with Eric Kandel, Helen Mayberg, Catherine Lord and more on Dec 20, 2007
with Catherine Lord, Helen Mayberg and Donald Price on Dec 20, 2007
Catherine Lord is a clinical psychologist whose research focuses on the development of children and adults with autistic spectrum disorders; including longitudinal studies of children referred for possible autism as toddlers, and –in collaboration with many colleagues – the development of instruments for the diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorders and the quantification of social, communication and behavioral features associated with autism and related developmental disabilities. These instruments have been important in providing standardized methods for research on the genetics and neurobiology of autism because they provide psychometrically valid and reliable tools for identification and specification of the behaviors that define autism. In addition, study of the process of diagnosis and of longitudinal change has provided intriguing insights into the nature of the social and behavioral deficits of these children.
For example, research has shown that many young children with autism do not show significant repetitive or obviously odd behaviors. Rather, they are different from other children in the absence of lower frequency of typical reciprocal social behaviors, such as smiling and looking or pointing and vocalizing to others. As children become older and as the behaviors of others change to them, these difficulties become more obvious. At the same time, more classic autistic behaviors, such as unusual movements of the hands and fingers, and other repetitive behaviors, may also become apparent. Understanding how this course of development links to other changes in language, cognitive development and neurological development will provide us with a better understanding of the nature of these disorders.
Lord is Chair of the Early Intervention in Autism Committee, National Academy of Science. She received the Irving B. Harris Early Childhood Lecture Award in 2004 and was a Finalist for the New York University Child Study Center Scientific Achievement Award in 2005.
