MA Psychology student Simon Hill receives award for promising young researchers
MA Psychology student Simon Hill receives award for promising young researchers
Samuel Kalinowsky presents a cheque to Simon Hill
Simon Hill, a second year MA student in Psychology, recently received an award of $1000 from The Scottish Rite Charitable Foundation of Canada. The award recognizes promising young researchers who are studying intellectual impairments or “puzzles of the mind” especially as it affects children and also individuals with Alzheimer’s disease. The award was presented by Samuel Kalinowsky, a 33rd degree Freemason and Member of the Board for the Foundation.
”We are proud to be associated with students such as Simon, who sacrifice much to expand the frontiers of knowledge,” said Kalinowsky.
Hill is entering his second year of graduate studies, studying brain mechanisms associated with autism in a high functioning young adult sample. He is looking for signs of atypical cerebral laterality (ambiguous handedness, bilateral cerebral lateralization for language, abnormal interhemispheric interactions) and attempting to link these signs to adaptive autistic traits such as systematizing (looking for patterns in complex visual stimuli) as well as negative traits (such as social communication problems). This is a follow-up and extension of work that his supervisor and Associate Professor, Shelly Parlow, conducted previously with autistic children which found they were much less likely to be right-handed than other children, especially when asked to carry out unfamiliar and/or bimanual (two-hand) actions.
In accepting his Award, Simon stated ”As the prevalence rates of autism increase, I feel it is more important that we understand exactly what autism is in order to assist both autistic individuals and their families in coping with the everyday struggles they endure. This is something that I am very passionate about….”
Hill’s scholarship acts as a reminder that there are many existing external financial scholarships available to Carleton students.
From left: Anne Bowker, Samuel Kalinowsky, Simon Hill, Shelly Parlow
The Scottish Rite Charitable Foundation(SRCF) is the charitable arm of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of Canada, which has a membership totaling about 20,000 members. Since its inception in 1964, the SRCF has devoted its charitable efforts to supporting research into ‘Puzzles of the Mind’, such as Alzheimer’s, Dyslexia, Autism,Parkinson’s , etc., through Major Research Grants, to the provision of Graduate Bursaries and to the establishment of Learning Centers for Dyslexic Children. Details on these Programs can be found on the SRCF Website: http:\\www.srcf.ca