Welcome

About Us

Despite the characterization of social and communication deficits defining autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the earliest signs of atypical neurodevelopment are behavioral differences in attention, movement and responses to sensory stimuli. 

Our group uses EEG, eye-tracking, motion capture and behavioral testing to study attention, sensory processing and motor function in autism.

We believe studying these foundational aspects of neurodevelopment will help us better understand ASD in older children and, importantly lead to the design of novel and more effective interventions.

We work in conjunction with UCSD's Power of NeuroGaming Center (PoNG) to develop technology for the assessment and training of attention, movement, and cognition in autism, ADHD, older adult, and typically developing populations.

 

Research Focus

  • Investigating the neural correlates to brain based sensory abnormalities
  • Characterizing motor function across multiple domains by recording eye movement, balance and gait
  • Evaluating the distribution, control and modulation of attention in Autism Spectrum Disorder
  • Translating our research findings into novel interventions for children and adults on the Autism Spectrum

Contact Us

UCSD Research on Autism and Development
the Campus at Villa La Jolla
8950 Villa La Jolla Dr.
Suite B-216
La Jolla, CA 92037

Phone: 858-246-1932

radlab@ucsd.edu

RADLab Facebook Page

News

Phew! Let me catch my breath a minute! We here at RADLab have been so incredibly busy that we have neglected the update of our website. Apologies!

But here is an update about what's going on. We are currently recruiting and running a group of older adult and driving simulator studies. I know, doesn't really sound like autism research. Fun fact before the A in RADLab stood for Research on Autsim and Development, it stood for Aging. We're harkening back to that a little with a U01 grant designed to incorporate the aspects from our Video Games for Training Attention in Autism study in order to use Video Games for Training Distraction Reduction in Older Adults. Long story short, the A in RADLab stands for ambiguous. Feel free to contact our new research coordinator Anne-Marie Engler for more details about these studies.

There are many more things we are working on as well. Starting this summer we will be assisting Dr. Doris Trauner and her group in collecting outcome measures for a clinical trial exploring the effects of CBD on symptoms of sever autism. We will be re-imagining a version of last years wildly successful internship program; smaller but mightier hopefully. We are collaborating with ECE research groups, lead by Dr. Pam Cosman, in developing machine learning tools to identify speech and gaze patterns in typical and autism populations for the purpose of creating assistive technologies.

As you can see, we're some busy bees around here. In our spare moments we'll do our best to keep you updated. Check out our blog for more recent updates.