This year’s developmental disabilities conference will include five sets of workshops focusing on autism, genetics, early intervention, risk management, and special populations, as well as keynote presentations and a poster session/reception. Twenty-five different workshops will be offered, concentrating on topics such as assistive technology, effective and ineffective treatments, expanded screening in genetics, co-occurring medical conditions common to certain syndromes, and nutrition. The interactive reception and poster session provides attendees with the opportunity to speak directly with project partners.

Featuring In-Depth Sessions Focusing On:

• Autism Spectrum Disorders: Differential Diagnoses; Intervention; Recent Research; Co-occuring medical conditions
• Early Intervention: Screening and early identification; Cultural differences in parenting; Feeding challenges; Assistive technology
• Genetics: Pioneering tests for autism/MR & the “new autism gene;” The expanded genetic screening program
• Risk Management/Assessment in Community Settings: Using data to manage risk; Using multidisciplinary teams to reduce hospitalization rates; Best practices in mortality reviews
• Challenges with Special Populations: Cerebral Palsy – what works & what doesn’t; Differential diagnoses with environmental toxins; Fragile X Syndrome update; FASD; Managing epilepsy; Assisting persons with DD in the grieving process

Conference Goals

At the conclusion of this activity participants should be able to:

• Demonstrate an increased knowledge of the most recent developments and research in autism including best practices for diagnosis and treatment, research to practice consideration, co-occurring health conditions, and structural brain abnormalities
• Integrate new treatment models for persons with various developmental disability diagnosis across a range of clinical specialties such as orthopedics, neurology, and psychiatry
• Extrapolate challenges in treating certain populations with developmental disabilities including dual diagnoses, Fragile X, autism, epilepsy, medically fragile, families from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and international adoptions
• Incorporate new methods for delivery of health care and community oversight including telehealth and telepsychiatry, barriers to community medical care, and advances in training of residential care providers
• Consider new frontiers in medical genetics, including recent discoveries in diagnostics and the results of California’s expanded newborn screening program
• Use data in risk management models to reduce hospitalization rates, manage risk in community placements, and conduct mortality reviews
• Prescribe new approaches for infants and toddlers at risk including screening for speech delay, newborn hearing screening, mentoring parents, feeding issues, and supporting grieving parents