Washington, DC (May 27, 2010) -- Autism Speaks hosted a briefing with the Congressional Children's Health Care Caucus and the Congressional Autism Caucus on Autism: The Importance of Early Detection and Intervention. Experts in the field of autism intervention briefed congressional staffers about early identification and treatment, as well as current autism research.
Congresswoman Kathy Castor (FL-11), Chair of the Congressional Childrens Health Care Caucus, introduced the panel, which was moderated by Stuart Spielman, Senior Policy Advisor & Counsel for Autism Speaks. Dr. Paul Law, Director of the Department of Medical Informatics at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University, discussed his experience leading the Interactive Autism Network (IAN), a national autism database sponsored by Autism Speaks. IAN has helped connect families affected by autism with researchers to further the study and discovery of autism.
Also on the panel was Dr. Rebecca Landa, Director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders and of the REACH research program at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Landa explained her research into the causes, indicators, and treatments of autism and the amazing progress a child affected by autism can make when early intervention is implemented.
The CDC has called autism a national public health crisis for which we still need effective treatments administered early in a childs life. Treatments such as applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy, have proven to be very successful, helping kids on the spectrum lead a full and active life.