ASF. “With the help of our Pivot Grants, some of this work can be adapted, ensuring that we continue to make progress toward breakthroughs even amid these difficult circumstances. In addition, ASF has always focused on supporting early career scientists who will be leading the way in this research for years to come, and we are pleased to be able to do so today.”

Moffitt’s grant will enable researchers at the University of Miami to better employ telehealth solutions for children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While the pandemic has made it more difficult to access treatment in clinics, it has created a unique opportunity for researchers to collect information from children about social communication behaviors while they are at home. The Pivot Grant will enable researchers to provide families with language recorders and video cameras, helping to alleviate some of the shortcomings of telehealth and in some cases collect information for a longer period of time than might have been done in person.

Dr. Root’s research is on special education in mathematics. In response to the lack of math curriculums designed for people with an ASD, Root and her colleagues have been building a mathematical instructional program for special education teachers to use with autistic children in a classroom. The Pivot Grant will allow them to adapt this program from being fully teacher-delivered to partially caregiver-delivered using video modules.

ASF also announced today a request for applications for a third round of COVID-19 Pivot Grants and launched a new mechanism to measure the effects of COVID-19 on people with autism.

Pivot Grants may be used to help support new costs encountered due to needed adaptations or modifications to an original research plan as a result of social distancing measures, PPE requirements, and/or the shutdown of research institutions. (For example, these funds can be used to purchase PPE or ipads)

COVID-19 Research funding is available to support some or all of the costs of expanding a current line of research to answer a question related to the effects of the pandemic on families with ASD. These can include studying the effectiveness of telehealth approaches, measuring effectiveness of virtually-delivered special education programs, understanding short or long-term consequences of social distancing, understanding the effects of COVID-19 in animal or cellular models of ASD, as well as specific interventions meant to deal with pandemic-related mental health issues in siblings and other family members. The funding cannot support the development of a project from scratch but rather should be considered as supplementation of an existing project.

The first round of Pivot Grant recipients was announced in June, with funding going to projects focused on early intervention and autism in low-resource households.

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Media Contact
Sam Belden
Forefront Communications for Autism Science Foundation
212-320-8986
sbelden@forefrontcomms.com

New platform allows families to access content, interact with experts and exchange ideas to improve outcomes for children with ASDs amid pandemic

NEW YORK — July 29, 2020 — The Autism Science Foundation (ASF), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting and funding innovative autism research, and Autism Navigator today announced the launch of the Autism Navigator Virtual Community, a web-based education platform designed to help healthcare providers, educators and families improve outcomes for young children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

The Virtual Community will facilitate discussion of early childhood autism among multiple stakeholder groups. Users can interact directly with one another, allowing parents to exchange ideas, receive support and gain access to experts on the platform. It will also allow for the sharing of written and video content. Interested parties can learn more here.

Autism Navigator offers extensive resources to its users, from dedicated guides on topics like communication development in infants and toddlers and classroom success for children with ASDs to videos on how to administer interventions. Its mission is to enhance the professional development of healthcare and intervention providers and educators as well as to give parents the tools necessary to provide their child the best life possible, especially low-income families who lack access to leading professionals. The new Virtual Community was launched to continue these efforts during the coronavirus pandemic, an environment in which many families are struggling to access interventions, manage behavior and lean on their support networks.

“We are very excited about the launch of the Autism Navigator Virtual Community, which will serve as an incredibly important resource for both autism families and the wider community,” said Alycia Halladay, Chief Science Officer at ASF. “While this initiative was planned in response to the pandemic, what we’ve built has the potential to bring people together and address their concerns around early childhood autism for years to come. Autism Navigator has a long history of working with a variety of communities to reduce disparities in the diagnosis and care that people receive, and we are proud to stand with them in support of this mission.”

ASF has played an active role in supporting autism families and researchers during the pandemic. The organization recently announced the recipients of its inaugural round of COVID-19 Pivot Grants and has worked to compile a list of COVID-19 resources.

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About the Autism Science Foundation

The Autism Science Foundation (ASF) is a 501(c) (3) public charity. Its mission is to support autism research by providing funding to scientists and organizations conducting autism research. ASF also provides information about autism to the general public and serves to increase awareness of autism spectrum disorders and the needs of individuals and families affected by autism. To learn more about the Autism Science Foundation or to make a donation visit www.autismsciencefoundation.org.

Media Contact
Sam Belden
Forefront Communications for Autism Science Foundation
212-320-8986
sbelden@forefrontcomms.com

NEW YORK — June 3, 2020 — The Autism Science Foundation (ASF), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting and funding innovative autism research, today announced its first round of COVID-19 Pivot Grant recipients. The grantees are Dr. Lonnie Zwaigenbaum of the University of
Alberta and Dr. Sandra B. Vanegas of Texas State University.

Announced in April, the COVID-19 Pivot Grants are meant to help scientists cover new costs encountered due to adaptations or modifications of an original research plan as a result of the current shutdown across research institutions. They are intended to be a fast-turn around mechanism to accommodate an unprecedented and unpredictable situation for the research community.