The latest autism research news stories with ASF Chief Science Officer Alycia Halladay
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With the International Society for Autism Research underway and a new wave of misunderstanding about scientific evidence in autism, it’s time to think about what is science, how is it conducted, and why does it take so long? Who benefits from science and how? This is just the start, but gives a quick overview of why science matters to families affected by autism.
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Contextual factors, or external factors, are environmental influences and can impact not just a diagnosis but the life course of a person with autism and their families. A recent commentary by autism researchers around the world highlights the importance of these factors and provides resources on how they can be collected in a rigorous, but accessible, way. Dr. Marsha Mailick, lead author of the commentary, discusses the definition of contextual factors, why they are important, and how they can influence development. Read the commentary – open access – here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.3312
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This week’s podcast focuses on innovative methodologies to understand how to reach black families, understand why and when autistic people prefer not to look at faces and how interventions can improve conversation and social communication. They use culturally and racially matched mentors, old home video tapes (keep taking those!) and machine learning to look not just at novel methods but novel ways of studying a particular outcome.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35232271/
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This week, ASF intern Priyanka Shah provides an 8 minute tutorial on the reading and interpretation of scientific literature. It’s worth the listen. It goes over what to pull from an abstract, what the different sections tell you about the study, where to get the paper if you can’t find it, and what are the most important parts. Here are some additional resources: