Making Waves SPA National Conference 2016 Brochure

Featured Presenters

Tuesday 17 May

9.00am - 10.30am

TEU: Elizabeth Usher Memorial Lecture: Can we prevent disability in autism through infant interventions? Re-writing the rulebook Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is typically diagnosed between three and five years of age, which is when behavioural symptoms are able to be clearly identified without ambiguity. A major problem with this relatively ‘late’ age of diagnosis is that by the time a child has been identified as having ASD, many of the best opportunities to provide lasting change to the developing brain has already passed by. But what if we threw out the rulebook of rigid diagnoses, and created a new paradigm in which we identified infants as young as 12 months of age as being ‘at risk’ of ASD, and provided preventative therapy? Could this new paradigm prevent infants ‘at risk’ of ASD ever developing the disability usually associated with the condition? In this Elizabeth Usher Memorial Award Lecture, Andrew will present the world-wide research that is contributing to this new rule book, and discuss whether there is sufficient evidence for its adoption by the speech pathology profession. He will also outline the trials of ‘very early interventions’ (i.e., in the first year of life) conducted within his own research clinic. The aim of this lecture is to challenge the audience to rethink the current paradigm and to start an Australia-wide conversation about how we can tackle this problem as a united profession.

Winthrop Professor Andrew Whitehouse

Professor Andrew Whitehouse directs the Autism Research Team at the Telethon Kids Institute (The University of Western Australia), and is one of the youngest ever Professors at the University of Western Australia. His research team use a range of methodologies to investigate the early identification and intervention of children with ASD, including molecular genetics, neuroscience, endocrinology and behavioural experiments. Andrew has published over 100 peer-reviewed journals and attracted over $35 million in competitive research grants. He currently writes a popular column on child development for The West Australian and the news website The Conversation, which have attracted over 1 million hits since 2012. He is currently Associate Editor of the Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research , and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Autusm and Development Disorders . Andrew has published one edited book with his twin- brother (Ben), and a popular science book that examined the science behind some of the myths of pregnancy and child development ( Will Mozart Make My Baby Smart? ). Prior to coming to the Telethon Kids Institute, Andrew was a Fellow at the University of Oxford.

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www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au