Hey everyone,

I'm Michael Bailey.  I'm a full-time undergraduate student at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and a part-time research assistant in the Early Development Lab at the Peabody College of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt.  In the lab, I've been working on projects involving children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.  Our main focus of research is finding ways, through multimedia applications in particular, that 3-5 year-old children with ASD can learn new and basic concepts.  We do this by making our own educational videos and tracking children's attention spans when they are watching a television screen versus when they are watching a live actor teaching a new concept. 

I've gotten to be a part of nearly all the phases of this research process.  I've helped with doing background research to get ideas for research experimentation, making the videos that we used, calling and scheduling families to come into our lab, running the actual experiments, and playing with the children in between experiments to make sure they feel comfortable and have fun when visiting us.

From this research experience, I've developed a great amount of optimism for Autism research.  I absolutely believe that researchers in my lab and in labs around the world are making a great deal of progress developing new and effective intervention programs and teaching methods to help those with ASD.  In the future, I would like to continue my involvement with Autism research as a student intern and maybe even professionally as a child psychologist. 

This fall, I have aspirations to run the Chicago Marathon.  This will be the third marathon that I've ever run, but the first that I'm running for a charity.  To me, running marathons has been among the most challenging, fun, and rewarding things I've ever done.  I love training for and running them!  I've only just signed up for OAR today and already, I know this marathon will be the most meaningful one for me knowing that I'm doing this for more than just myself.  OAR is a great charity and I feel so blessed to be able to do what little I can to help people around the country with ASD.  A thousand dollars is hardly anything at all when considering the full breadth and great need for Autism research, but I do feel that this little bit that I can do will go a long way.  As a friend, family member, or someone who also believes in OAR and my efforts to run for ASD research, I would greatly appreciate any donations you'd be willing to give.

Thank you,

Michael