Enhancing Social Communication for Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2009, 6:30 – 8pm
Location: CARD UF Gainesville Offices, 1405 NW 13th Street, Gainesville 32601 or ONLINE via Adobe Connect
Presenter: Dr. Lindee Morgan: Director, Center for Autism and Related Disabilities at Florida State University

Description: Dr. Morgan will present ways to apply the best current empirical evidence in choosing intervention content and intervention strategies for young children with ASD. Her presentation will also include valuable information on how to develop active engagement and home activities for young children with ASD.

Bio: Dr. Lindee Morgan is the Director of the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities at Florida State University. She is a Co-Investigator on grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. In addition, she is the Project Coordinator for an early treatment study teaching parents of toddlers with ASD how to support social communication funded by Autism Speaks and the National Institutes of Health. Her research interests are in early identification of toddlers at risk for language and learning impairments and autism, and caregiver implemented intervention. She has published in many scholarly journals including the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, and has presented at a number of national and state conferences.

This training is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Seating is limited. TO REGISTER for IN PERSON training please send your full name, phone number, and title of the presentation you wish to attend to card-info@ufl.edu or call the CARD UF/Gainesville offices at (352) 273-0581 or 1 (800) 9-AUTISM to reserve a seat!

If you would like to view the presentation via the Internet using Adobe Connect, please see registration information and instructions here: http://www.card.ufl.edu/training/tuesdaynight/

Partnership for Effective Programs for Students with Autism - PEPSA

We are currently accepting applications for the 2009-10 PEPSA partnerships. This year's focus is on the critical need to improve and evaluate models to provide social skills instruction for students with ASD. The goal of this year’s PEPSA projects will be to build capacity among multi-disciplinary teams of professionals by enabling them to effectively address the social skills needs of students in their schools through the establishment of social skills training models. CARD Staff will work with each team to develop and establish models to address the student needs within each setting. We seek to work collaboratively to develop social skills models that are evidence-based, empirically driven, individualized, evaluated and revised based on data, compatible with the existing infrastructure of the school and district and include parental involvement and generalization of skills.

This year we would like to expand on the successful pilot projects that were implemented in local schools during 2008-09 and develop and evaluate additional models of social skills instruction to address this critical need.

If you are interested in applying for a 2009-2010 CARD/PEPSA partnership, please complete the application and review the stipend information which can be found on the Partnership Brochure at http://doepartnership.usf.edu. For questions, contact Cathy Zenko at 352-392-4173 or czenko@ufl.edu.