Lydia Denworth is a New York-based science writer and author of I Can Hear You Whisper: An Intimate Journey through the Science of Sound and Language.
Lydia Denworth
Contributing writer
The Transmitter
From this contributor
The last two-author neuroscience paper?
Author lists on papers have ballooned, and it’s getting hard to discern contribution.
The promise of telehealth in autism diagnoses
The COVID-19 pandemic forced a reckoning, in which autism clinicians had to redefine best practices and expand how children are evaluated. The remote assessments they developed may help solve a persistent problem: the long wait families endure to get a diagnosis in the United States.
The promise of telehealth in autism diagnoses
By
Lydia Denworth
15 February 2023 | 22 min read
The most personalized medicine: Studying your own child’s rare condition
A handful of scientists are committed to advancing research on the autism-related genetic conditions their own children have.
The most personalized medicine: Studying your own child’s rare condition
By
Lydia Denworth
7 July 2022 | 15 min read
Owen’s odyssey: A year and a half after an autism diagnosis
This is part 2 of Owen’s story. It tracks his early progress in treatment for autism. Part 1 described his difficult path to a diagnosis.
Owen’s odyssey: A year and a half after an autism diagnosis
By
Lydia Denworth
25 November 2020 | 16 min read
A quest for Quincy: Gene therapies come of age for some forms of autism
A gene therapy for Angelman syndrome stands at the forefront of efforts to treat autism-linked conditions that stem from single genes.
A quest for Quincy: Gene therapies come of age for some forms of autism
By
Lydia Denworth, Brendan Borrell
14 October 2020 | 24 min read
Explore more from The Transmitter
Autism-linked genes alter sleep behavior, and more
Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 13 April.
Autism-linked genes alter sleep behavior, and more
Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 13 April.
By
Jill Adams
14 April 2026 | 2 min read
This paper changed my life: Erin Calipari ponders the nuances of rewarding and aversive stimuli
A 1960s study by Kelleher and Morse found that lever pressing in squirrel monkeys depended not on whether they received a reward or shock, but on the rules of the task. This taught Calipari to think deeply about factors that influence how behavior is generated and maintained.
This paper changed my life: Erin Calipari ponders the nuances of rewarding and aversive stimuli
A 1960s study by Kelleher and Morse found that lever pressing in squirrel monkeys depended not on whether they received a reward or shock, but on the rules of the task. This taught Calipari to think deeply about factors that influence how behavior is generated and maintained.
By
Erin Calipari
14 April 2026 | 5 min read
Why neural foundation models work, and what they might—and might not—teach us about the brain
These models can partly generalize across species, brain regions and tasks, suggesting that a set of machine-learnable rules govern neural population activity. But will we be able to understand them?
Why neural foundation models work, and what they might—and might not—teach us about the brain
These models can partly generalize across species, brain regions and tasks, suggesting that a set of machine-learnable rules govern neural population activity. But will we be able to understand them?
By
Juan Gallego
13 April 2026 | 8 min read