But she found that the techniques the mothers had learned were not being emulated by fathers and other family members. She also will gather data on whether other children in the family pick up the techniques the fathers are learning. The training will be offered to 24 families in their homes in two or three sessions per week for three to four months. The training will be videotaped for use in ongoing research to evaluate the program's effectiveness. The incidence of autism is estimated to be one per thousand.
Autism is characterized by severe deficits in social and language development.
Often, people with autism can recite facts and figures, but have trouble putting the pieces together in a social context. Elder's grant was a First Independent Research Support and Transition award from the National Institute of Nursing Research at the National Institutes of Health. The award is designed to give researchers in the early stages of their careers the resources to demonstrate the merit of their ideas. Recent UF Health Science Center news releases also are available on the UF Health Science Center Communications home page. If you wish to quote from any part of this story, please credit University of Florida as the original source.