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www.awares.org/conferences Don't miss this unique opportunity next Tuesday (April 29, 2014) to put your questions directly to Dr Darold Treffert, who coined the term 'autistic savant' and was a chief advisor on the 1988 film 'Rain Man'. Register now at www.awares.org/conferences to read Dr Treffert's superbly illuminating paper right away and then join in the discussions all day on April 29. Dr Darold Treffert is the world's leading expert on the autistic savant syndrome. He has been studying savant syndrome since he met his first savant in 1962, when he developed a Children's Unit at a hospital in Wisconsin, USA. He maintains a very active web site on savant syndrome at www.savantsyndrome.com through the Wisconsin Medical Society and also maintains an world-wide savant registry. He has written two books on this remarkable condition: Extraordinary People: Understanding Savant Syndrome (1989, and revised edition 2006) and Islands of Genius: The Bountiful Mind of the Autistic, Acquired and Sudden Savant (2010). He has also written widely in the professional and popular press as well as participating in numerous documentaries on savant syndrome. He was a consultant to the 1988 movie Rain Man, in which Dustin Hoffman won an Oscar for his portrayal of an autistic savant. Dr Treffert has been a Clinical Professor at the University of Wisconsin Department of Psychiatry and has been a member of the Behavioral Health Department of St. Agnes Hospital in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin where he presently continues research on autistic disorder, his life-long interest. That interest was inspired by Dr Leo Kanner himself when a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, where Dr Treffert received both his Medical School and Psychiatric Residency training. For more information about this and all other Awares online conferences, please contact me at: adam@autismcymru.org Best wishes, Adam Feinstein

www.awares.org/conferences We are delighted to announce that the latest in our series of monthly one-day online autism conferences is with Anna Kennedy. Join us next Monday (March 17, 2014) to put your questions directly online to Anna, who is a leading British autism campaigner, lobbyist, author and mother of two children on the spectrum. Register right now in the Awares Conference Centre (www.awares.org/conferences) Teesside University Honorary Graduate Anna Kennedy OBE is the mother of two boys, Patrick and Angelo, who are both affected by autism. In 1999, having been turned away by no fewer than 26 special needs schools when searching for appropriate educational facilities for her sons, she decided to take matters into her own hands and remortgaged her home to transform a derelict council building in Middlesex, West London into Hillingdon Manor School. The school, which is now a centre of excellence for children and young adults with autism, has earned considerable recognition for its outstanding work and early in its life caught the imagination of Esther Rantzen who is now Hillingdon Manor's patron. In 2008, Anna co-authored her best-selling biography 'Not Stupid' which poignantly portrayed her struggle to find appropriate provision for her boys - a story which will be familiar to many parents who feel they could not get what they felt their children needed from the local education authority. Anna's story appeared as an hour long BBC 'pick of the day' Video Diary documentary and her story has been featured in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Times Educational Supplement, The Times, The Observer, The Guardian, The Daily Mirror and The Daily Mail. Anna is regularly invited to speak at conferences on the subject of autism and has also taken part in many high profile TV talk shows, debates and news programmes. Recently, Anna met with the Department of Health to share results of their charities survey on autism diagnosis. Anna will share these results and feedback at her presentation in April at the University. In 2008, she merged her school with Hillcrest Autism Services to gain access to greater resources to continue her work. Anna went on to win 'Woman of the Year' in 2009, an award run in conjunction with The Observer newspaper and during the same year was also the recipient of the coveted Institute of Directors (IOD) Chairman's special award for outstanding contribution to the community. Samantha Cameron named her the Daily Mail's most Inspirational Woman of the Year 2010 and most recently Tesco Mum of the Year 2013. In November 2013, Anna, who is from Middlesbrough, received an Honorary Doctor in Professional Achievement from the University. For further details about this and all other Awares online conferences - hosted by Autism Cymru, Wales's pioneering national charity for autism and run by myself, Adam Feinstein - please contact me at: adam@autismcymru.org Best wishes, Adam Feinstein

