What would it look like if federal autism research funding was spent researching subjects autistic people care about? Autism researchers could direct more funding towards how to make work or school more accessible for autistic people, learning why so many of us struggle with sleep, or any number of other subjects that impact our everyday lives. Aligning research funding with our community’s needs could make a major difference in autistic people’s lives. Submit a comment to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) by April 1st telling them what you want studied!
The IACC advises on federal funding for autism research. They make recommendations on how autism research funding is prioritized. You can push IACC to advocate for research that matters to our community by submitting a public comment telling them what kind of research you want to see. You can do that by submitting a comment using this form, and asking the committee to prioritize the research you care about. Please try to be as specific as possible – for example, saying, “I would like IACC to prioritize research on how many autistic people have sleep disorders and what treatments are effective” is more clear than “I want IACC to prioritize research on sleeping.”
You can submit a comment using the form here.
Some of ASAN’s comments have included recommendations to support and prioritize the development of substantial research on best practices for supporting robust and effective AAC for autistic people, as well as cultural competency and cultural relevancy of alternative communication methods. We also regularly urge the IACC to include autistic people, particularly autistic people with co-occurring mental health or intellectual disabilities, autistic people who use AAC, and autistic people of color, in the research process as collaborators, not just in the data collection phase.
You can read more of ASAN’s previous recommendations here and here.
With your help, we can make IACC represent autistic people directly, rather than discussing our community without our community. Thank you so much.