Margaret Reynolds
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) also have refractive error, such as strong nearsightedness, that seriously blurs their vision. Yet 31% of children with ASD cannot tolerate glasses, compared with 4% of typically developing children.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Neuroscience
Psychology
- Topics
autism spectrum disorder
refractive surgery
refractive error
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2030
What they work on
- Measure gains in visual acuity, using Teller acuity testing, in children with autism spectrum disorder after refractive surgery for refractive error that glasses cannot address.
- Test whether social responsiveness (SRS-2) and adaptive behavior (Vineland-3) scores improve in children with ASD after refractive surgery, and track autism symptoms with the BOSCC.
- Use functional connectivity MRI biomarkers to understand how visual development relates to autism symptoms in sighted children and children with visual impairments.
More about the research
Some therefore see as poorly as a legally blind person. Poor vision may add to the social difficulties that define autism. ASD is also 30 times more common in children born blind. These facts raise the question of whether better eyesight could improve social behavior.
Why it matters
Children with autism who cannot wear glasses may live with severely blurred vision. If benefits are confirmed, this study could inform guidelines for pediatric refractive surgery, which many centers already perform on adults. It could also clarify whether poor eyesight contributes to or reinforces autism symptoms.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Andrew Lynn
University of Louisville, KY·Psychology
Track within-child development of contrast sensitivity and visual acuity in 6–12-year-olds for a central sinusoidal grating across detection and recognition tasks, using eye tracking and adaptive psychometric methods.
Kathleen Gunthert
American University, DC·Neuroscience
Test whether excitatory or inhibitory non-invasive neuromodulation of right cerebellar lobule VII (RVII) selectively changes social learning, comparing it with sham stimulation in neurotypical adults and adults with autism.
Rebecca Schwarzlose
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Neuroscience·Early-career
Test whether neural suppression, the reduced brain response to expected sensations, is weaker in children with sensory over-responsivity, using existing brain imaging data.
The school
Washington University in St Louis: 97 labs on PI Pages, $1.2B a year on research, 365 research doctorates a year.
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