From Infancy to Imaging: Autism and the Developmental Psychology of Marian Sigman

This talk will review the major contributions Dr. Marian Sigman has made to the field of autism research over the past 30 years. Dr. Peter Mundy will talk about Dr. Sigman's interest in infant attention and the joint attention research they carried out together at UCLA. He will discuss how the translation of theory and measurement of the development of infant social attention to the study of autism with Marian, Connie Kasari & others had an impact on developmental psychopathology. Dr. Connie Kasari will present research findings on Dr. Sigman's interest in emotional development and relationships, and how these research findings influenced her newer work on interventions for children with autism and their families. Dr. Susan Bookheimer will discuss the CPEA and ACE imaging centers that Dr. Sigman's lead at UCLA, the expansion of her collaborations into autism genetics and functional imaging of social communication, and the future directions of the autism center she created.