
Faculty Fellow Profile: Laura Klinger
Soon after Laura Klinger, PhD, joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (UNC) in 2011 as an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and as executive director of the UNC TEACCH Autism Program, she became a faculty fellow at UNC’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG). Her desire to connect with FPG stemmed from the Institute’s preeminent role in research on early child development, a natural fit for her research interests in autism. She was also excited to collaborate with Senior Research Scientist Sam Odom, PhD—who was then the director of FPG—an expert in the field of autism. In addition, she appreciated, and continues to value, FPG’s ability to provide effective trainings and widely disseminate knowledge.
Early in her career, Klinger’s research explored how people with autism learn about the world around them and how researchers and practitioners can better support the learning styles and differences of autism. In her current work, she is focused on clinical trials of interventions that she has helped develop to support those with autism. She is the principal investigator of two clinical trials examining the T-STEP Program - TEACCH School Transition to Employment and Postsecondary Education. This free, evidence-based college class helps autistic 16- to 21-year-old students transition to adulthood. The program supports executive function, emotion regulation, and the learning differences, which interested Klinger early in her career.
Klinger is also the PI of a large clinical trial looking at the treatment of anxiety and depression in autistic adults. Through examining how therapists and interventionists teach clinicians around the state to deliver cognitive behavioral therapy or mindfulness-based therapy to autistic adults, Klinger and her colleagues hope to better understand whether traditional mental health interventions need to be modified to fit the specific needs of autistic individuals.
The third area of Klinger’s research is working with aging adults, specifically looking at the prevention of cognitive decline through lifestyle changes. Research shows higher rates of dementia and Parkinson's Disease and earlier onset in autistic adults than in the general population. The next step is developing clinical trials to explore whether this increased incidence is related to lifestyle, a genetic predisposition, or a combination of the two, and then developing interventions to ameliorate the lifestyle causes.
“The overall thread of my research is about understanding the specific learning differences of autism and then taking that knowledge and figuring out how to best support adult outcomes,” said Klinger. “I want to understand the learning styles of autistic individuals and help support them to reach their life goals.”
“The overall thread of my research is about understanding the specific learning differences of autism and then taking that knowledge and figuring out how to best support adult outcomes,” said Klinger. “I want to understand the learning styles of autistic individuals and help support them to reach their life goals.”
As the director of TEACCH, Klinger leverages the TEACCH statewide program with its seven outpatient clinics throughout North Carolina to implement large-scale intervention studies. She calls her current position her “dream job.” She appreciates TEACCH’s mission of taking “ivory tower knowledge” and disseminating and implementing what works in towns throughout the state. “Typically, in an academic environment, we would create an intervention in our lab with graduate students, test it, and then move it into the community,” said Klinger. “With TEACCH, we started T-STEP in the community because we have the ability to think about evidence-based practices in the home community.”
She also values TEACCH’s focus on lifespan, looking not just at early diagnosis of those with autism, but also working with school-aged children, adolescents, and adults with autism. In addition, the wide range of graduate students, postdocs, junior faculty, and direct support staff who are trained at TEACCH—including current FPG Director Brian Boyd, PhD, who began his work in autism working in a TEACCH program—means that Klinger leads a program with a high level of impact on autism professionals around the world.
Since training professionals throughout the world to work with autistic individuals is one of TEACHH’s mandates, Klinger spends about four weeks each year as a trainer. Last year, this work took her to Ireland, Australia, and New York, in addition to North Carolina. Most of her time is spent on a mix of administration and research. Given TEACCH’s staff of about 200 people, Klinger’s administration load is heavy. She also mentors clinical psychology graduate students through her affiliation with UNC’s Department of Psychology.
Klinger finds FPG’s connections with faculty from a wide range of campus departments to be helpful. She noted that when she arrived at UNC, the work being done around developmental disabilities and autism was spread among a range of departments and units. She believes that FPG’s Faculty Fellow program is helping to break down these siloes, leading to more partnerships and productive research. Being a Fellow eases Klinger’s ability to feel comfortable reaching out to other FPG team members about collaborating. She said that the connections at FPG—both in terms of faculty research ideas and dissemination and implementation science—are an asset in her work.
She encourages any researchers interested in working with her and/or her TEACCH colleagues to reach out. “FPG is such a longstanding and impactful program, going back to the early days of early intervention,” said Klinger. “I would be happy to hear from people who are interested in collaborating.”