Cell Phones for Autism

Feb 8, 2010

Shannon Johnson and I speak with Dr. Susan Wilczynski of the National Autism Center. We cover a range of topics including evidence based practices. We pay particular attention to an educators’ field guide the National Autism Center put together for educators of children on the autism spectrum. You can see a copy of that guide here. Here is some more about Dr. Wilczynski from her website: Dr. Wilczynski is the Executive Director of the National Autism Center. In her role as Chair of the National Standards Project, she has worked in collaboration with experts from around the country in order to establish national standards for the treatment of individuals on the autism spectrum. Under Dr. Wilczynski’s leadership, the National Autism Center has recently published Evidence-based Practice and Autism in the Schools. This resource manual for educators is being distributed to school systems across the country. It is the first in a series of manuals to support families, educators, physicians, and service providers.

Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute is working to help thousands of children struggling with the effects of autism. Autism affects 1 in every 166 children in the United States. For more information, visit achri.archildrens.org.

Joe Mantegna introduces Easter Seals Metropolitan Chicago’s one-of-a-kind new Therapeutic School and Center for Autism Research

From The Kennedy Krieger Institute

Learn more about the Interactive Autism Network with Dr. Paul Law, Director of Medical Informatics at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. Dr. Law is the principal investigator overseeing the development of a national online autism database that will serve as a shared resource to centralize registration of families and individuals with autism spectrum disorders and connect them with researchers, parents and other individuals with autism throughout the country and the world. In addition to supporting scientific investigation, it will provide individuals and families affected by autism with unprecedented information about the experiences of others and serve as an open resource for educators and policy makers. A longitudinal database will enable families and individuals to participate in an online study aimed at understanding the patterns of treatment use and responses to those treatments.

From the Krieger Institute – http://www.healthnewscasts.com/index.php?id=39

An update on current autism research with Dr. Rebecca Landa, Director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. Dr. Landa directs the Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) at Kennedy Krieger Institute, which offers a uniquely interdisciplinary approach to serving children with autism spectrum disorders and their families. The Center combines educational, clinical, diagnostic, outpatient and outreach programs to create treatment that is tailored to the particular needs of individual children and their families. In her research, Dr. Landa works with professionals from other disciplines and uses a variety of approaches to explore the causes, indicators, and treatment of autism. One of her studies is the first to follow infants at risk for autism through their first year of life and beyond. In collaboration with neurologists, developmental pediatricians, epidemiologists, developmental psychologists, and speech-language pathologists, Dr. Landa will examine neurobiological and developmental patterns in these children. These findings will improve the early detection and instructional techniques used to help very young children.