Family Ties Compel Some Scientists to Tackle Autism

When they were young, Matthew Belmonte and his older brother, John, were fascinated by the same obscure sights: the rise and fall of shadows under streetlights when walking down the street, or individual specks of dust revealed in a beam of sunlight. They both enjoyed rocking back and forth to the high-pitched hum emanating from an old television. But in at least one respect, the boys were markedly different: Matthew had a huge vocabulary, and John didn't speak."Even though he wasn't speaking, I had the sense that I saw what he saw, and he saw what I saw," Belmonte recalls. "I always knew that he and I thought in the same way."John had been diagnosed with autism in 1964, a few years before Matthew was born. In 1998, their sister's daughter was also diagnosed with autism.Inspired partly by his family’s struggles, Matthew, an assistant professor at Cornell University, studies perceptual experiences and cognition in people with autism.Among autism researchers, he is one of many with close family ties to the disorder.Read more at...SFARI, September 2009.