Bloomington, Ind. – The City of Bloomington Community and Family Resources
Department is sponsoring an autism program titled “Autism Speaks and We Listen,
Living with Autism: Diagnosis, Education and Treatment.” The program will be
held on Tuesday, April 1 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Council Chambers of City
Hall, 401 N. Morton St. The program is free of charge and open to the public.
Light refreshments will be served.
The event will include a panel
discussion with experts in the field of autism. Chief Executive Officer Susan Rinne
of LifeDesigns, Inc, an agency that provides services to people with
disabilities, will moderate the discussion. Speakers include Dr. Dan Kennedy,
Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego; Fritz
Kruggel, Director of Behavior Supports for Indiana Mentor; Kristie Brown
Lofland, Educational Consultant at the Indiana Resource Center for Autism at
the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community at Indiana University; Mari
Shawcroft, Coordinator of Behavior Support Services at Stone Belt; and
Adria Nassim, a person living with autism spectrum disorder who received a
degree in English from Brescia University, Owensboro, KY. The program will be
followed by a question and answer session.
About one out of every 88
children in the United States currently have autism and about 36,500 of every
four million children born each year in the United States will have autism.
More people than ever before are being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder,
but it is not clear why. Some of this increase could be due to a broader
definition of autism, better efforts in diagnosis or greater awareness of
symptoms. Research shows that some groups are at higher-than-normal risk for
the disorder. Data shows that boys are four to five times more likely than
girls to have it. Among families that have one child with autism, there is a 2%
to 8% chance that another sibling will as well.
Autism spectrum disorder commonly
occurs with other disorders, such as fragile x syndrome (an inherited condition
characterized by an X chromosome that is abnormally susceptible to damage) and
tuberous sclerosis (a genetic disorder that causes non-malignant tumors to form
in many different organs). Babies born extremely preterm and children of older
parents are at higher risk. More research is needed to better understand why
these factors increase autism.
For more information regarding
the program, please contact Health Projects Manager Nancy Woolery at 349.3851.
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