Hi there - I'm HF female with atypical autism and I'm finishing up my PhD in structural biochemistry. I've been going through the primary literature and, wow, over 40 years you must have seen the research landscape change quite a bit. Sensory gating/sensory processing is one of the main biological components of ASD that appears to get overlooked (funding) in favor of social deficit research. Why is this? I feel like the focus on the social aspect is more a symptom of problems we have with sensory integration and the complex neuronal processing associated with social reward (namely endocannabinoid-mediated oxytocin release). Do you think research funding is guided by the neurotypical (NT) population's desire for people with ASD to assimilate because assimilation has the outward appearance of happiness/functionality? Also, how do you feel about selection criteria for the ASD population - should we be more general or should we take intersectionality into account? How has this changed over the years? Lastly, what is your opinion of ABA therapy? Thanks so much for doing this - perhaps we will brush shoulders somewhere in Boston soon!
2_A_G16 karma
Hi there - I'm HF female with atypical autism and I'm finishing up my PhD in structural biochemistry. I've been going through the primary literature and, wow, over 40 years you must have seen the research landscape change quite a bit. Sensory gating/sensory processing is one of the main biological components of ASD that appears to get overlooked (funding) in favor of social deficit research. Why is this? I feel like the focus on the social aspect is more a symptom of problems we have with sensory integration and the complex neuronal processing associated with social reward (namely endocannabinoid-mediated oxytocin release). Do you think research funding is guided by the neurotypical (NT) population's desire for people with ASD to assimilate because assimilation has the outward appearance of happiness/functionality? Also, how do you feel about selection criteria for the ASD population - should we be more general or should we take intersectionality into account? How has this changed over the years? Lastly, what is your opinion of ABA therapy? Thanks so much for doing this - perhaps we will brush shoulders somewhere in Boston soon!
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