Assistant Professor Andrew Pitchford received a three-year, $900,000 Autism FIRST grant (Field-Initiated Research Study) from the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health Bureau. The title is “Developing equitable fitness assessments for youth with autism and other developmental disabilities.”

As the project’s principal investigator, Andrew will coordinate a research team comprising six academic institutions and a network of 100 public schools, which will work to improve fitness assessment practices for youth with disabilities. The outcome of the project is to integrate tests and standards specific to students with disabilities into FitnessGram to make a more equitable assessment for all students.