Helen Tager-Flusberg, Ph.D.

Professor, Boston University

SFARI Investigator, SFARI Scientific Review Board Website

Helen Tager-Flusberg received her B.Sc. in Psychology from University College London and her Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Harvard University. Since 2001, she has been at Boston University, where she is now Professor Emerita in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and director of the Center for Autism Research Excellence.

Tager-Flusberg’s research focuses on autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders exploring variability in language and related cognitive functioning within and across disorders; investigating developmental and intervention-based changes in language and social cognition using behavioral and brain imaging methodologies; and developing new measures to assess emerging language. She was the president of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) from 2011 to 2013 and received the INSAR Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021 for her lasting contributions to research on autism.

Read More

Funded Projects

Developing parent-friendly tools for assessing expressive language outcome measures in young children with autism

Awarded: 2019
Award Type: Research

Evaluating two newly developed treatment outcome measures (BOSCC and ELSA) in the context of an ASD behavioral intervention trial

Awarded: 2019
Award Type: Targeted: Novel Outcome Measures for ASD Clinical Trials

Developing expressive language outcome measures for autism clinical trials

Awarded: 2015
Award Type: Targeted: Novel Outcome Measures for ASD Clinical Trials

SFARI Funded Publications

The neural bases of language processing during social and non-social contexts: A fNIRS study of autistic and neurotypical preschool-aged children. Pecukonis M., Gerson J., Gustafson-Alm H., Wood M., Yücel M. , Boas D., Tager-Flusberg H.

Parental language input predicts neuroscillatory patterns associated with language development in toddlers at risk of autism. Romeo R.R., Choi B., Gabard-Durnam L.J., Wilkinson C.L., Levin A., Rowe M.L., Tager-Flusberg H., Nelson C. A.

Prediction of autism spectrum disorder diagnosis using nonlinear measures of language-related EEG at 6 and 12 months. Peck F.C., Gabard-Durnam L.J., Wilkinson C.L., Bosl W., Tager-Flusberg H., Nelson C. A.