ASfAR members had extraordinary success at the recent INSAR meeting in Rotterdam in May. In addition to the many papers and posters presented at the meeting by Australian scholars, our inaugural ASfAR lifetime member, Professor Margot Prior, received the society’s highest award, the INSAR Lifetime Achievement Award. A very proud moment for those of us there.
Professor Cheryl Dissanayake receiving an INSAR Fellowship from Professor Sally Rogers, Chair, INSAR Fellowship Committee, INSAR 2108 in Rotterdam.
Professor Cheryl Dissanayake, ASfAR vice-President, was one of 10 scholars to receive an inaugural INSAR Fellowship in recognition of her sustained contribution to autism science. Another proud moment. Finally, Dr Melissa Scott was one of three scholars to receive an INSAR Dissertation award.
Professor Cheryl Dissanayake receiving a lifetime award on behalf of Professor Margot Prior from Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, President of INSAR, INSAR 2108 in Rotterdam
ASfAR congratulates Professor Margot Prior, Professor Cheryl Dissanayake, and Dr Melissa Scott on these excellent and well deserved outcomes.
Autism CRC has announced they are now accepting applications from organisations that demonstrate commitment to research co-production on a sustained basis and would like to be recognised as Autism CRC Research Co-Production Partners.
Evidence demonstrates that engaging individuals on the spectrum and their families and carers as peers in research – from the definition of need to the conduct of research and its application – promotes quality, translatable research relevant to the needs of the community. To highlight those organisations who are committed to sustainable research co-production, Autism CRC has established its Research Co-production Partner initiative.
Autism CRC is looking for organisations that demonstrate:
commitment to co-production: through completed, continuing and research yet to commence
appropriate engagement and recognition: co-producers on the spectrum and/or their families/carers have been, and will continue to be, engaged, recognised and rewarded appropriately
sustainability of co-production: the organisation takes a sustained approach to research co-production, including promotion of co-production internal or external to their organisation.
The deadline to submit an application is 13 June 2018. For more information, please visit the Autism CRC website.
ASfAR wishes to recognise our former Executive Committee member Professor Sylvia Rodger for her many achievements, including her appointment to Membership of the Order of Australia on Australia Day, 2017. Sylvia was generous in support of Autism research, broader developmental research, occupational therapy, assisted many children, and improved their quality of life. The ASfAR Committee is deeply grateful that Sylvia lent her considerable scholarship and skill to ASfAR. With her passing in 2017, Sylvia will be sorely missed by all who were involved with her.
Today we have our first research summary from a student member of ASfAR! Lauren Hollier is a PhD student at the Telethon Institute/University Western Australia (@childhealthnews).
Lauren recently published a paper on the links between prenatal testosterone levels and language development in typically-developing children, to begin exploring why some children develop language impairments. Below is the link to the article (full text isn’t freely available, I’m sorry to say!)
Autism is among the most severe, prevalent and heritable of all neurodevelopmental disorders. However, the factors causing autism are still unclear.Baron-Cohen (2002) proposed that exposure to higher levels of prenatal testosterone, may play a casual role in the development of autism. However, research in this area has been limited by indirect measures of testosterone and small unrepresentative samples. Using the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study, we were able to investigate the relationship between prenatal testosterone exposure and language development in early childhood. Umbilical cord blood was collected at birth to measure testosterone, and vocabulary was measured at 2 years of age. We found that for boys, higher levels of prenatal testosterone were related to a reduced vocabulary at 2 years of age. No relationship was observed in girls. These findings suggest that in typically developing children, higher levels of fetal testosterone may be related to reduced language development in boys.
