Expressive Language in Aging Autistic Adults: Aging, Compensation, and Quality of Life - Project Summary/Abstract Autistic adults face significant challenges in aging, including an increased risk of accelerated cognitive decline and reduced quality of life (QoL). Despite the estimated 5.5 million aging autistic adults in the U.S., less than 0.4% of autism research includes older adults, leaving critical gaps in our understanding of their unique aging trajectories. Previously, our lab identified accelerated memory decline and hippocampal atrophy in middle-aged and older (MA+) autistic adults compared to neurotypical controls, highlighting the vulnerability of this population to age-related changes. Verbal fluency is an essential component of communication, and social communication in turn is an important factor in QoL. Verbal fluency is susceptible to normal aging, and autistic adults may face compounded risks of decline due to predisposed communication challenges. This project assesses the central hypothesis that aging impacts verbal fluency and its neural correlates differently in autistic adults compared to neurotypical peers and that verbal fluency moderates the relationship between social communication and QoL in older autistic adults. The aims are to delineate longitudinal trajectories of verbal fluency performance (Aim 1) and brain activation during a verbal fluency task (Aim 2), in MA+ autistic adults vs. matched controls, and the role of verbal fluency in the relationship between social communication abilities and QoL in aging autistic adults (Aim 3). The proposed research integrates existing longitudinal behavioral, neuroimaging, and QoL data, utilizing powered multilevel mixed models and structural equation modeling to uncover relationships between aging, verbal fluency, and neural compensation in autism. This work will provide critical insights into how expressive language evolves with age in autistic adults and will guide the development of interventions to improve communication outcomes and QoL. Mr. Gallegos is committed to becoming a leading researcher in the neuroscience of aging and autism. His long-term goal is to direct an interdisciplinary clinical research laboratory dedicated to improving the lives of autistic adults through advanced neuroimaging, behavioral research, and intervention development. Training will occur at Arizona State University (ASU), a leading R1 institution with a collaborative and interdisciplinary research environment. ASU’s partnerships with Barrow Neurological Institute and Mayo Clinic AZ provide access to state-of-the-art neuroimaging facilities and clinical expertise. Mr. Gallegos also has the unique opportunity to be mentored by Dr. Cathy Lord at the University of California Los Angeles, who is referenced to as the most effective author contributing to autism research in a bibliometric study. As an openly autistic researcher with lived experience, Mr. Gallegos brings a unique perspective to this work, complementing his training in neuroimaging, verbal fluency, and autism research. He has cultivated foundational skills in neuropsychological assessment, advanced imaging methods, statistical analysis, and clinical trials through his doctoral studies and prior research.
