Magic happens...

In November, Sidney and I gathered our collective chutzpah and sent a letter to Dr. David Amaral, the research director of the MIND Institute, UC Davis. The mission statement of the MIND Institute is "To find effective treatments and cures for autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders." The MIND Institute is a premier research contributor in the causes of, diagnosis, and treatment of Autism. We thought that our COAST might play a role in their mission... as a baseline measurement of the impact of autism on a particular child, and as a stable measure of growth over time. 

So we sent a letter with 3 attachments: the 2-page spread of Domain 1: Social Relationships, a description of all 12 domains, and a description of all 7 levels of severity.

The MIND Institute sponsors a Distinguished Lecture series, and Catherine Lord was to be the guest of honor on February 13. Sidney and I wanted to attend Dr. Lord's lecture, so we asked Dr. Amaral if we could meet him when we were in town for the Lecture. 

He responded, "Yes." (this despite the fact that we spelled his last name incorrectly in the letter! An error for which I later apologized). He offered us an hour on the 13th. An hour is a very generous offer of time.

Our greatest hopes were that 1) he would find some value in the COAST and 2) might, at some later date, suggest a doctoral student who might be interested in using the COAST in a dissertation or other research project.

So, how did the meeting go?

After some reflection, here's my assessment: Wow! What a great day!

We presented Dr. Amaral with two complete packets of the COAST (Evaluator Manual, Full Scale, Core Four Screening tool and Supplemental Eight Module). The first thing he complimented was the professional quality of the production of the tools, "beautiful presentation," he said. Then he asked some good questions, starting with How did we come to creating this tool, and moving to questions about our plans for the tool and whether we thought the COAST might replace other existing tools. He invited in his colleague, Dr. Peter Mundy. Peter Mundy is the director of educational research and heads up a research lab. His teams are already involved in a research study and he promised to share the tool with them, and see if there is a way to fold the COAST into research they are already doing. I got the impression that, if their current research could not accommodate the COAST as added research, that they would find a way in the near future to write it into grants and work they are doing. Almost under his breath, Dr. Mundy said, as he leafed through the Full Scale Module, "There's nothing out there like this."

Dr. Amaral said lots of very nice things about where he thought the tool would be useful. Then he spent time coaching us on the people we needed to talk to, how to "market" the tool, and perhaps that we might just go approach some publishing companies for assistance in getting the data we need to publish the tool.

Then we went to hear Dr. Catherine Lord speak about research she is doing. She is a Really Big Name in autism research. After her talk, Sidney and I were preparing to leave, and David Amaral invited us to dinner with his team and Catherine Lord.

Amazing. Beyond our wildest dreams. 

In the world of Autism research, Sidney and I are like students of guitar, just beginning to pick out some complicated songs and melodies of our own invention... and we attend an Eric Clapton concert and Eric Clapton hears our melody and invites us to dinner and offers to help us with our guitar technique. That is the difference in stature between David Amaral's body of research and our own. He is an incredibly generous man.
 
I have a list of "next steps" to implement, and people with whom we should speak. The journey continues.