www.awares.org/conferences Dr Judith Gould - colleague of Dr Lorna Wing - is online today and tomorrow (January 9 and 10) to answer all your autism-related questions. This is a free event. Please register right now at www.awares.org/conferences Best wishes, Adam Feinstein

www.awares.org/conferences Just to let you know about Autism2013, which is now open at www.awares.org/conferences and will run from December 2 until midnight (UK time) on Friday, December 6, 2013, twenty-four hours a day. Please take advantage of this unprecedented chance to put your questions directly to many of the world's leading autism authorities - as well as individuals on the autism spectrum - and to read their papers. This is the ninth, week-long international online autism conference to be held within the AWARES conference centre. The conference is run, as every year, by myself - Adam Feinstein, Editor of Awares - and hosted by Autism Cymru, Wales' pioneering National Charity for Autism. The outstanding speaker list includes: Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Donna Williams, Dr Wendy Lawson, Dr Darold Treffert and Dr Manuel Casanova. Please let your friends, colleagues and networks know about this exciting event, which Professor Simon Baron-Cohen has called 'the finest online conference on the planet'. Best wishes, Adam Feinstein

www.awares.org/conferences I am thrilled to announce that Donna Williams - one of the world's most celebrated women on the autism spectrum - will be online all day on Friday, September 20, 2013 to answer your questions. Her thought-provoking paper on 'Autism and dissociative processes' is available to read right now at www.awares.org/conferences as soon as you register on the conference site. You can also, of course, exchange views with one another in the forum before Donna logs on. The online conference is open to everyone, so please do let your friends, colleagues and networks know about this exciting event, which is part of a series of prestigious monthly online conferences run by Autism Cymru, Wales' pioneering national charity for autism. Born in Australia in 1963, Donna Williams was eventually diagnosed as autistic in her twenties. A year after her diagnosis, her international bestseller, Nobody Nowhere, was published which she followed over the years with three sequels, Somebody Somewhere, Like Colour To The Blind and Everyday Heaven. She went on to become an international public speaker and to write four textbooks: Autism: An Inside-Out Approach, Autism and Sensing: The Unlost Instinct, Exposure Anxiety; The Invisible Cage and The Jumbled Jigsaw as well as having a book of poetry and prose published in 2004 called Not Just Anything. She is also an accomplished sculptor, painter and composer and runs her own website www.donnawilliams.net. Together with her husband, Chris Samuel, she helped create the world's first international on-line self-employment facility for people on the autistic spectrum at www.auties.org For further information about this and all other Awares online autism conferences, please contact me at: adam@autismcymru.org Best wishes, Adam Feinstein

www.awares.org/conferences We are delighted to announce that the latest presenter in the series of monthly one-day online autism conferences on the Awares Conference Centre, run by Autism Cymru - Wales's pioneering national charity for autism - is Dr Connie Kasari. Connie's brilliant paper on education is available to read here right now once you register at www.awares.org/conferences and she herself will be online all day on Tuesday, July 23, 2013. Please feel free to put all your autism-related questions directly to Connie in the discussion forum on the site on July 23. You can also, of course, exchange views with one another in the forum before Connie logs on. I very much hope you enjoy the event! Simply click on the Discussion button and take advantage of this unique chance to connect directly with one of the great world authorities on educating children with autism. This online conference is open to everyone. Dr Connie Kasari is Professor in the Human Development and Psychology programme in UCLA's School of Education as well as Professor in the Division of Child Psychiatry. She has supervised the doctoral training of nearly 40 PhD students and the research of 15 post-doctoral fellows. Dr Kasari's research has focused on social and communicative development in typical and atypical children. She has many funded research projects involving the development of novel interventions for children with autism primarily using randomized controlled clinical trial designs. Her work is increasingly centred in school settings with a focus on under-served, under-represented, and under-resourced populations of children with autism. Prior to her appointment in Education, she was a post-doctoral fellow with Dr Marian Sigman, collaborating on a number of research studies on autism and Down syndrome. Dr Kasari received her doctorate in education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1985. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in child development at UCLA prior to joining the UCLA faculty in 1990. For more information about this and all other Awares online conferences, please contact myself at: adam@autismcymru.org Best wishes, Adam Feinstein

