Dispatches from IMFAR 2016

These short reports from our journalists give you the inside scoop on developments at the 2016 International Meeting for Autism Research.

Autism’s first Emmy gets bright new home

Catherine Lord might be the only autism researcher to have an Emmy award.

In honor of mothers of children with autism, and on this year’s Mother’s Day, Temple Grandin’s mother, Eustacia Cutler, gave her Emmy award away to Lord.

Cutler received the award in 2010 from actress Julia Ormond, who had won the Emmy for her portrayal of Cutler in the HBO movie “Temple Grandin.”

Cutler first met Lord about 10 years ago when she visited Lord’s lab, then at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. They stayed in touch, and Cutler told Lord that she wanted the award to celebrate all that women do to support their children with autism.

The Center for Autism and the Developing Brain in White Plains, New York, where Lord is now director, is a natural home for the award. “A big focus at our center is working with families,” Lord told me today at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Baltimore. “And the reality is that mothers often do most of the work.”

Researchers at the center involve parents in every aspect of autism, from walking them through the meaning of their child’s diagnosis to coaching them to deliver at-home treatments. That hands-on help also extends to parents of adult children, says Lord.

“If the parents know what their adult children are doing, they can support them better,” she says. “That is a real, real priority for us.”

Last Sunday, in a ceremony at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, surrounded by flowers provided by actor Joe Mantegna and his family, and with Grandin in attendance via Skype, Cutler presented Lord with the award.

Like most actors’ awards, Lord’s Emmy will sit in a beautiful and illuminated glass display case, but its site, an autism center, is surely a first.

– Apoorva Mandavilli / 14 May

For more reports from the 2016 International Meeting for Autism Research, please click here.