World Autism Awareness Day/Month

In honor of World Autism Awareness Day/Month, we would like to acknowledge the tremendous work of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) specialists Drs. Jennifer Bain, Sylvie Goldman, Jay Selman, and Wendy Silver. Despite the obvious challenges of assessing ASD via telehealth, these providers quickly pivoted to a standardized video parent-child assessment method and helped transition NYP’s 2nd Annual Autism Fair to a fully virtual platform, including a series of webinar recordings for ASD families. In addition, Neuropsychologist Dr. Sylvie Goldman, whose research focuses on gender and health disparities in autism, created and disseminated a community-based resource list to facilitate continuity of care for ASD families in/around New York City. Drs. Goldman and Silver also lead the “Socio-Emotional Functioning” and “Pediatric Neurology” teams, respectively, of the new, multidisciplinary COVID-19 Mother Baby Outcomes (COMBO) Study. Among other aims, Dr. Goldman’s team seeks to assess the risk of increased incidence of ASD in the offspring of women infected with COVID-19 during pregnancy based on Maternal Immune Activation (MIA) mechanisms.