Science and Sandwiches, May 12, 2009
Dr. Ami Klin, Yale Child Study Center
(May 12, 2009) The Autism Science Foundation’s first “Science and Sandwiches” meeting took place today in New York City. The inaugural lunchtime event featured Dr. Ami Klin, who, along with several colleagues, published a paper in the March 29 edition of the journal Nature entitled "Two-year-olds with Autism Orient to Non-Social Contingencies Rather than Biological Motion". Dr. Klin is the Director of the Autism Program at the Yale Child Study Center and is a member of the Autism Science Foundation's Scientific Advisory Board. Discussion revolved around this new work’s role in both diagnosis and treatment, as well as the importance of respecting the individuality of people with autism.
Klin's study reports that individuals with autism spectrum disorder tend to stare at people's mouths rather than their eyes and suggests why they might find mouths so attractive--lip sync--the exact match of lip motion and speech sound. Such audiovisual synchrony preoccupied toddlers who have autism, while their typically developing peers focused on socially meaningful movements of the human body, such as gestures and facial expressions. "Typically developing children pay special attention to human movement from very early in life, within days of being born. But in children with autism, even as old as two years, we saw no evidence of this" said Klin. "Toddlers with autism are missing rich social information imparted by these cues and this is likely to adversely affect the course of their development."
Dr. Klin’s work indicates that the amount of time toddlers spend looking at mouths is predictive of later autism severity, thus adding to its practicality as an autism biomarker. Future work will focus on developing treatments based on this new knowledge that enable children to improve social skills acquisition.
Additional "Science and Sandwiches" events are being planned for Philadelphia, Washington DC, West Palm Beach and New York City. Check here for an updated schedule and to register for an event near you.
Dr. Ami Klin with ASF founding board members Dr. Paul Offit and Alison Singer
Dr Gerald Fischbach, Chief Science Officer of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, and Ari Ne'eman, President of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN)
Dina Karmazin Elkins and Glen Rochkind
ABA Providers Keith Amerson and Alisa Dror, founders of TriState Learning Center
Brownies and Cookies baked with love by Lauren Singer