Wednesday, December 1, 2010 - 8:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Early Signs of Autism Spectrum Disorder: Infants and Toddlers
In this timely presentation, Dr. Landa will present information that is needed to detect autism spectrum disorders early in life. She will describe signs of developmental disruption in infants and toddlers, and patterns related to the onset of autism. Video examples will be provided on social, communication, and behavioral characteristics of very early signs of autism.
Workshop Objectives At the end of this activity, the learner will be able to:
• Recognize the need for early detection of autism.
• Define two different onset patterns of autism.
• Articulate four red flags for autism in very young children.
Presenter: Rebecca Landa, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is Director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders and the REACH research program at Kennedy Krieger Institute, and Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Landa worked extensively as a speech-language pathologist before joining the Hopkins faculty in 1989. She has consulted and presented internationally on both clinical and research issues. Her research has focused on neuropsychological and communication processes in autism across the lifespan. Dr. Land is the principal investigator of an NIH STAART center, and the author of the Pragmatic Rating Scale and the Brief Communication Battery, which are used internationally in research and clinical programs. Her current research focus is on learning processes in autism, as well as early detection of and intervention for autism spectrum disorders.
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Wednesday, December 1, 2010 - 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Ethical and Legal Issues with Children and Adolescents in Schools and Clinical Settings
This essential workshop will address ethical issues commonly encountered in the practice of clinical and school psychology. Topics to be covered include: age of consent to treatment; mandated reporting of child abuse; confidentiality and informed consent; record keeping; culturally sensitive services to diverse clientele; and individual and group assessment. Participants are invited to discuss ethical dilemmas from their own experience.
Workshop Objectives
At the end of this activity, the learner will be able to:
•Distinguish and apply consent to treatment, confidentiality, and release of information according to Act 147.
•Apply risk management strategies for handling questions that arise in treating childreand adolescents.
•Anticipate and resolve ethical challenges in the schools.
Presenter: Linda K. Knauss, Ph.D., ABPP is an associate professor and Director of Internship Training at Widener University. She has served as a member of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association's Ethics Committee and Co-chair of the Philadelphia Society of Clinical Psychologists' Ethics Committee. Dr. Knauss has authored book chapters and journal articles on ethics, and has taught many workshops on a variety of ethical issues. She is the past president of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Pennsylvania Psychological Foundation, and the Philadelphia Society of Clinical Psychologists. Dr. Knauss is the recipient of the 2002 Ethics Educators Award presented by the Pennsylvania Psychological Association's Ethics Committee, and the recipient of the 2004 Pennsylvania Psychological Association Distinguished Service Award. In addition to her work at Widener University, Dr. Knauss maintains a private clinical practice where she sees children, adolescents, adults, and families.
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2 comments:
Two great workshops today! I attended both, so I also got the lunch (which wasn’t bad either). I haven’t “Blogged” on two workshops on the same day before. I will make remarks on both workshops below. Please respond to either or both that you attended. If you are just in the cyber neighborhood visiting the FCP website, and did not attend either workshop, your thoughts are still appreciated.
Morning Workshop
As noted in the earlier pre-grant “Blog”, Dr. Rebecca Landa’s expertise on her topic “Early Signs of Autism Spectrum Disorders: Infants and Toddlers” is impeccable. I expected a lot from her presentation, and I got a lot. While there has been muchf talk about early diagnosis of ASD, down to six months of age, few talkers have done the extensive research to back it up. Dr. Landa has been studying and videotaping siblings of children with ASD for many years, and following them through their development. The video examples of infant and toddler typical development and development leading to ASD diagnosis were worth the price of admission to this morning’s workshop. She showed several video clips of the same children over many years. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these videos are worth a million. As a bonus, we also got her words, along with the videos!
I have a few thoughts about Dr. Landa’s presentation. The first half of the workshop was the research supporting the early signs of ASD in infants and toddlers. Her presentation focused on intervals at 6 months, 14 months and 18-24 months. It was refreshing to hear that ASD indicators at 6 months are not supported by the research, despite the popular literature. By 14 months, there are still false indicators for an ASD diagnosis, and by 24 months a trend may emerge but a diagnosis is still not 100%. This is important because ASD shares many symptoms with other disorders which may be overlooked if the practitioner jumps to an ASD diagnosis too soon.
The second half of Dr. Landa’s workshop was focused on early intervention. I was surprised (and happy) that she differentiated between “diagnosis” and “detection” of ASD. In short and paraphrased, it doesn’t matter if the toddler has ASD or other developmental problem. If an abnormal developmental pattern is detected early in infants and toddlers, especially in social engagement, attention, communication, and play, then early intervention can help. Dr. Landa said that treatment aspects from Greenspan’s “Floortime” techniques, used for toddlers, and modified “Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA)” techniques are both useful in her clinic. She has the research to prove it. Her EI discussion also focused on helping parents overcome emotional barriers and participate as co-helpers.
Most inspiring from this morning’s workshop, were Dr. Landa’s comments in response to a question regarding the future for children with ASD. Dr. Landa was passionately optimistic that, with early detection and treatment, many of these children have special gifts that will allow them to live happy lives, engage in loving and meaningful relationships, and offer incredible contributions to the world.
(PS: I don’t know about you, but I was mentally diagnosing my granddaughter and other infant/toddler relatives for signs of ASD, during Dr. Landa’s talk this morning.)
Afternoon Workshop
Having known Dr. Linda Knauss for many years, and privileged to work with her on the Board of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association, I expected nothing less than her wonderful workshop this afternoon on “Ethical and Legal Issues with Children and Adolescents in Schools and Clinical Settings”. Of course, everyone knows that three hour talks on ethics and legal issues are supposed to be boring. Wrong! Dr. Knauss’s workshop went by very quickly. The audience was attentive, and the people around me made occasional, very positive comments. Despite the serious nature of this topic, Dr. Knauss was sufficiently humorous to maintain attention for the three hour time limit. In fact, she had to point out the end of the time for her talk because of the sustained interest. Typically, attendees become restless and begin to leave at the end of a workshop. Very few participants left early. She also stayed well after the workshop to answer individual questions. Where was she during my graduate school ethics classes?
The problem with commenting on a legal and ethics workshop is that every word is profound. It was no different today. Dr. Knauss is obviously an expert in this area. Her presentation was very clear, despite the ambiguity of the topic. She presented the Pennsylvania law and ethical obligations, and updates, for mental health professionals and school personnel across all settings for consent to treatment, record access and retention, privacy, informed consent and confidentiality. Questions from participants were relevant and limited to the time allotted during the workshop. I use this as an indicator of participant satisfaction, since an unsatisfied audience typically interrupts the flow, and asks multiple irrelevant questions during the presentation. It was clear that Dr. Knauss anticipated most questions and answering them during her presentation. It was a satisfying workshop.
I don’t know about you, but the “Grossman” decision is still distressing for me (Dr. Knauss suggested that other words may replace “distressing” in the mind of the mental health professional). The ”Grossman” decision was the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determination that both parents must approve outpatient mental health assessment or treatment of a child under 14, if divorced parents have joint custody (paraphrased). In other words, regardless of the treatment need (unless of emergency), a disgruntled parent, angry with the former spouse, may block outpatient assessment or treatment to the child. Grrrr!
Throughout her workshop, Dr. Knauss encouraged mental health professionals to know the law, know the ethical obligations, reduce risk by applying good clinical judgment when the law is not clear and document all communications and the decision making process. She said that there is always some risk. Dr. Knauss quoted Dr. Sam Knapp, Professional Affairs Officer of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association: “Be prudent but not paranoid.” in risk management.
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