Great Expectations

Welcome back! Is it week four already? Time certainly flies when you’re immersed in the world of research. Ok that’s a lie…not that I don’t absolutely love doing research (regardless of how many days, weeks, months, or…years? it takes) So naturally, I thought I’d start off with a couple of brief updates on my project. 

As I previously mentioned during week two, we are currently in the recruitment phase of the study. This week, I will be meeting with Tim Brown, the Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer at Northeast Arc, a Boston-based nonprofit organization that provides services and support to autistic individuals. Tim and I will be working to arrange the distribution of our recruitment fliers to Northeast Arc members, so we can complete study recruitment and begin data collection.  

Now, since I’ve already shed some light on the specific tasks participants must complete as part of the project/data collection, today I thought I’d delve deeper into my expected results. 

*DISCLAIMER* The information below does include mentions of statistical analyses. But bear with me, because data analysis is (unfortunately, for me) a crucial part of every research study. 

Essentially, my project, which aims to determine if the utilization of fine motor skills can improve executive functioning (EF) in autistic individuals, can be broken down into four key hypotheses: 

HYPOTHESIS #1

“All participants (autistic and neurotypical) will score higher on task 3, which requires them to use their fine motor skills to complete a cognitive test, than task 1 which requires them to complete a cognitive test without using their fine motor skills.” 

Analysis 

We will conduct a 1 sample-t-test to compare the mean task scores for each of the three tasks performed by individual participants (IV = type of task (1, 2, or 3); DV = task score). 

HYPOTHESIS #2

“There will be greater prefrontal cortex activity when participants are completing task 1 (cognitive test without fine motor), as opposed to task 3 (cognitive test using fine motor).”

The reasoning behind this anticipated result is that when participants are not relying on their fine motor skills (in addition to their EF skills) to complete a task, they are purely relying on their EF skills, which are all concentrated in the prefrontal cortex, as shown below.

This would result in increased prefrontal cortex activity during task 1 (cognitive test without fine motor). 

Analysis 

We will conduct a 1 sample t-test to compare the mean Blood Oxygenation Level Dependency (BOLD) signals (recorded by the fNIRS neuroimaging device/headband) during each of the three tasks performed by individual participants (IV = type of task; DV = BOLD signal measured as percent change).

HYPOTHESIS #3

“Neurotypical participants will score higher overall on all three tasks as opposed to autistic participants (since autistic individuals already struggle with both EF and fine motor skills).”

Analysis 

We will conduct a one-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) test to determine if neurotypical participants performed better on all three tasks than autistic participants (IV#1 = autistic or neurotypical; IV#2 = type of task; DV = task score). 

HYPOTHESIS #4

“When performing each of the three tasks, there will be increased prefrontal cortex activity in autistic participants than in neurotypical participants.”

The reasoning behind this expected result is that researchers have found autistic individuals to exhibit greater and more variable/random brain activity than neurotypicals when completing simple tasks.

Analysis

We will conduct a one-way MANOVA test to determine if autistic participants have higher mean BOLD signals than neurotypical participants when completing the 3 tasks (IV#1 = autistic or neurotypical; IV#2 = type of task; DV = BOLD signal measured as percent change).

So there you have it. My four “great expectations” for this project. I may ultimately find them to be true, or, who knows, the results might not even turn out as I anticipated. 

A great novelist expressed it best though, in a statement I personally believe every scientist and researcher should hold themselves to —

“I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.” – Charles Dickens, Great Expectations