Skip to main content

OARacle Newsletter

Graduate Students Invited to Apply for Research Grants

OAR invites graduate students to submit research proposals for the annual Graduate Research Grant Program. Opened on September 9, OAR has started accepting proposals from students pursuing graduate studies in the United States and abroad. The maximum award for master’s candidates is $1,000, while doctoral and post-doctoral candidates are eligible for a maximum award of $2,000.…

Read More

2024 Community Grant Winners Announced

In partnership with the Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health (AIR-P), OAR is pleased to announce the winners of the Community Grant Competition. This grant supports community members to design, develop, and distribute resources to positively improve the physical and mental health and quality of life of autistic individuals. Each recipient receives a one-time…

Read More

OAR Awards 64 Scholarships to Autistic College Students

OAR has awarded scholarships to 64 students for 2024, bringing the scholarship total to $1,909,500 provided to 622 autistic students since 2007. That is the highest number of scholarships OAR has ever awarded in a single year. This year, the Schwallie Family Scholarships, Hussman Scholarships, and Synchrony Scholarship for Autistic Students of Color attracted 1,096 applicants,…

Read More

Join Our Fall Webinar Series on Employment

OAR’s fall 2024 webinar series will focus on topics of employment, such as vocational training; mental health, soft skills, and inclusion in the workplace; and barriers to employment like housing and transportation. Additionally, OAR will host a panel webinar to foster conversation about neuroinclusion in the workplace and best HR practices. Join us this fall…

Read More

OAR’s Sex Ed Guide for Young Adults Increases Knowledge

A recent study that adapted Sex Ed for Self-Advocates, OAR’s online guide, for use in a direct-instruction intervention found that participants’ knowledge of interpersonal relationships increased on average between 16% and 20% on pre- and post-intervention measures. Participants also reported the intervention as helpful, with 92% indicating that their knowledge either improved or greatly improved…

Read More

Preventing Self-Harm and Suicidal Behavior

In November, OAR’s Board of Directors authorized funding for eight applied autism research studies in 2024. These new grants, totaling $297,569, bring OAR’s total research funding to more than $5 million since 2002. This article is the last of the previews to be featured in The OARacle this year. Suicide and self-harm are serious global…

Read More

Reflection on Being a Late-Identified Autistic Female

Throughout my life, as far back as I can remember, I was a weird kid who happened to be lucky enough to have been born into a weird family. I love my family and loved my life as a child. We lived in very small towns with lots of forest nearby and I spent a…

Read More

Teen Wins Award For A Coding Program

In 2020, Sreenidi Bala, a teenager from Farmington, Connecticut, started a passion project that would change the lives of hundreds of autistic students. Four years later, Bala was named the Prudential Emerging Visionaries Employees’ Choice Award winner for her Code for All Minds initiative. The award came with $10,000 she can use to expand her…

Read More

RUN Athletes Offer Summer Training Tips

With summer heat waves upon us and fall marathons on the horizon, RUN FOR AUTISM’s Bank of America Chicago Marathon and TCS New York City Marathon team members have some tips for beating the heat while logging miles. Runners agree on two main pieces of advice: start early and hydrate. Aaron Siegel, NYC Marathon runner,…

Read More