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Natalie Russo remembers when several adults came to her lab. They had suspected they had autism for a long time but couldn’t get a diagnosis for years, she said.

“The opportunity to validate autistic adults who come to the lab and for the first time have a diagnosis … has been really tremendous, and that’s happened on multiple occasions,” Russo said.

Founded by Russo in 2011, the Center for Autism Research and Electrophysiology Lab at Syracuse University focuses on understanding how people with autism sense and perceive the world around them, and how that may or may not be different from people without autism, Russo said.

The CARE Lab has received funding from public and private institutions alike, including the National Institute of Mental Health and the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, Russo said.

The lab offers free evaluations and diagnoses for both children and adults, which is a way for the lab to serve the local community, said Ellie Masters, a fourth-year graduate student at SU who oversees the clinical aspects of the lab.

The lab provides the people with a comprehensive report that includes full results and explanations of them, Masters said. It also offers feedback sessions to the families so that they can talk about the evaluations and ask questions they may have. Once there is a diagnosis, the lab will give the family an opportunity to participate in its research.

“We do all these assessments for free,” Masters said. “That’s a really big draw for a lot of families, especially in Syracuse, who may not have access to other resources that actually are a little bit more expensive.”

Many people also came to the lab to be part of the research, Masters said.

“Dr. Russo is a phenomenal adviser, and she looks at things from a strength-based approach,” Masters said. “That means rather than looking at autism as a deficit type of condition, she looks at all the unique strengths that are associated with autism, which I really appreciate because as a person, that’s really important to remember all the strengths of people.”

The lab saw at least one new family per week on average before the pandemic, Masters said. Most of the people with autism the CARE Lab sees are aged from 8 to 16, with a few adults from time to time, whom The Daily Orange was unable to speak with because of doctor-patient confidentiality.

The lab consists of six SU graduate students and seven undergraduate research assistants, according to the lab’s website. It’s important to include both graduate and undergraduate students to get involved in research for many reasons, Russo said.

“The research that I did when I was an undergrad was the thing that sparked me to go to graduate school and to want to continue,” Russo said. It’s important to try to engage students who may or may not want to follow that trajectory, she added.

Leah Hamdoun, a sophomore neuroscience and psychology major, joined the lab after she saw the opportunity at an involvement fair on campus at the beginning of the fall 2021 semester. She said she liked being involved in the lab’s research and working with children with autism, who don’t usually have the means to get diagnosed.

“Especially in the U.S., it’s really hard for these kids to get assessed for autism,” Hamdoun said. “Since it’s free and for every task (the families) do get paid, we’re helping the community and helping people get diagnosed when they need it.”

Undergraduate students in the lab are responsible for helping collect, clean and analyze data, as well as helping run experiments, Masters said. The graduate students oversee them while providing mentorship for their respective research interests and projects, she said.

Russo said students with different interests can find something they are excited about through their work at the lab since it serves as an “interesting intersection” of both neuroscience concepts and clinical application.

“Research isn’t just critical. It’s also super exciting and lots of fun,” Russo said. “Involving undergraduate students means fresh ideas and different perspectives on things.”

Masters said while conducting research could be challenging in many regards, the work she does at the lab has been rewarding.

“(It’s) always rewarding to be able to tell them things about themselves that they didn’t know before,” Masters said. “Our strengths-based lab is always a really cool part because we get to tell them we showcase all your skills and all your strengths in a way that (is) superior (to) your neurotypical peers.”

Published on January 30, 2022 at 10:37 pm

Contact Francis: btang05@syr.edu | @francis_towne