Typical Male vs. Typical Female vs. Autistic Developmental Trajectories - a longitudinal study of development, from birth to age 18 months, with an emphasis on attending to human faces.

我研究的最终目的是为了更好地理解自闭症。根据加拿大自闭症协会的数据，自闭症是影响儿童的最常见的神经疾病，它影响了大约19万加拿大人。虽然已经对这种发育障碍进行了很多研究，但人们对它的了解仍然很少。 我建议，为了了解自闭症、自闭症的原因以及如何最好地治疗自闭症，有必要从最早的阶段就密切关注自闭症儿童的发展。我们不仅要关注他们的社交和交流发展，而且还要关注他们在其他领域的发展，如运动发展、感觉发展和认知发展，这些领域都是相互交织的。这将使我们能够梳理出通过发育导致自闭症儿童症状的少数因素。我们将在研究中相当重视的一个可能因素是，婴儿在不同发育阶段分配给人脸的时间和注意力的数量。 由于自闭症直到18个月大才被诊断出来，我们提出了两种跟踪自闭症发展的方法。首先是研究有患自闭症风险的婴儿的发育路径，例如自闭症的兄弟姐妹。第二个是研究男性和女性的发展，假设出现的任何差异可能有助于理解自闭症的发展。这是因为有证据表明，性别和自闭症(自闭症被称为极端男性)之间存在联系，可能是通过接触睾丸素来调节的。 我们的研究将使用发育问卷和实验室中的行为实验进行，这将与神经成像技术一起进行。受试者将是0到18个月大的婴儿。我们将跟踪他们的个人发展，并根据性别和自闭症的低/高风险分析我们的发现。

The ultimate goal of my research is to achieve a better understanding of Autism. Autism is the most common neurological disorder affecting children, and it affects approximately 190,000 Canadians, according to Autism Society Canada. Although much research has been conducted on this developmental disorder, it is still poorly understood. I propose that in order to understand Autism, what causes it, and how best to treat it, it is necessary to closely follow the development of Autistic children, from the earliest stage possible. And we should follow not only their social and communication development, but also their development in other domains, such as motor development, sensory development and cognitive development, which are all intertwined. This will enable us to tease out a small number of factors which lead, through development, to the symptoms of the Autistic child. One possible factor on which we will put considerable emphasis in our studies is the amount of time and attention the infant allots to human faces at different points in development. Since Autism is not diagnosed until the age of 18 months, we propose two paths by which to track Autistic development. The first is to study the developmental paths of infants at risk for developing Autism, such as siblings of Autistics. The second is to study the development of males versus females, under the assumption that any differences that emerge may be useful in understanding Autistic development. This is because there is evidence for a relationship between gender and Autism (with Autism dubbed extreme maleness), mediated perhaps by exposure to testosterone. Our research will be conducted using developmental questionnaires, as well as behavioral experiments in the lab, which will be performed in conjunction with neuroimaging techniques. The subjects will be infants aged 0 to 18 months. We will track their individual development, and analyze our findings according to gender and low/high risk for Autism.