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Research

Research Grant Programs Open for Applicants

OAR is currently accepting applications for the Graduate Research Grant Program and Applied Research Competition. Since 2002, OAR has funded over 250 research studies, bringing its funding total to more than $3.7 million. OAR hopes to build on this success in 2019, continuing its support of research studies that offer meaningful outcomes to individuals with…

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Healthcare Transitions for Minimally Verbal Youth

In October, OAR’s Board of Directors authorized funding for eight new applied autism research studies in 2019. These new grants, totaling $228,036, bring OAR’s total research funding to over $3.7 million since 2002. This is the first of eight previews to be featured in The OARacle this year. Transition-age (age 18 to 24) individuals who…

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OAR Funds Eight Applied Research Studies in 2018

OAR is proud to announce the winners of this year’s Applied Research Competition. At the recommendation of the Scientific Council, OAR’s Board of Directors authorized funding for eight studies starting in January 2019. These new grants totaling $228,036 bring OAR’s total research funding to over $3.7 million since 2002. OAR received an initial 152 applications…

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OAR Raises Research Funding Cap to $40,000

Since 2002, OAR has funded more than 115 studies totaling more than $3.7 million through its Applied Research Competition. OAR hopes to build on this success in 2019, continuing its support of research studies that offer meaningful outcomes to individuals with autism and their families. At its annual meeting, this year held in Washington, D.C.,…

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Find Reliable, Accurate Autism Research

Whether you are a seasoned researcher or someone new to research entirely, it is easy to be swept up by the extensive amounts of information available on the internet. The area of autism research is no exception. A quick Google search of the word “autism” brings over 167 million results in seconds. Sorting through all…

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Improving Facial Emotion Recognition

In 2016, OAR awarded $2,000 research grants to Shalini Sivathasan, a Ph.D. student in educational and counseling psychology at McGill University in Canada, and Andrea Trubanova, a graduate student in clinical psychology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Both planned to study interventions that held the promise of improving facial emotion recognition. Sivathasan’s study…

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Navigating and Understanding Research

When parents first learn of their child’s autism diagnosis, they may feel overwhelmed with the need to learn about the details and complexities of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). They have to not only educate themselves about the medical details, but also the range of treatment options available. Understanding a complex disorder such as autism can…

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Authentic Inclusion in Autism Research

I co-founded the Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) with my friend and colleague, Dr. Christina Nicolaidis, in 2006. At that time, including a majority of autistic adults as co-researchers on the team and conducting autism research with autistic participants as self-reporters were such radical ideas that a grant reviewer told us…

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Graduate Research Grant Competition Open

OAR invites graduate students to submit research proposals for its annual Graduate Research Grant Program. Since the program was established in 2004, OAR has awarded over $249,600 in grants to fund 138 graduate research studies. Last year, OAR made grants to 11 students with grant awards totaling $21,000. OAR hopes to build on this success…

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Addressing Challenging Behavior

OAR’s Board of Directors authorized funding for this study in October 2017. Virginia Walker, Ph.D., BCBA-D, an assistant professor who transferred to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte mid-year, is now conducting her OAR-funded study. Dr. Walker’s study brings the total number of applied studies funded in 2017 to seven. Many students with autism…

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