Embracing Neurodiversity for Successful Transition to Adulthood

Description

Embracing Neurodiversity for Successful Transition to Adulthood

As the neurodiversity paradigm continues to gain momentum and autistic self-advocates provide a voice for their community, educational and training practices need to change. This presentation will explore individual nervous systems and learning styles and how these inform the way we prepare autistic individuals' for transition to  adulthood using a strengths-based approach.

About the Presenters:

Lindsay Thelin Wagner, MS, OTR/L is an occupational therapist who has been practicing in the field of autism for 16 years in school, clinical and home settings. She is currently the Director of Allied Health Services at the League School of Greater Boston. Since joining the League School in 2007, Lindsay has led the program’s implementation of the SCERTS® Model, an educational framework that engages the involvement of the multidisciplinary team to coordinate programming that targets the social, emotional and educational needs of each individual student. Lindsay holds a Master’s of Occupational Therapy degree from the University of Pittsburgh and is certified as an Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinical Specialist.

Amy Faraone graduated from Wheelock College in 1995 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Child Development and the Humanities. After initial careers working with medically fragile and criminally involved youth, Amy entered the special education field working as a direct care residential staff at Boston Higashi School in 1999, later moving to The Groden Center in Providence, RI, where she served as a clinical supervisor as well as the crisis intervention trainer and co-chair of the Institutional Review Board. In 2009, Amy received her graduate certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis from UMass Boston. Amy joined the League School in 2018 as the Coordinator of Vocational and Career Services where she works with students aged 12-22 years, helping them to acquire pre-vocational and vocational skills to work on campus, in the community at one of their 30 work sites, as well as in their home communities.