Asia Pacific Autism Conference: Adelaide 2013

ASD parents, caregivers and friends. If you can, please do yourself a favor and try to get to this event. It's expensive and for a lot it will mean travel, but in my opinion it is absolutely worth it. The knowledge you will gain about ASD, research projects, new findings, future options and much more will be worth every cent.

I went to last years even in Perth and I was totally amazing by what I learned, and what is happening out there in the world of ASD research. The keynote speakers were so inspiring and I learned more than I ever thought possible.

It's a year away. If you're interested, save the page to your favorites and sign up for the emails as they come along. Hopefully I'll get to meet a lot of you there

Can you summarise what you took from the last one?

Can you summarise what you took from the last one?

Kind of, yes. No. Maybe. It's really hard to summarise in a way that makes it appealing to everyone, because I only saw the speakers that I was interested in. On each of the three days there are 42 speakers. Some are professors (actually most are) who are delivering the latest findings into what is happening in the world of ASD research. Some are professionals who talk about specific subjects. Some relating to HFA, LFA, AS, some are parents, teachers, and even people with ASD themselves. I'll add a few of the speakers and subjects to give you an idea. I can't add them all, there's well over a hundred.

Professor Patricia Howlin: 40 years on, what happens to adults with autism in middle age

Professor Catherine Lord: Longitudinal studies of ASD 2 to 22

Professor David Amaral: Dealing with heterogeneity of ASD. The Autism Phenome Project

Theo Peters (Belgium): Autism. Qualitative differences, vulnerability and Ethical consiquence

Hilde DeClercq (Belgium): The pervasiveness of Autism thinking in every aspect of daily life

Professor Tony Attwood: The cognitive profile of children who have Aspergers Syndrome and the effects of the profile on daily living and the educational curriculum.

Professor Gary Mesibov: Priority areas in teaching people with ASD

Professor Torbjorn Falkmer: Visual perceptual abilities in ASD across the lifespan. To build upon or compensate for?

Tasha Alach: Key success factors in early intervention

Jenny BOurke: Autism and INtellectual disability are differently related to socio demographic background at birth

Dr Ann Ozsivadjian: Adopting cognitive behavior therapy for mental health problems in ASD

Sue Wolfenden: A systemativ review of the diagnostic stability of autism spectrum disorder

An Ven Der Sijge: Autism and Personality

Vicky Gibbs: A comparison of diagnostic outcomes using DSM IV versus the proposed DSMV criteria

Alyssa Sawyer: Meta cognitive processes in emotion recognition. Are they different for adults with Asperger's syndrome?

Belinda Minett: The use of pharmacology in peopel with autism spectrum disorder

That is just a very small snippet, not even half a days worth, and there are three days of speakers. I think the main thing I got from it, apart from all the knowledge from the speakers I chose to see, was that the world of autism research and early intervention is extremely vast. It's nothing at all like what we think. We're a the mercy of the media and what we can find on Google, which is nothing compared to what is really out there.

The research findings coming through these days are really amazing. Some are very broad and some are minute details. Causes of autism versus which direction children with ASD are most likely to look when a person is in front of them. Very interesting stuff.

Of course, I only saw the speakers I wanted to see so there was a lot of information given on other subjects. Still, the ones I saw gave me the information I needed. I was able to share a lot and take notes from others who saw other speakers. I attended with some of the professors from DS' learning centre.

As I mentioned, it's expensive, but it was absolutely worth every cent. If people share accommodation costs it makes it less expensive of course.

I'm happy to write up some more of the speakers and subject matter if anyone is interested.

'even with people with ASD themselves?'

Probably the presenters I have enjoyed the most over the years at conferences like this have been the people with ASD. I'm planning on going to Adelaide and I really want to see John Elder Robison and Ari Ne'eman.

I find all the academic stuff to be pretty repetitive and usually people are presenting what they have said elsewhere in books or online.

I find all the academic stuff to be pretty repetitive and usually people are presenting what they have said elsewhere in books or online.


Sorry cant quote. ^^ definitely not the case at APAC. David Amarals findings were only released to the media the day after they were presented at APAC. Een ten the media only reported a snippet of tevwhole findings. Its not a typical seminar which is usually aimed solely at parents and caregivers. Its moreso aimed at researchers and academics, but as anparent it's still very interesting. A large number of the speakers are published in psychology journals but they're not all published authors of parenting books. Exceptions like Tony Atwood of course.

It's hard to explain, but it's information you're probably not going to get anywhere else. When I see parents discussing ASD, causes, treatments, programs etc here on EB it makes me realise how muh information we don't have access too.

Errrrrrrrrrr, I've been to APAC. I don't usually make statements about conferences I have not been to because that would be rather daft of me .

I stand by what I said about my experiences. Sure there will be new findings presented at a major international conference like APAC but not all the presenters are doing that.

LOL of course they're not. But with around 42 presenters each day, plenty of them are. Perhaps you didn't see the right ones?