Public invited to attend international autism conference

No, the title of this comment is not a reference to the Harper government/CIHR National Autism Symposium scheduled for November in Toronto. Harper and the CIHR have shamed themselves in bypassing provincial Autism Societies and FEAT organizations and handpicking "community" representatives to attend what is billed as "above all" an exercise in community building. In the US, by contrast, those staging conferences actually seek real public input.

In Public invited to attend international autism conference the Hometown News reports on the 2 day conference scheduled for October 18 and 19 at the Florida Institute of Technology and the Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy. The conference is desribed by Mary Beth Kenkle, dean and professor at Florida Tech's college of psychology and liberal arts as part of an mission to be a resource to the community. Professor Kenkle had some interesting observations about Applied Behavior Analysis:

"applied behavior analysts have made headway in techniques to treat children with the developmental disorder, ... There are a lot of treatments for autism out there that don't have empirical support, ... We will be using applied behavior analysis-one of the treatments shown to be most effective."