Grant description:

New neuropsychological assessment techniques are necessary to help us better understand the various types of autism and also to help in the evaluation of interventions. The overall objective of the proposed study is to develop a non-verbal test battery based on a comparative neuropsychological strategy that can be used for both classification and as an outcome measure in clinical trials. This approach, which Dr. Milgram and his collaborators have used in both Alzheimer's patients and children affected by the Fragile-X syndrome, uses neuropsychological tasks that are linked to known brain circuitry and were originally developed for cognitive assessment of primates and dogs. The proposal seeks to extend this work by developing a standardized test battery for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Dr. Milgram hopes to develop a rationale basis for categorizing subtypes of children with autism based on performance on non-verbal cognitive tasks that utilize specific brain areas likely to be affected in autism. In doing so, they will develop standardized hardware and software for administering these non-verbal cognitive tasks. Finally, Dr. Milgram aims to broaden the knowledge base of autism by characterizing aspects of cognition that have not been adequately accessed in previous research.