Autreat is an annual conference of aspies/autistics.
Here is Autreat 2009 presentation descriptions and schedule:
TUESDAY, JUNE 30
AM 1:
The History of Autism: How We Got to Where We Are Now and Where We Are
Going From Here.
Zosia Zaks, M.S., M.Ed.
The definition of autism has changed radically in the past 20 years.
Until recently, autism was considered a tragic, rare disease that
destroyed a child's life. Today, autistics as well as some
non-autistic allies have gained a voice and challenged this notion.
How did such a complete shift in thinking occur so rapidly? What are
the implications for autistic children and adults? This workshop will
provide an overview of the history of autism, allowing the community
to better place today's debates and decisions in context.
Zosia Zaks is an autistic adult and the parent of an autistic child.
Zosia, author of Life and Love: Positive Strategies for Autistic
Adults, speaks nationally and writes extensively on issues of
importance to the autism community. Additionally, Zosia conducts
research, informs policy, and teaches disabled youth and adults
community living skills from a self-advocacy perspective.
AM 2:
The IACC Chronicles: Experiences at Interagency Autism Coordinating Meetings
Paula C. Durbin-Westby
The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee is mandated by Public
Law 109-416, also known as the "Combating Autism Act." The Committee
is headed by the director in NIMH and includes both Federal and public
members. This presentation discusses how the IACC is structured and
some of the tasks mandated by law. Various methods for collecting
information, such as RFIs (Requests for Information), written and oral
comments, will be discussed. In my written and spoken commentary to
the Committee, I have stressed focusing on research that will have
practical outcomes for autistics, often using the text of the law to
make my points.
Paula C. Durbin-Westby is an autistic and disability rights activist.
She has presented comments at the Interagency Autism Coordinating
Committee both as a representative of the Autistic Self Advocacy
Network and as a concerned autistic citizen and taxpayer. She is an
autistic community member of AASPIRE, the Academic Autistic Spectrum
Partnership in Research and Education.
PM:
Healthy vs. Abusive Relationships
Katie Miller
Learn key points to recognizing the difference between healthy and
abusive relationships. The topic is not limited to couples – healthy
or abusive relationship dynamics can occur in all interpersonal
relationships including family, friends and co-workers. Become aware
of the various forms and disguises that abuse takes and know what to
do if you or someone you love is a victim. Learn how to recognize a
true friend and learn how to be a healthy social partner in all your
interactions.
Katie is a twenty-five year old woman on the autism spectrum. Since
being diagnosed 3 years ago, she has become active in the autistic
rights movement and loves participating in autistic culture. Katie is
a professional artist. Her website is www.artistkatiemiller.com
WEDNESDAY, JULY 1
AM1:
Coming Out: Informing people about your diagnosis
Winnefred Ann Frolik
At some point we all have situations where we need to inform the new
people we meet; be they potential roommates, acquaintances,
co-workers, employers, etc. about being on the Autistic spectrum and
what that means. I'm here to talk about some suggestions and
techniques for when that moment arrives that we may better communicate
the truth about ourselves to NTs.
Winnefred Frolik was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in college and after
graduation immediately began working in the non-profit sector. She is proud
to be serving her third year with the Americorps program, and is currently
the staff writer for the Jewish Foundation for Group Homes, an organization
that provides independent living for adults with developmental
disabilities. She has a dual major in Creative Writing and English
Literature from the University of Pittsburgh, and is presently in the stages
of completing a book on women in the U.S. Senate. For the last couple of
years she's been involved in lobbying efforts for the autistic community, as
well as educating Americorps personnel about autism and disability issues.
She currently lives alone in a studio apartment with Ebony, her much beloved
Tortoiseshell kitty she adopted from a shelter.
AM2:
Emerging Autism Research and Its Impact on the Autistic and Allied
Community: Reflections and Impacts
Scott Michael Robertson
Penn State University, Ph.D. Candidate in Information Sciences and Technology
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Vice President
This presentation will share a discussion of emerging autism research
and its impact on the autistic and allied community. The presentation
will include four sections: a) an overview of major changes in autism
research and funding, b) a discussion of emerging applied research in
autism, c) a discussion of updates to community-based participatory
research with autistic people, and d) a discussion of emerging autism
research in the areas of diagnosis, neurology, physiology, and
genetics that will impact the autistic and allied community. The
presenter will offer an in-depth discussion and commentary throughout
the presentation about recent research studies and their impact, as
well as shifts in research funding and the growth of applied research
centers on autism and organizations, such as the new scientific think
tank for research on autistic adults. The presentation will also
incorporate some related research from the broader neurological and
developmental disability community.
Scott Michael Robertson is an autistic adult and a Ph.D. Candidate in
the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State
University (main campus). His research there involves disability
studies and human-computer interaction/computer-supported
collaborative work (CSCW). Scott serves as the vice president of the
Autistic Self Advocacy Network and as a member of the Advisory Board
of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare's Bureau of Autism
Services. He has given many presentations on autism and disabilities
at conferences, schools, and organizations, including 9 keynotes.
PM:
Acknowledging autistic adulthood: Parent transition planning
Jim Sinclair
There is a lot of information available for parents, about planning
for their autistic children's transition to adult living. But as
children become adolescents and then adults, their parents also go
through transitions: from being caregivers of helpless infants, to
being guides and supervisors of children who are beginning to explore
their own worlds, to--hopefully--being respectful supporters and
allies of self-directing adults. This workshop will address the
information and skills and supports that parents need, in order to
make their own successful transition from being parents of children to
being parents of adults. If you're a parent facing your child's
transition to adulthood, or if you're an adult or soon-to-be adult
whose parent needs support in learning to be the parent of an adult,
this workshop is for you.
