Robert Joseph

Assistant Professor, Anatomy and Neurobiology, Boston University School of Medicine

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University

As the director of the clinical core at Center of Autism Research Excellence, I oversee the training of our research staff and the assessment of children participating in our research program on minimally verbal children with autism.   In addition to language, my research has focused on social perception and visual attention in children with ASD using a variety of methods, including computerized behavioral tests, eye tracking, psychophysiological measures, and functional  and diffusion magnetic neuroimaging.   I am especially interested in the ways in which visual attention and perception are often expressed in the form of superior performance in, for example, tests of nonverbal IQ and visual search in autism, and what this can tell us about how the brain develops and is organized differently in individuals with ASD.