Overview
Funding autism research is at the core of our mission.
We prioritize funding clever early-career investigators with cutting-edge ideas who need seed money to get their research off the ground. ASF pairs these researchers with established scientists who provide mentorship and training. The government and other funders have decreased funding for training grants, but we are committed to helping early-career scientists gather the initial data they need to attract major funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), all while encouraging the best and brightest researchers to dedicate their careers to autism.
Current Grantees
Profound Autism Pilot Grants
Margaret Reynolds, M.D., MSc | Washington University in St. Louis
Improving Social Behavior and Adaptive Functioning in Children with Profound Autism Through Vision Correction
Vision problems, including far- and near-sightedness, affect up to 44% of children with autism. These deficits may lead to sensory deprivation and impair skills related to autism, including attention and communication. Refractive errors are usually corrected by the use of eyeglasses or contact lenses, but most individuals with profound autism cannot tolerate wearing them and may benefit from vision-correcting, refractive surgery. In this study, pediatric ophthalmologist Dr. Margaret Reynolds will examine social reciprocity, social interaction, and adaptive behavior in children with profound autism who have had this vision-correcting surgery. The methods used to track these outcomes do not rely on the child’s speech or language ability, so those who are non- or minimally-verbal can participate. While at present only a few doctors perform this surgery in children, this relatively simple medical procedure could lead to improved quality of life and function.
Heather Nuske, Ph.D. & David Mandell, Sc.D. | University of Pennsylvania
Reducing Severe Behaviors in School Settings for Children with Profound Autism Using Wearable Devices
Studies using wearable devices suggest that severe behaviors like aggression and self-injury are often preceded by physiological signs that may reflect emotional dysregulation and stress, such as increased heart rate and sudden movements. In order to best manage these situations and support children with profound autism in school settings, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania developed the KeepCalm app. This app works with a wearable device and allows educators to monitor their students in real-time. The app’s interactive learning feature helps train teachers to identify early signs of distress and use appropriate de-escalation strategies before injurious behavior occurs. This information can also be shared with parents, so that they can use the same strategies at home. This project will assess the KeepCalm system in educational teams and modify the application and training to specifically accommodate students with profound autism.
Adam Naples, Ph.D. | Yale University
Adapting Biomarker Assays for Profound Autism
Individuals with profound autism have been historically underrepresented in research. Though profoundly autistic individuals make up roughly 27 percent of the ASD population, they represent only a small portion of research participants. Consequently, research findings in the field underrepresent profoundly autistic individuals. One of the most significant reasons for this underrepresentation is the need for research participants to follow spoken or written instructions and maintain engagement with a task. In this project researchers will test a novel interactive experimental delivery system that helps people participate in research without needing to understand complex instructions. The experiment uses computer vision systems that reward participants for sitting still and attending, rather than asking a participant to sit quietly and attend to a computer screen without incentive. Using this method, researchers will study two promising biomarkers, the balance of neural activity in the brain using electroencephalography (EEG) (which is associated with sensory sensitivity), and arousal using pupil diameter (which is associated with symptoms like disordered sleep and aggression). The goal is to develop a novel system for including profoundly autistic individuals in research.
Undergraduate Summer Research Grants
Wasayef Bsharat | Montclair State University
Mentor: Erin Kang, Ph.D.
Adapting Biomarker Assays for Profound Autism
Although the US population is increasingly diverse, most autism research is still conducted with participants who are largely white and non-Hispanic. In addition, studies often collect demographic data in a way that reduces all possible ethnic and racial identities into one of three or four broad categories of “white” “black” “Asian,” etc. This means that people and communities with unique needs, experiences, and perspectives may be overlooked as they are subsumed into one of the broader groups or grouped into a catch-all “Others” category. In order to ensure all families are recognized in autism research, this study will evaluate the service needs and access barriers to diagnosis and treatment in families of South Asian and Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) descent. The student will gather information from these families including measures of autism features, history of service utilization, potential barriers, quality of services, and family needs.
Christian Grey | Oklahoma State University
Mentor: Emily Abel, Ph.D.
Incorporating Caregiver Concerns into Measures of Sleep Disturbance in Autistic Individuals
Ensuring children are safe during the night can be a major concern for autism families. Up to 80% of children with autism experience sleep disturbances, and caregivers express concern about elopement, self-injury, and other risks that may be incurred by a child who has difficulty sleeping through the night. Safeguarding against these risks can be challenging and lead to many sleepless nights for the parents as well as the child. This project will use data gathered through remote interviews and daily sleep diaries to adapt a newly formed questionnaire that can be validated and used as a quantitative measure of caregivers’ safety-related concerns. There will be a special focus on the concerns of underrepresented groups such as families of color, those from socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, and families supporting children with additional disabilities. Additionally, objectively measured sleep data from a larger existing study will be used to assess how caregiver safety concerns relate to the actual sleep patterns of both the child and caregiver. The ability to document and measure safety-related concerns in diverse communities and identify sleep patterns linked to these concerns will lead to better understanding and more effective targeting of the specific needs of families.
Yichi Zhang | University of North Carolina
Mentor: Mark Shen, Ph.D.
Following Up with Infants with a Unique Biomarker for ASD
This project will expand an existing longitudinal study that tracked children from infancy and recently reported that a high proportion of those who were later diagnosed with autism showed an excess volume of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains when they were 6 months old. To date, assessment of these infants stopped at a diagnosis. This student will administer additional assessments to these families to determine whether this increase in cerebrospinal fluid persists as the children age, whether it’s associated with any behavioral features including attention difficulties, executive function and ADHD, and whether it predicts differences in autism severity.