News

The National Institutes of Health has awarded Dr. Harrop a $3.28 million, five-year R01 research grant to chart the impact of biological sex on developmental trajectories in young autistic children. The project will help characterize how development in autism varies by sex with the goal of informing future screening protocols...

In September, we welcome Stephanie Bristol to the lab as a graduate research assistant. Stephanie is a 4th year Occupational Science student who previously worked with Dr. Linda Watson as part of the Parents and Infants Engaged Project. Stephanie will be working across many of our current and future projects as an assessor. Welcome...

Dr. Harrop and a team of co-authors recently published an article in the American Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities extending the Behavioral Inflexibility Scales (Boyd, Bodfish, Lecavalier, and Harrop, 2018) to a sample of children with Down syndrome and Fragile X Syndrome. The findings suggest that while inflexibility is common...

Second year graduate student, Orla Putnam, was accepted as a 2021 Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND Fellow). The LEND Program provides interdisciplinary training across undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels and across a variety of disciplines. The training prepares fellows to assume leadership roles in the fields and is funded through HRSA’s...

The Harrop Lab welcomes undergraduate research assistant, Taylor Niblack, to the lab. Taylor is double majoring in Human Development and Family Studies and Psychology, as well as completing a minor in Speech and Hearing Sciences. Welcome Taylor!  

Dr. Harrop was recently awarded $10,000 from UNC’s School of Medicine to offset some of the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic on the lab’s work. The funds will be used to finish studies halted by COVID and fund student and staff support time.  

This summer Dr. Harrop was interviewed about the impact of COVID-19 on early career researchers for Spectrum News. Dr. Harrop discussed the article, written with Drs. Bal, Carpenter, and Halladay, for Autism Research which detailed the struggles of ECRs during this time. The full article can be found here.  

Congratulations to graduate student, Jessie Goldblum, who received a Graduate Student Travel Award from the International Society for Autism Research to attend the 2021 virtual conference.  

In May, the Harrop lab presented three virtual posters at the 2021 International Society for Autism Research Conference which was due to be held in Boston. Graduate student, Jessie Goldblum, presented data from the National Survey of Child Health examining sex and race differences in the age of ASD diagnosis and frustration accessing services. Former...

Dr. Harrop will be presenting as part of a symposium on sex differences in autism at the 2021 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, held virtually this year. Dr. Harrop will present data from the lab’s eye-tracking studies alongside Dr. Donna Werling (UW Madison), Dr. Christine Nordahl (UC Davis), Dr. Dorothy Grice (Mount...