Workshop schedule for DFW

[Guest guest]

The DFW Center for Autism is happy to announce the fall workshop schedule for

families and professionals caring for children with autism. All workshops will

be held in Carrollton at the DFW Church of Christ Building at Old Denton Road

and Rosemeade Parkway. For registration costs, questions and any other

information please call Anissa Ryland at 214/731-0410 or email at

dfwcenterforautism@....

Workshop Schedule for the DFW Center for Autism for fall 2003:

(biographies of presenters are listed below)

Saturday, September 6th at 9am: Workshop 1 - An Introduction to Early

Intervention: The How and Why of ABA - Sawyer, MS, BCBA and

Haycraft

This workshop will cover the " why " of ABA, identifying behavior and the

variables that affect behavior and evaluating the effectiveness of a program,

making changes and getting what you want out of ABA.

Saturday, September 20th at 9am: The Sulfer System and the Physiology of why ABA

Work - Owens

Mrs. Owens will discuss how the sulfer chemistry interacts with experiences of

infancy and toddlerhood to help mature the brain, and how delays in development

are likely to occur if problems in this chemistry exist during early

development. In order to maximize the effects of other therapies, remaining

problems in the biochemistry need to be addressed so that those therapies will

have the best chance of working effectively.

Saturday, October 18 at 9am: Everything you wanted to know about toileting,

dressing, and eating, but were afraid to ask. - Sawyer, MS, BCBA and

Haycraft

This workshop will cover how to formulate and utilize a task analysis,

teaching daily living skills using response chains and gradual guidance, and

prompt fading. Toileting section includes materials and procedures for potty

training a child at any developmental age.

Saturday, November 1 at 9am: The Finer Components of a Quality ABA Program (and

extension of workshop on Sept. 6 - it is recommended you attend Workshop 1

first) - Sawyer, MS, BCBA and Haycraft

This workshop covers how to arrange the environment to promote language, how

to teach a child more spontaneous speech, getting the child to be more social

with their actions and words, and more effective techniques for both discrete

trial and naturalistic teaching.

Saturday, November 15 at 9am: Creative Fund Raising Ideas to fund your child's

programs - Anissa Ryland, Director of Development for the DFW Center for Autism

This presentation will offer some traditional and more creative ideas on how

to raise funds to pay for therapy programs for your child. Following a

presentation, parents are free to stay and share ideas of their own.

Saturday, December 13 at 9am: Are they having fun yet? Why we should " teach "

play, and how to do it successfully - Sawyer, MS, BCBA, Haycraft

and Shahla Ala'i-les, Ph.D., BCBA

The workshop covers naturalistic teaching, conditioning neutral stimuli &

activities to take on properties of reinforcers, and the methods used for

teaching. We will also cover the importance of play and how to increase language

when implementing play programs.

Workshop Organizers and Presenters:

Sawyer is the Program Director of the DFW Center for Autism and holds a

master degree in behavior analysis and her undergraduate degree in psychology

and child development. As both an alumnus and an adjunct faculty member at the

University of North Texas, she teaches a course in applied behavior analysis.

She formerly operated a private practice in the Metroplex providing consultative

behavioral and educational services to area school districts and families. She

has presented her work in the area of play, social skills and teacher training

at several regional and national conventions to help train teachers and parents

of special needs children in inclusive learning settings. Her current area of

research includes social and play skills, and the acquisition of verbal

behavior.

Haycraft is the Classroom Coordinator for the DFW Center for Autism and

is completing her graduate studies for a master degree in behavioral analysis

and holds a BBA from TCU. Her current area of study involves training teachers

to facilitate socialization in an inclusive preschool environment. This study

was conducted at the DFW Center for Autism's Texas Star Academy and utilized

peer incidental teaching strategies to increase interactions between children

with autism and typically developing children while decreasing the amount of

obtrusive prompts utilized by teachers. has been teaching children in

inclusive settings for five years and has worked under a variety of mentors

utilizing all methods of applied behavior analysis.

Owens Since completing her masters degree, Mrs. Owens has lectured widely

in the U.S. as well as internationally, including presentations at the Center

for Disease Control and the National Institute of Health in Bethesda. In the

process of making it easier to understand how sulfer in the body works as a

system and interacts with other influences, she addresses how problems develop

in this system and which symptoms would follow as a result, especially in the

neurological and the gastrointestinal systems. Behind the scenes, she talks at

length with sulfer scientists with the goal of helping to remove disciplinar

barriers so that sulfer science will be applied more effectively to problems

like autism and Alzheimers disease.

Anissa Ryland is the Director of Development for the DFW Center for Autism.

After graduating with a degree in education, Anissa began her fund raising

career in New Orleans where she organized a variety of benefits featuring many

local and nationally known musicians, as well as served as the Director for a

national foundation. She then moved to Washington, D.C. where she was the

Executive Director of the Jubilee Support Alliance where she worked with dozens

of top business leaders to raise critical funding for a group providing services

to formerly homeless families. After her son was diagnosed with autism, she and

her husband began researching all aspects of the disorder. After moving to

Dallas they enrolled their son at the DFW Center for Autism, where he continues

to make remarkable progress.

Shahla Ala'i-les is a faculty member in the Department of Behavior Analysis

at the University of North Texas and the Director of the North Texas Autism

Project. She holds a B.S. in Child and Family Studies from Southern Illinois

University, an M.A. in Human Development and Early Childhood Education from the

University of Kansas and a Ph.D. in Developmental and Child Psychology from the

University of Kansas. She is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and has enjoyed

working and playing with children for over 20 years. Her areas of study include

teacher and parent training, social and play skills, and legal and ethical

issues in behavior analysis.