Since I was small, I have used stories as a medium for understanding people. I grew up reading and telling them with a tenacity that scared my English teachers. The year I wrote a novel in November, my family participated in a study on the genetic basis of autism at Emory University. My mother assumed that between me and my younger brother, I would be easy to coax into a blood draw. She was gravely mistaken. My sweet, finicky brother earned his lemon lollipop without a fuss. I, on the other hand, staged a small riot. I resented taking a needle to the arm for some study that wasn’t even about me. As a fourth grader, I had not figured out that the blood draw was part of a storytelling process I would someday value. I don’t write novels anymore, but the framework for understanding holds up: find a moment, learn from it, and see how an adjustment changes the story.
This semester, I’m interning at UNC TEACCH Autism Program, a network of regional outpatient centers and services for autistic North Carolinians, their families, and the professionals who serve them. Its reach is vast and multi-disciplinary, intertwining research, clinical, and vocational services for individuals and their support networks across the lifespan. As someone born and raised in Georgia, I am stunned by the scope of the program—I don’t know of one like it anywhere else in the country. Through Gil, I am working as a research assistant under Dr. Laura Klinger (Director of TEACCH, Department of Psychiatry) at the heart of the program in Chapel Hill. Separately, I also work as a direct support professional at the Carolina Living and Learning Center, a TEACCH-run residential care facility for adults on the spectrum. It has been incredible to see research conducted at my internship site echoed in the structures and strategies used to support residents day-to-day at my job.
As a Gil Intern, I am supporting Connections+, a study investigating social connection and community engagement as potential protective factors against suicidality among older autistic and non-autistic adults. This is a collaborative NIH funded project with Dr. Clare Harrop (Department of Health Sciences), Dr. Dara Chan (Department of Health Sciences), and Dr. Laura Klinger (Department of Psychiatry) as joint PIs. This project is gathering interview and GPS tracking data from participants in order to better understand how they engage with their homes, communities, and social systems in day-to-day life. I began my internship cleaning transcripts of interviews to remove identifying information and verify their accuracy. Now, I am also working with the research team to conduct a preliminary qualitative analysis of these interviews.
Connections+ beautifully represents the power of applied research. The research process translates tangible aspects of people's lives—their reasons for going to a given grocery store, their relationships with family members—into structured knowledge. The goal is to understand more about how to support community participation and mental health in older autistic adults. In a void, brief interactions with neighbors or specific barriers to trying a new hobby might seem insignificant, but evidence-based interventions like the ones TEACCH provides across North Carolina are meant to improve people's lives. Applied research helps clinicians understand the moments that make those lives. As an aspiring clinician and researcher, I have learned a lot about the process of translating stories to research in my time at TEACCH so far. I’m excited to carry the skills I’ve developed and stories I’ve heard through graduate school and into a lab of my own.
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