Jim Sinclair has a B.A. in psychology, M.S. in counseling, and
postgraduate education in developmental and child psychology. Jim is a
Certified Rehabilitation Counselor who has worked professionally with
autistic children, adolescents, and adults, and has provided training
seminars for teachers and therapists of autistic children. As an
autistic adult, Jim has extensive experience in autistic
self-advocacy, having pioneered the use of service dogs for autistic
people in the late 1980s; co-founded Autism Network International in
1992 and been its coordinator since that time; and coordinated
Autreat, the first annual gathering of its kind designed by and for
autistic people, since 1996. Jim's writings have been widely reprinted
and translated into many languages. Jim is a popular and dynamic
speaker at autism conferences nationally and internationally.
THURSDAY, JULY 2
AM1:
Searching for Autistic Mentors: What is Needed for Our Autistic Children.
Barbara Stern Delsack, MSPA/CCC
Assistive Technology Consultant
There exists a wide gap between autistic children and their
neurotypical families and the autistic adult communities.This
presentation will share with the participants a proposed mentoring
program with a unique differences from a more neurotypical mentoring
program in the receptive and expressive communication components and
milieu for interactions. It is the hope of this presenter that Autreat
participants will help "blaze a trail" on the Ethernet that begins a
program offering a mentor to each and every autistic child and a
support to their family.
Barbara Stern Delsack, MSPA/CCC, is a Speech-Language Pathologist and
Assistive Technology Specialist with Montgomery County Public
Schools,Maryland, on the InterACT Team. Mrs. Delsack has worked in the
area of Autism for the past 22 years. In addition, she is an Adjunct
Professor at Montgomery College and at The George Washington
University. Mrs. Delsack serves on the Board of Directors Autism
National Committee (AUTCOM).
AM2:
Reducing and Avoiding Self-Injury: What I've Learned from Other Autistic
People
A M Baggs
Whether the reasons are from inside or outside ourselves, many autistic people
self-injure and want to stop or at least reduce this. This workshop aims to
teach a large number of strategies for dealing with this, and show how to
adapt them to a wide variety of individual strengths and weaknesses. The
presenter learned far more of these strategies within a few years of meeting
and talking to other autistic people, than she learned in a childhood and
adolescence spent in several forms of therapy that tried to address this
problem among others. The strategies discussed in the workshop will be drawn
from the concrete experiences of lots of other autistic people, rather than
from an established and packaged form of therapy or theory about autism.
Autistic people who want to stop self-injury are the main audience, but other
autistic people as well as family, professionals, and friends, could also
learn a lot.
Amanda is an autistic person who has experienced self-injury most of her life,
and who has been in a number of different sorts of therapy. However, she did
not learn even a little bit of how to stop herself from doing these things,
until she encountered and learned from other autistic people. Applying those
ideas over the course of a few years, as well as figuring out many of her
own, she went from severe self-injury to infrequent self-injury. She also
stopped doing a lot of other impulsive things she hadn't wanted to do. She
wants to pass these strategies on to other people who might not have
encountered autistic-friendly ideas on how to stop self-injuring.
PM:
Tensions Within the Disability Community
Ari Ne'eman
President
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network
The autism community is familiar with conflicts between the parent and
self-advocate community, most notably on issues such as causation,
cure and the ethics of "autism treatment". However, the disability
community at large has far broader controversies that are relevant to
the autism and autistic communities as well. This presentation will
discuss issues of controversy in the cross-disability community. Among
the issues to be discussed include the divide between the physical and
mental disability world, controversies between separatist and
assimilation-oriented visions of the future of disability rights and
various inter-community rivalries, such as that between the National
Federation for the Blind and the American Council of the Blind,
between the oralist and the signing deaf community and between the
various camps in the mental health consumer movement. A presentation
of controversies of similar importance in the provider and family
stakeholder groups will also be discussed. Consideration will be given
in each instance to how this situation affects the autism and autistic
communities and how it can be analogized.
Ari Ne'eman is the Founding President of the Autistic Self Advocacy
Network, a non-profit organization of adults and youth on the autism
spectrum. He is currently studying Political Science and at the
University of Maryland-Baltimore County as a Sondheim Scholar of
Public Affairs. Ari is an Asperger's autistic and has been active in
the autistic culture, neurodiversity and disability rights movements.
He first became involved in self-advocacy as a high school student,
arguing for his own inclusion and access to high level academic
coursework. He later became involved in disability and education
policy advocacy. He recently served as the Patricia Morrissey
Disability Policy Fellow at the Institute for Educational Leadership.
Ari is on the board of TASH and the Autism National Committee and is
currently the Vice Chair of the New Jersey Adults with Autism Task
Force. Ari served as the Policy Workgroup Leader for the Youth
Advisory Council to the National Council on Disability, the Public
Policy Chair for the New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education and
a member of the Steering Committee of the New Jersey Olmstead
Implementation and Planning Advisory Council advising the NJ
Department of Human Services on de-institutionalizing adults with
developmental disabilities in the wake of the landmark Olmstead v.
L.C. Supreme Court case. Amongst other things, his advocacy work has
included coordinating the campaign to stop the NYU Child Study
Center’s Ransom Notes ad campaign, achieving representation for
autistic self-advocates in numerous state policymaking bodies and
arranging for the inclusion of Augmentative and Assistive
Communication (AAC) technology in the insurance mandate component of
the Autism Treatment Acceleration Act. In his capacity as President of
the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, he organizes social/support
networks for youth and adults on the autism spectrum, promotes
self-advocate involvement in the policymaking process and regularly
presents and advises on issues relating to the autism spectrum,
disability policy, special education and the neurodiversity movement.
FRIDAY, JULY 3
AM1:
"Ask an NT" Panel
Panelists TBA
15 Apr 2009, 10:40 am
