She earned an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience in experimental psychology and communication sciences and disorders at the University of South Florida in 2002. Dr. Hutchins’ research focuses on social cognition in typical and atypical development and she has over 50 peer-reviewed and editor-reviewed journal publications, test reviews, and book chapters related to this topic. More specifically, Dr. Hutchins’ primary research foci examine 1) the links from maternal interaction styles to children’s social, cognitive, and linguistic development, 2) the efficacy of story-based interventions to remediate the core deficits of autism spectrum disorder, 3) the development and validation of measures of ‘theory of mind’ and, 4) visual attention to social stimuli in children and adolescents on the autism spectrum.