The 'Bright Futures' 2011 conference April 28 Leeds

[Guest guest]

2011 Conference

The 'Bright Futures' 2011 conference will take place on April 28 at the Queens Hotel in Leeds.

The theme of the conference is social and emotional development in autism. Speakers include:

Mundy

Currently the Capps Professor of Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Education at the UC School of Education and the UC M.I.N.D. Institute.

Well known for his studies into impairments in joint attention in autism

Recently granted funding to develop a collaborative multidisciplinary virtual reality laboratory for research and treatment with school age children with autism.

will discuss "Social Attention and Social Learning in Autism: From Infancy to Adolescence". Looking at how joint attention facilitates social learning; how few studies have attempted to translate the rich science on social attention in preschool children to the benefit of school-aged children; and how virtual reality methods are currently being developed and tested to help build that bridge.

Hobson

Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at University College London

Author of ‘The Cradle of Thought’, a book that studies children with autism (amongst others) to show how flexible, adaptive thinking develops from participation in relationships in the early years

will take a different perspective on autism – one which explains why the triad of impairments occurs together. He will discuss autism as a severe impairment in interpersonal engagement and the implications of this for treatment.

Tony Charman

Tony holds the Chair in Autism Education at the Institute of Education, London.

Well known for his investigation of social cognitive development in children with autism and the clinical application of this work via screening, intervention, education and 'at risk' studies.

Has published more than 140 peer-reviewed papers; author of over 25 book chapters on autism.

Tony will review the recent randomised controlled trials into social-communication interventions to highlight overall what we seem to be learning (or not) about promising outcomes, together with an overview of limitations to effectiveness.

Hobson

Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Child health, University College London

Certified RDI (Relationship Development Intervention) Consultant

Has published over 20 peer-reviewed papers on autism

will be giving an overview of the autism intervention Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) and talking about what has been learned so far from studies of families using RDI.

Afternoon workshops

There will be:

An opportunity to further explore the work of Mundy, Hobson and Tony Charman

Opportunities to view video footage of RDI in action and discuss how it works in practice

An opportunity to see how one school is using ‘guided participation’ to work on some of the core difficulties in autism, including rigid thinking, managing uncertainty and change, social interaction and understanding and managing emotions.

Cost: Parents £49; professionals £109

For a preview of RDI in action and to read about some of the theory behind the practice, visit http://notnigellanotjamie.blogspot.com

More on the school using guided participation: www.brightfuturesschool.co.uk

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