Antonio Hardan, MD

Dr. Hardan is a Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Stanford University. He is the Carl Feinstein Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division at Stanford University. He is also the Director of the Autism and Developmental Disorders Clinic at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. Dr. Hardan is a Board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist as well as a general psychiatrist with more than 20 years’ experience assessing and treating children and adults with developmental disorders including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), PTEN mutations, velocardiofacial syndrome, and Down Syndrome. Over the years, he has won several teaching awards including the John Romano Award at the University of Rochester and the “Outstanding Teacher” at Stanford University.

Dr. Hardan research expertise is in the neurobiology of ASD and in the development of innovative treatment for individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. He served as a principal investigator on numerous projects examining the neurobiology of ASD and assessing the effectiveness of a wide range of interventions. He is the recipient of several grants examining the efficacy of Pivotal Response Treatment and vasopressin in the treatment of children with ASD. He has completed several investigations that aim at increasing our understanding of the pathophysiology of individuals with developmental disorders while applying multimodal imaging techniques. He also has led several clinical trials examining the effectiveness of novel interventions such as N-Acetylcysteine in children with ASD and everolimus for individuals with PTEN mutations. Additionally, he is the developer of two new instruments the Stanford Social Dimensions Scale and the Dimensional Assessment of Restricted/Repetitive behaviors (DARB).  Finally, Dr. Hardan has published more than 125 journal articles and has co-authored several book chapters in the field of developmental disorders and ASD.