Practitioner Training Overview: A Whole-Body Systems Approach to Treating Autism
AutismOne and Autism Canada are pleased to be working together to provide this emerging model of autism treatment. Each attending clinician will be provided with 2 two-day passes to the main conference, Saturday, October 31 and November 1.

LECTURES BY
Martha Herbert, MD, PhD: Assistant Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School; Pediatric Neurologist, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston

Wendy Edwards, B.Sc.N., MD, F.R.C.P. Consulting Pediatrician in Chatham-Kent; Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics, University of Western Ontario; Former Chief-Resident, Hospital for Sick Children

Friday, October 30, 2009
10:00 am - 11:30 pm Lecture by Dr. Martha Herbert
11:30 am - 12:30 pm Lecture by Dr. Wendy Edwards
Lunch will be served from 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
1:30 pm - 3:30 pm Lecture by Dr. Wendy Edwards
3:30 pm - 4:00 pm Questions and Answers

TD Canada Trust
Red Maple and Silver Birch Board Rooms
1855 Buckhorn Gate, Mississauga, ON L4W 5N9

The Practitioner Training Workshop is an introductory seminar designed for medical professionals on how to identify and treat biomedical abnormalities in children with autism. These abnormalities can affect neurodevelopment and behaviours in children with autism.  The involved body systems that will be discussed include:

• Intestinal inflammation;
• Metabolic abnormalities;
• Immune dysregulation;
• Detoxification impairment

The importance of individualized treatment strategies (based upon medical history, physical exams and laboratory data) will be discussed.  The role of diet, supplements, medications and other modalities in treating disordered body systems associated with autism will be reviewed.

Our faculty:
Martha Herbert, MD, PhD is an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, a pediatric neurologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, a member of the MGH Center for Morphometric Analysis, and an affiliate of the Harvard-MIT-MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. She is director of the TRANSCEND Research Program (Treatment Research and Neuroscience Evaluation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders), which utilizes multimodal imaging techniques including MRI, EEG and MEG and is particularly aimed toward using imaging in coordination with clinical observation, metabolic biomarkers and animal studies in shedding light on the physiological level of changes in autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, and on potential domains of plasticity and targets for intervention. Dr. Herbert earned her medical degree at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Prior to her medical training she obtained a doctoral degree at the University of California, Santa Cruz, studying evolution and development of learning processes in biology and culture in the History of Consciousness program. She then did postdoctoral work in the philosophy and history of science. She trained in pediatrics at Cornell University Medical Center and in neurology and child neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Herbert received the first Cure Autism Now Innovator Award. She is the co-chair of the Environmental Health Advisory Board of the Autism Society of America and directs their Treatment Guided Research Initiative, is on the Scientific Advisory Committee of Autism Speaks and is a co-PI of the ATN site at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research program includes studying what makes some autistic brains unusually large, how the parts of the brain are connected and coordinated with each other, and how we can develop measures sensitive to changes in brain function that could result from treatment interventions. She is also pursuing multisystem prospective at-risk infant sibling research to monitor medical and physiological development in parallel with behavioral development.

Wendy Edwards, MD is a consulting pediatrician working in Chatham-Kent in southwestern Ontario. She worked as a pediatric nurse for eight years before returning to medical school. Dr. Edwards completed her pediatric residency in Toronto at the Hospital for Sick Children, where she was chosen to act as the chief resident in her final year. Dr. Edwards has helped her child recover from autism.

This program meets the accreditation criteria of The College of Family Physicians of Canada and has been accredited by the Ontario Chapter for up to 5 Mainpro-M1 credits.

The Practitioner Training Workshop is available to licensed healthcare professionals only.