Grant: Operating Grant

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex and lifelong brain disorder that affects about 1 in 100 people, but we do not yet know its cause. The great human and financial struggles that ASD exerts on affected families, makes a strong case for concentrated research efforts on ASD. People with ASD have problems in social interaction and communication. They also perceive and feel the world in a different way, particularly in the auditory and visual domains. For example, while most people pay attention to the global/whole features of a visual scene before the local /detailed features (e.g., seeing the forest before the trees), this trend is reversed in ASD. In vision, ASD individuals see the local details before the global form (e.g. seeing the tree before the forest). While this local-based form of perception in ASD has been well documented in vision, less work has been done in audition. The main goal of this research is thus to study auditory perception in ASD. For the first time, we will study how auditory perception in ASD is reflected at the level of both brain function and anatomy. We are particularly interested to study how auditory perception and the ASD brain changes over the course of development. Studying how people with ASD perceive their auditory world may help to identify a neurobiological marker of ASD. In turn, this research can help clinicians and educators develop better-targeted therapies and interventions strategies.