Lab Life Video Series: CAR Research Group

0:15

Julia Parish-Morris, PhD:
My name is Julia Parrish Morris and I'm a developmental psychologist and principal investigator here at the Center for Autism Research.

0:23
Here at the Center for Autism Research, we have a wide variety of studies going at all times.

0:28
They range all the way from newborns and then through toddler years into preschool.

0:33
We have studies for school age children, teenagers, actually a large number of our studies are on teenagers and then we also have a new young adults program as well.

0:43

Jamiel Owens:
I actually started at CHOP in security because my background is law enforcement, but when I was doing that outside of CHOP, I actually started my own platform to embrace autism fathers.

0:55
I have a son who's 16 years old, so I had an opportunity to actually present for ASD fellows here, which I was the first father to do so.

1:05
And then at that time I was offered a job on this floor.

1:09
And here I am just living out my dream to now service not only my son, but people that are just like amazing, awesome people.

1:17
One of the mission statements is to be a resource to everybody, whether that's internal or external.

1:25
And you can only do that by boots on the ground, face to face communication.

1:28
So myself along with my other two teammates were consistently out in the community embracing but also educating as well.

1:36
Just giving them food for thought to think about when it comes to autism and neurodiversity.

1:41

Ellis Dajardin:
So it's an interesting lab because all of the research assistants and main supervisors are more clinically focused, whereas the study itself serves a very computer science and engineering purpose.

1:55
So it's a very interdisciplinary lab.

1:57
I think if you're really interested in studying kind of social dynamics, both observable and underlying social dynamics in kids, I think this is a great place to dip your toes into research, clinical research specifically.

2:31

Dr. Parish-Morris:
One of our most exciting lines of research right now has to do with human social interaction.

2:36
When two people interact, both of them are contributing to kind of the success or the lack of success in that interaction.

2:44
So one of the things we're doing right now is studying autism in the course of a conversation.

2:49
And in our study, we look at the way that two people coordinate their behavior over the course of an unstructured conversation.

2:56
So just getting to know one another.

2:58
We look at things like how do people coordinate their eye gaze?

3:02
How do people coordinate their topic of conversation?

3:05
How do they smile in response to one another?

3:09
And when we look at this idea of coordination in a dyad, so in two people conversing, I can tell it’s not only about the challenges associated with autism, but also about a lot of the strengths that individuals with autism bring to a social interaction.

3:23
I think it's really important for us to concentrate on studying everybody who's involved, not just studying an autistic person, because everyone contributes to the success of an interaction.

3:34

George Emory:
The Sensor Tree is basically two cameras that sit on a tripod, and one will face the participant and one will face the staff member.

3:43
It captures movement and conversation in sync with each other so that when it comes to data analysis, it's really easy to look at one video of, say, the participant and know exactly where in the conversation this participant moved relative to the view from the staff view.

3:58
A lot of people when they hear autism research, assume that they have to have autism to join a study.

4:04
Our study looks at typically developing kids who don't have any diagnosis, kids with autism, kids with other psychiatric conditions like anxiety or depression, things like that.

4:14
So we really see a broad scope of kids in our study other than kids with autism.

4:29

Jamiel Owens:
If you want a job that does not feel like a job, if you want to always ensure that your why is present and you're living in your purpose, come to CHOP.

4:41
If you want to take your, your identity to the next level and what I mean by that is being a person who is purpose-driven and who will uplift others, come to CHOP.

4:51
Those are the things that that are instilled here.

4:54

Producer:
Is there anything else you want to add?

4:58
Go birds.

4:59
Go birds.

5:00
See. Dr. Parish didn't say it, but I'm going to say it.

5:03
Go birds.

5:03
I think she likes the Giants.

5:04
It's OK.