Geraldine Dawson

Dawson’s accomplishments include pioneering the use of electrophysiological techniques to elucidate early patterns of brain dysfunction in neurodevelopmental disorders, describing a key neurophysiological autism biomarker, which was shown to predict later autism in high risk infants and is being validated for clinical trials by the NIH Autism Biomarkers Consortium, characterizing early autism symptoms, publishing the first case study of autism in infancy, and validating autistic regression.  Dawson co-created the Early Start Denver Model, the first comprehensive empirically-validated treatment for toddlers with autism and demonstrated, for the first time, that early treatment can normalize aspects of brain function associated with autism.