Session 3: Autism & Under-Resourced Communities: Opportunities for Change

Presenters: Aubyn Stahmer, PhD, and Vanessa Avila-Pons, LMFT

About the session:

This session highlighted the current understanding of the impact of poverty on autistic people. The webinar focused on access to diagnostic and intervention services for poor autistic people.

About the presenters:

Dr. Aubyn Stahmer, PhD is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, CA, USA. Aubyn received her Ph.D. under Dr. Laura Schreibman at University of California, San Diego and has spent her research career developing and testing interventions for young children with autism, developing integrated toddler day programs, testing improvements in public school classrooms that support children with ASD, and conducting dissemination and implementation studies of empirically supported treatments in community settings. She is a licensed psychologist and a board-certified behavior analyst with expertise in Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT), and Early Start Denver Model, and a wide range of other interventions as well. She is widely considered to be one of the most experienced intervention researchers in ASD, with a host of publications and a recently published text on use of PRT in public school settings with children with ASD.

Vanessa is the Treatment and Training Manager for the Collaborative Start Lab at the University of California, Davis MIND Institute. Vanessa has over 15 years of clinical experience working with children with autism and their families. Vanessa has worked at the MIND Institute since 2008, where she has delivered evidence-based treatments and lead treatment teams across several Autism Center for Excellence (ACE) grants. Vanessa is the Social Work faculty member for the Northern California LEND (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities) Program, where she helps build community partnerships and oversees community engagement for trainees. Vanessa also collaborates with trainees and faculty to learn about and engage in culturally and linguistically appropriate practices for children with NDDs, including children from historically underrepresented groups and their families. Vanessa is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and received her Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Latino Counseling from Santa Clara University. Vanessa is also a certified therapist, parent coach, and senior trainer of the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM).

Session 3 Materials PDF

Session 3 Slides

Recorded on July 8, 2021