www.awares.org/conferences Liane Holliday Willey has just come online at www.awares.org/conferences to answer your autism-related questions and will stay online for the rest of today (Monday, May 20, 2013). Please register right now at www.awares.org/conferences to read Liane's paper immediately and to join in the discussion forum. This online conference is open to everyone, so please let your friends, colleagues and networks know about this exciting event. Dr Liane Holliday Willey, Ed.D. (www.aspie.com) is an inspirational speaker who helps her audience truly understand the importance of accepting people with differences. All her life, Liane knew she was different, but only after one of her family members was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome did Liane realise the reason behind her own differences; she too was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. Liane spends much of her time working with horses at the equestrian facility she owns. Dr Willey has authored several internationally best-selling books all published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers, including Pretending to be Normal: Living with Asperger Syndrome (foreword by Tony Attwood), Asperger Syndrome in Adolescence: Living with the Ups, the Downs, and Things in Between, and Asperger Syndrome in the Family: Redefining Normal and Safety Skills for Asperger Women: How to Save a Perfectly Good Female Life. Liane has contributed to many additional books and journals, and is currently the senior editor for Autism Spectrum Quarterly. In addition to her numerous interviews on national and international television and radio, Liane's life story was an inspiration for the film Normal Folk, currently in pre-production, and the feature film, Adam, as well as the focus of the video Asperger Syndrome: Crossing the Bridge with Dr Tony Attwood. Liane believes the Asperger's syndrome community is a wonderfully rich world that is populated by some of the most interesting and incredible individuals on the planet and she is exceptionally proud to be a part of it.

www.awares.org/conferences Put your autism-related questions directly to Dr Olga Bogdashina on March 27, 2013. And register right now at www.awares.org/conferences to read Olga's brilliant new paper on sensory issues. Olga Bogdashina MA Education (Autism), PhD (Linguistics) has worked extensively in the field of autism, as teacher, lecturer and researcher with particular interests in sensory perception, cognitive functioning, communication and language development in autism. Since 1994, she has been the Director of the first Day Centre for autistic children in Ukraine and the President of the Ukrainian Autism Society. She is Co-founder and Programme Leader and Lecturer at the International Autism Institute, KSPU. She has worked extensively in the field of autism as a teacher, lecturer and researcher. She is a visiting lecturer at universities in Europe, presents at national and international autism conferences and is an Autism Consultant for services for children and adults. Olga has written five books in English (some translated into nine languages), and two in Russian. Olga has an adult son (25) with autism and a daughter (22) with Asperger syndrome. We are delighted to welcome Olga on March 27 as the latest presenter in the series of monthly online autism conferences here at the Awares Conference Centre, run by Autism Cymru - Wales's pioneering national charity for autism. Register right now at www.awares.org/conferences and read Olga's paper right now. She herself will be online all day from 9am (UK time) on March 27 to answer your questions. Best wishes, Adam Feinstein

www.awares.org/conferences Just a reminder that Charlotte Moore will be online later today (Wednesday, February 27, 2013) to answer your autism-related questions. Charlotte is the author of 'George And Sam', her acclaimed account of life with her autistic sons. She has also published four novels, four historical books for children and 'Hancox - A House And A Family', a social history based on a family archive. She is a freelance journalist and has written widely about autism, and has spoken on the subject at many meetings and conferences. She lives in East Sussex with her three sons. An updated edition of 'George And Sam' - including her 'Mind The Gap' columns originally written for The Guardian - is available in Penguin paperback. Register right now for this one-day conference at www.awares.org/conferences Charlotte's paper is on the conference site right now and she herself will be available to answer your questions all day from 9am (UK time) today. This conference is open to everyone, so please let your friends, colleagues and networks know about the event. This is the latest in the exciting series of one-day online autism conferences run by Autism Cymru, Wales's pioneering national charity for autism. Best wishes, Adam Feinstein