Mind/Brain/Behavior Junior Symposium:
Autism
Sunday, September 14,2008
Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall
8:30 am to 2:30 pm
The MBB junior symposium is an all-day meeting that features talks by and discussions with a variety of scholars on an interdisciplinary theme in mind/brain/behavior. The symposium will include speaker presentations, a lunch with speakers and MBB faculty, discussion groups, and closing panel. It is open to MBB juniors and those MBB seniors who did not attend the 2007 symposium. It is required of students pursuing the Certificate in MBB (students in honors MBB tracks) and is also open to students pursuing or considering a secondary field in MBB.
Eligible students, please register at the bottom of the page by August 29th.
This event is not open to the public.
SYMPOSIUM THEME STATEMENT:
In our daily lives, we constantly draw on our capacities to interpret other people, drawing on immense resources of social cognition. We use our abilities to interpret others when we understand spoken language, watch someone pay their bus fare, or follow someone’s gaze to figure out what they are looking at. In autism, some of these resources break down, leaving patients with limited understanding of the mental world. Autists have difficulty interpreting the intentions, beliefs, feelings and sentiments of other people. Strikingly, at the level of concepts, the deficits in autism seem circumscribed: though mental concepts are missing, there don’t seem to be other concepts that are reliably missing. What is the nature of the deficits involved in autism? By studying these deficits, what can we learn bout the cognitive structure and neural basis of social cognition? What sorts of treatments of autism are available? In this symposium, we will discuss autism from clinical, genetic, behavioral, and cognitive perspectives.
SPEAKERS:
- Ellen Hanson, PhD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Lead Researcher, Phenotyping Core, Developmental Medicine Center
Director, DMC undergraduate student training program
Autism Spectrum Disorders: Description, Clinical Assessment, Treatment and OutcomesThis presentation will focus on an introduction to the different Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) using diagnostic criteria, video clips and descriptions from clinical experience. From there, students will be exposed to the different methods which are used to assess children who come in with a question of ASD in a clinical or research setting as well as questions of incidence and prevalence of the disorder. Clips of researchers interviewing parents and children will be shown. Diagnostic differential will be briefly discussed. Treatment options and research support for these interventions will be reviewed. Finally, research on outcomes for individuals with ASD will be presented.
- Suggested prereading:
- CDC Autism Info Center
- An Autism Overview
- Prevalence Information
- Early Intervention Information
Dr. Ellen Hanson is a Developmental Psychologist, Behavioral Specialist and Researcher. She is an expert in diagnosis and treatment of children who have significant developmental disabilities. Within this area, she also has a specific interest in children with autism spectrum disorder, with whom she was worked with for over 20 years. She also works with adopted children who are experiencing developmental and behavioral issues. Dr. Hanson travels nationally and internationally to train professionals in clinical, research and educational settings on the use of phenotyping measures, developmental assessment tools and behavioral interventions for clinical and research use with children. Dr. Hanson has developed and run numerous clinical and research programs at CH including a genotype-phenotype study of autism; social skills enhancement programs and educational programs for parents on behavioral interventions for children. Additionally, she has developed an undergraduate training program at CH for undergraduate students who are interested in pursuing careers as future specialists in developmental disability. Dr. Hanson is involved in numerous research projects which involve the differential diagnosis of autism and outcome of treatment interventions; the genetic basis of autism; behavioral difficulties occurring in children with autism; and executive function/attention in children with autism.
- Christopher Walsh
Bullard Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Developmental Disorders and the Genetics of Familial Autism- Suggested prereading:
- Study implicates several genes involved in helping the brain learn from experience
- Identifying Autism Loci and Genes by Tracing Recent Shared Ancestry
A complete bio of Dr. Walsh can be found here.
ORGANIZERS:
- Albert Galaburda
Emily Fisher Landau Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
- Edward Kravitz
George Packer Berry Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School
- Susanna Siegel
Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University
- Robert Stickgold
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE:
| 8:30 am | Registration |
| 8:45 | Welcome and Introduction by Susanna Siegel |
| 9:00 | Ellen Hanson Autism Spectrum Disorders: Description, Clinical Assessment, Treatment and Outcomes |
| 10:00 | Christopher Walsh Developmental Disorders and the Genetics of Familial Autism |
| 11:00 | Discussion Groups |
| 12:00 pm | Lunch in Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall |
| 1:30 | Closing Panel |