Past Research Projects
Self-Regulation and Social Motivation in Autism Spectrum Disorders
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience difficulties in social interactions, which may partially arise from lower levels of social motivation. For example, past research has found that individuals with ASD often pay less attention to social stimuli and find social stimuli less rewarding than their neurotypical peers. However, a separate line of research has shown that individuals with ASD show a greater stress response to social stimuli (e.g., social noise, eye gaze) and that this increased stress may be especially challenging, given that individuals with ASD often have difficulty regulating their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses.
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Otoacoustic Emissions and Auditory Feedback in Minimally Verbal Children with ASD
Auditory processing deficits have been found to be one of the earliest signs of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Testing early auditory processing is difficult in very young, minimally verbal children, but the integrity of outer hair cell function can be evaluated reliably using otoacoustic emissions (OAEs). Sound causes contractions of the outer hair cells and generates acoustic signals (OAEs), which can be recorded in the external ear canal (Kemp, 2002). Measuring these signals is noninvasive and reliable, and is a routine approach to testing auditory functioning in children as young as infancy.
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Visual Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders
How do children and adolescents see different things in the world around them? There is so much visual information in the world and our brains work to efficiently process what is most important. Our brains are tuned to process different types of images with varying levels of precision, which helps us see what is necessary and filter out what is not. Previous research suggests that children with autism may have difficulty processing faces, but that they may show a strength in processing other types of visual information.
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Attentional Preferences for Predictability in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Attention patterns and preferences have become a key area of research in understanding individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) due to the critical role that attention plays in learning and development across the lifespan. Results from many studies have shown that people with ASD have differences in the way they pay attention to their environment, and that early differences in attention have been associated with later difficulties with social communication. Across studies that have examined attention differences in ASD, some of the clearest differences have emerged in studies of attention to complex, dynamic social stimuli (e.g., two real people interacting in a video).
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Sensory Processing and Cognitive Functioning in ASD
Sensory processing differences have long been seen as a meaningful component of ASD and were recently recognized as a key diagnostic feature. Past research has investigated sensory processing differences in ASD in a number of ways, including by self-report, parent-report, behavioral observation, and measurement of the autonomic nervous system (responsible for our body’s “fight or flight” response to a stressor, such as aversive sensory input).
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Taste Smell and Feeding Behavior in Autism- A Quantitative Traits Study
In our previous work, we found that individuals with autism process tastes and smells differently from their peers. Furthermore, these differences may be related to their likes and dislikes of certain foods. In this study, we are building on these findings to better understand sensory functions in children with autism spectrum disorders and their families. We hope this study will help to advance autism research and clinical practice in several ways.
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Visual Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders
How do children and adolescents see different things in the world around them? There is so much visual information in the world and our brains work to efficiently process what is most important. Our brains are tuned to process different types of images with varying levels of precision, which helps us see what is necessary and filter out what is not. Previous research suggests that children with autism may have difficulty processing faces, but that they may show a strength in processing other types of visual information.
Learn more about Visual Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders
Auditory Spatial Attention in ASD
One of the earliest red flags for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is when a child does not respond to his or her name being called. Decreased social orienting is often one of parents’ first concerns, and children with ASD continue to have particular difficulty orienting to speech and other social sounds throughout their life. In contrast, they often don’t have as much trouble orienting to nonsocial environmental sounds. Successfully turning toward and paying attention to speech and people is critical for early social development and for later communication, social skills, and learning. In this study, we are examining several key components of this social orienting difficulty in children with ASD.
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Efferent Feedback and Hearing-in-Noise Perception in Autism
The ability to detect speech in noisy environments is critical for effective communication. Indeed, the speech we hear is frequently accompanied by background noise, such as other people talking or noises in the environment (e.g., traffic, fans, music). Typically, our brains help us to separate the relevant auditory signal (speech) from this background noise, by sending information from the brain back to the inner ear.
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Temporal Synchrony and Audiovisual Integration in Autism and Typical Development
Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to watch television when the auditory and visual information are out of sync? Our brains use temporal cues to link information coming from different sources. Individuals with autism often have difficulty combining information from different sources, and part of this difficulty may come from problems using temporal information. Among other things, difficulties in this area can have a significant impact on communication (e.g., quickly picking up on which person in a group is talking to you).
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Brain Activity During Speech Comprehension in Autism
Recent research suggests that people with autism have difficulty integrating information from multiple sensory inputs. Our previous studies showed that children with autism have difficulty using visual information, such as lip movements and gestures, to help with language comprehension. The current study builds on these findings by examining brain activity associated with auditory and visual processing in autism.
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