So How Does It End?

Hi everyone! Drumroll please……it’s Senior Project Presentation week! Are you guys excited for the presentations on Saturday? I definitely am. But enough about what lies ahead. Let’s talk about what I’m doing right now.

Now if there’s one thing you should know about the research process, it’s that it is long. And slow. I mean, I started designing and putting together this study last summer, and finally got IRB approval this January. And presently, we’ve only just entered the recruitment phase of the study.  

As I previously mentioned, we are aiming to recruit 50 total participants. Our strategy, however, is to over recruit for participants; that way, we are more certain to hit our target (it’s always better to have more than less participants), and we are also prepared in the case that a participant drops out of the study. 

We are recruiting (self-reported) neurotypical adults aged 18-30 from the Boston University student body, including undergraduate, medical, and graduate students. We are recruiting high-functioning autistic adults aged 18-30 (self-sufficient, able to make decisions for themselves and consent on their own) through Northeast Arc, a nonprofit organization that provides services and support to autistic individuals. 

By the end of May, we will have full access to the functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) headband for the purpose of our study; once we have the brain-imaging device, we will begin the task administration and data collection phase with our recruited participants, which will run throughout the summer. 

So there you have it, a brief update on where I stand with my project, just a small piece in an ongoing research study, just a small piece in the global quest to improve the quality of life for the millions across the world diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. 

“We have to be part of something larger than ourselves, because our dreams are often bigger than our lifetimes.” – Rosalie Bertell