About two years ago, Little Friends initiated an agreement with Northwestern University’s Research entity involved with studying communication with the idea of creating an opportunity to help families participate in research related to Autism.
Since this agreement was initiated, work has been done to create a registry that easily enables families to participate in studies if they choose. When we made the decision as a Board a couple of years ago, the idea of being able to learn about challenges and cutting-edge solutions was appealing, and today remains something we want to be involved with.
Fast forward to today and the University’s research entity has renamed itself as the Neurodevelopmental Diversity Lab (NDL) and I am pleased to share this month access to a new study funded by the National Institute of Health and managed by Northwestern University’s Neurodevelopmental Diversity Lab. Specifically, through use of a five-year $2.5 million grant, a new study on Autism Traits in Females has been launched.
Big picture, the study will help us understand how autism presents itself differently in females than males and will gather information to better understand the lived experiences of autistic females and contribute more equitable research and clinical practices across female and males. Interesting to note, in the past the overwhelming majority of studies exploring language differences have largely focused on male participant groups, with very few studies devoted to understanding social communication and related clinical-behavioral outcomes in autistic females.
The study objective will be to characterize social language profiles and related cognitive and mechanistic skills in autistic females and their family members. The hope is that this work will explore heritable behavioral and cognitive traits that may relate to differences in expression by females.
The NDL is now actively looking for autistic females and males ages 16-25 and their parents. They are also looking for females and males without autism ages 16-25 and their parents. Should one choose to participate, their efforts and time spent will include completing questionnaires, telling stories, solving puzzles, and talking about your friendships and the ways you relate to other people.
For those who choose to participate, it will involve only one visit AND you will be compensated for your time. To learn more about how to get involved with this opportunity, the NDL team can be reached at toll free (877) 275-7187. The email address for the group is ndl@northwestern.edu. Their website is ndl.northwestern.edu.
Looking back at when we decided to get involved with Northwestern, what they are doing is what we hoped we could help families within some way. What is good to know is that if there is interest in learning more about autism, highly talented and capable resources like the NDL can be of help!
