ACT’s Focus on Research Conference 2023 – In-Person

This talk will describe challenges to the detection of anxiety problems in autistic individuals and provide a rationale for why overcoming these challenges – by recognizing and better understanding the distinct way autistic individuals may experience anxiety.

Dr. Connor Kerns has conducted and published studies on a broad array of topics including the role of paternal age in ASD risk, the co-occurrence of childhood psychopathologies, and differential predictors of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy's (CBT) efficacy for child anxiety. Her present research focuses on the overlap, assessment and treatment of anxiety and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Her ongoing projects aim to explore the varied presentation and phenomenology of anxiety in ASD and the implications of this variation for effective anxiety measurement and treatment. Dr. Kerns is also preparing to extend this work to the understudied area of traumatic events and their sequelae in youth with ASD. Another area of interest is the use of technology to facilitate the dissemination of empirically based treatments. Dr. Kerns is currently working to develop cost-effective, computer-assisted CBTs for youth with ASD and anxiety, interactive social stories to improve skill generalization in ASD, and video-enhanced ASD screening and educational tools. Her long terms goals include developing a parsimonious model of psychiatric co-occurrence to inform the design and dissemination of cross-diagnostic assessments and treatments that will improve child wellbeing and development.

Grace Iarocci, PhD is a Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University, and the Director of the Autism and Developmental Disorders Lab. A registered psychologist, Dr. Iarocci works closely with government and community agencies in BC to disseminate research information on ASD and influence policy on ASD and other developmental disabilities. Grace has a particular interest in researching quality of life issues among families living with ASD.

Panelist profiles will be added soon.

Autistic individuals often show different reactions to sensory information (e.g., sounds, sights, smells, etc.) in their environment. These reactions vary across autistic individuals and across sensory modalities. These sensory differences have been shown to promote behaviours that challenge and cause distress in autistic individuals. Sensory behaviours are predictive of other functions including motor, social, and cognitive abilities. Preliminary research suggests that specific sensory differences may cluster together within individuals creating discrete sensory processing subtypes. This talk will focus on research examining the existence of, and predictive power of sensory processing subtypes. Further, the relationship between sensory differences and anxiety will be discussed.

Nichole Scheerer is an assistant professor in the Psychology Department at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. Nichole received her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from Laurier in 2015. Nichole then completed postdoctoral training in the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Lab at Simon Fraser University, as well as the Brain and Mind Institute at Western University. Nichole’s research combines behavioural and electrophysiological techniques to investigate sensory processing in both typically and atypically developing people.

This presentation will explore sensory processing and attention for neurodivergent people. Specifically, data and practical suggestions will be presented on the relationship between hyper-reactivity and hypo-reactivity, and how anxiety and attentional hyper-vigilance are closely intertwined.

Patrick is an autistic PhD candidate in developmental psychology in the Neurocognitive Development Lab at the University of California, Davis. His main research interest is using various research methods, such as questionnaires, electrophysiology, eye-tracking, and cognitive tasks, to explore and understand sensory processing and attention in autism. More broadly, Patrick is interested in anything relevant to the well-being of autistic and neurodivergent people, and he has studied community perspectives regarding intervention and neurodiversity controversies. Patrick is a co-founder of the Autistic Researchers Committee at the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) and helped to found a neurodivergent peer-support and advocacy community at UC Davis. He maintains a blog, autisticscholar.com. On a local note, Patrick grew up in B.C. and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Victoria.

Many children on the autism spectrum suffer from decreased sound tolerance (DST). When exposed to these sounds, children feel very distressed, which can cause them to react with behaviours such as covering their ears, yelling, or attempting to escape. Accommodations for DST, including earplugs or earmuffs, noise canceling headphones, or allowing them to take breaks in a quiet area may interfere with the child’s full participation in educational, community and family activities. To address this gap, we have developed a listening device that both detects and filters out specific sounds, delivering a “clean” signal to the user’s ears. We are currently testing the performance of the system in a VR environment.

Elina Birmingham, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Educational Psychology area of the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University (SFU). She completed her PhD in Cognitive Psychology at the University of British Columbia in 2008, followed by postdoctoral fellowships at the California Institute of Technology, and Simon Fraser University. The overarching goal of her research is to better understand and support children, youth and adults on the Autism Spectrum. Her recent research spans the disciplines of psychology, education, and engineering. For example, in an interdisciplinary collaboration with SFU Mechatronic Systems Engineering (Siamak Arzanpour), she is working on creating smart technology using artificial intelligence to support autistic children, youth and adults who experience decreased sound tolerance. This work is funded by the Kids Brain Health Network (KBHN), a Network of Centres of Excellence.

Dr. Siamak Arzanpour received his PhD. in Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo in 2006. After two years of research as a Postdoctoral Fellow, he joined the School of Mechatronic Systems Engineering at Simon Fraser University in 2008.

Autistic individuals experience early-emerging and long-persisting differences in patterns of responding to sensory stimuli (i.e., sensory responsiveness) that are now recognized as core characteristics of the condition. It has been theorized that these alterations in sensory responsiveness arise early in life from biological and/or behavioral factors and produce cascading effects on the development of higher-order skills conventionally associated with autism, such as language and communication ability. If this is the case, then monitoring and/or intervening upon sensory responsiveness, particularly early in life, may translate to improved language and communication outcomes in persons on the autism spectrum, at least in part by influencing the biobehavioral factors that underlie sensory differences in this population. Dr. Woynaroski will share recent findings from clinical-translational studies in her laboratory that lend increasing empirical support to this “cascading effects” framework.

Tiffany Woynaroski, PhD, CCC-SLP is an Assistant Professor of Hearing and Speech Sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Fellow of the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation, and Investigator in the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center and Vanderbilt Brain Institute. Her research program aims to identify brain and behavioral factors that may be useful for explaining phenotypic variance, predicting growth or differential response to candidate treatments, or elucidating the mechanisms by which supports and services work to improve meaningful outcomes in persons with autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions.

Grace Iarocci, PhD is a Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University, and the Director of the Autism and Developmental Disorders Lab. A registered psychologist, Dr. Iarocci works closely with government and community agencies in BC to disseminate research information on ASD and influence policy on ASD and other developmental disabilities. Grace has a particular interest in researching quality of life issues among families living with ASD.

Panelist profiles will be added soon.

Michelle Schmidt, PhD is the Executive Director of ACT - Autism Community Training. Prior to joining ACT in 2022, Michelle Schmidt was involved in public education in British Columbia, as an educator, school psychologist, and administrator. Most recently, Michelle served as Director of Instruction in the Surrey School District, where she was responsible for inclusive education and supports for students with diverse abilities.

Panelist profiles will be added soon.