This year, I am launching a “Multidisciplinary Salon.” I came up with the idea when a friend, who lives in Berkeley, CA, told me about a friend who had very interesting discussions with others in his field over dinner. I thought it was a brilliant idea. I just couldn’t quite figure out how to accomplish the same thing here in Cambridge. Questions arose like, should it be just speech pathologist or related professionals? What night? What would we talk about? How would I get people to come. I decided that related professionals would work toward my idea of a collaborative approach which is key in treating and understanding the whole person. No one is just the sum of their parts and certainly this applies to people whether they have impairments or not. I wanted this group to speak to that wholeness. I set a date and last night was the culmination of my dreams and planning.
For my topic this month I decided on Asperger’s Syndrome, which is an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Why, because it is a hot topic in the field. Estimates on the exact number of children with ASD are not available, partly because of inaccurate diagnoses and other issues. Here is a link to MedTv that estimates the number of children with ASD diagnoses. They state that between 2 in every 1000 to 6 in every 1000 children will be diagnosed with ASD. With early diagnosis and intervention everyone agrees outcomes are the most promising. This month, I will be writing about some of the information we discussed at the Salon. I will post my list of questions, even though all were not discussed or answered. Later I will post relevant themes and ideas.