Ami Klin, Ph.D.

Director, Autism Program
Harris Professor of Child Psychology and Psychiatry Yale Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine

Research Interests

Our program of research focuses on mechanisms of socialization and their disruption in the autism spectrum disorders. This work includes a close collaboration with Warren Jones in the development of novel techniques to quantify social processes using eye-tracking technologies with a view to visualize and measure the ontogeny of social engagement. New data analytic strategies have been used with children, adolescents, and adults with autism spectrum disorders revealing abnormalities of visual scanning behaviors when viewing naturalistic social approaches and situations. With the support of the Simons Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, we are currently monitoring babies at-risk for autism from birth for indicators of the earliest divergence we are currently monitoring babies at-risk for autism from birth for indicators of the earliest divergence from the normative pathways in social development. Our goal is to create objective measurements of vulnerabilities for autism in the first year or maybe months of life, possibly before the emergence of detectable symptoms. This program of research also includes studies of the ability to impose social meaning on ambiguous visual displays, probing systems involved in the perception of biological motion and human action more broadly.

Additional projects include studies of diagnostic profiles, neuropsychology, adaptive functioning and circumscribed interests in autism spectrum disorders. Collaborations include studies in functional neuroimaging, genetics, neurobiology, and psychopharmacology.

Curriculum Vitae & Links

• Curriculum Vitae
• Autism Program Web site

Recent Publications

• Klin, A., Lin, D.J., Gorrindo, P., Ramsay, G., & Jones, W. (In press). Two-year-olds with autism fail to orient towards human biological motion but attend instead to non-social, physical contingencies. Nature.
• Jones, W., & Klin, A. (In press). Heterogeneity and homogeneity across the autism spectrum: the role of development. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
• Klin, A. (2008). Three things to remember if you are a functional magnetic resonance imaging researcher of face processing in autism spectrum disorders. Biological Psychiatry, 2008, 64(7):549-51.
• Jones, W., Carr, K., Klin, A. (2008). Absence of preferential looking to the eyes of approaching adults predicts level of social disability in 2-year-olds with autism. Archives of General Psychiatry, 65(8):946-54.
• Klin A, & Jones W. (2008). Altered face scanning and impaired recognition of biological motion in a 15-month-old infant with autism. Developmental Science, 11(1):40-6.
• Klin, A., Danovitch, J.H., Dohrmann, E.H., Merz, A.B., Volkmar, F.R. (2007). Circumscribed interests in higher-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders: an exploratory study. Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, 2007, 32(2):89-100.
• Klin, A., Saulnier, C.A., Sparrow, S.S., Cicchetti, D.V., Volkmar, F.R., Lord, C. (2007). Social and communication abilities and disabilities in higher functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37(4):748-59.
• Klin, A., & Jones, W. (2006). Attributing social and physical meaning to ambiguous visual displays in individuals with higher functioning autism spectrum disorders. Brain and Cognition, 61:40-53.
• Klin, A., Pauls, D., Schultz, R., Volkmar, F.R. (2005). Three diagnostic approaches to Asperger syndrome: implications for research. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35(2):221-234.
• Klin, A., Chawarska, K., Paul, R., Rubin, E., Morgan, T., Wiesner, L., Volkmar, F.R. (2004). Autism in a 15-month-old child. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161(11):1981-1988.
• Klin, A., Jones, W., Schultz, R.T., Volkmar, F.R. (2003). The Enactive Mind - from actions to cognition: Lessons from autism. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences, 358:345-360.
• Klin, A., Jones, W., Schultz, R., Volkmar, F., Cohen, D. Defining and quantifying the social phenotype in autism. American Journal of Psychiatry, 159(6):895-908.
• Klin, A., Jones, W., Schultz, R., Volkmar, F., Cohen, D. Visual fixation patterns during viewing of naturalistic social situations as predictors of social competence in individuals with autism. Archives of General Psychiatry, 59(9):809-816.

Contact

Campus Address
Child Study Center
230 South Frontage Road
P.O. Box 207900
New Haven, CT 06520-7900

Office Address
SHM G134

E-mail
ami.klin@yale.edu

Office Phone
203-785-3565