The Generosity of Strangers.

Sidney and I had the best day of our brief Autism Research Careers today.

We met with Dr. Eric Fombonne, the Director of Autism Research at Oregon Health Sciences University. It was a "cold call" made possible with the kind electronic introduction of Dr. David Amaral of the MIND Institute at UC Davis. 

Our Pie-In-The-Sky hoped-for outcome of the meeting was that Dr. Fombonne would help us identify research subjects for our pilot research project. 

Our Second-Best hope was that he would be willing to write a letter of support for our project, so we could seek involvement with other agencies, trading on the value of his name and reputation.

At a minimum, we hoped he would say nice things about the COAST.

We were rewarded with the Pie-In-The-Sky! with fresh whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles

Dr. Fombonne has agreed to help us find the research participants (and in fact believes he can weave our research into ongoing grants), has agreed to write a letter of support for our Human Subjects Research approval application to the UO AND has agreed to shepherd the project through the OHSU Human Subjects Research approval process. He suggested a much more powerful research design, suggested improvements and additional data to collect, and then invited us to lunch with his colleague, Dr. Arlene Hagen. Dr. Hagen is a child psychologist, in charge of the Child Development & Rehabilitation Center at OHSU. She also happens to be married to Dr. Fombonne.

During lunch, the two seemed to become more and more excited and eager to help us. By the end of lunch, they had agreed to assist in recruiting parents for our research and in helping us gain the appropriate approvals. After lunch, Dr. F, Sidney, and I returned to his office, and he invited in his assistant Marie. Marie was given a long list of tasks, and encouraged to work with us in completing them.

SO, we have a little more work to do this weekend, and we will submit a slew of documents to Marie for dissemination to key personnel at OHSU. A very large magic door has been opened.

Dr. Fombonne's closing comment was something like: "It isn't fair that you would be prevented from conducting interesting research simply because you are not well known. I see it as my role to assist you and make it possible to do the research. Then the data will speak for themselves."

Yes. A simple, but incredibly generous, attitude.