Newsletter
Volume 31 | 2008 | Number 2
Autism
By Dr. Mary Jane Weiss
I have served in the capacity of Autism SIG President since May of 2006. This has been a very busy and exciting two years for the SIG and for the Autism/ABA community. I have been honored to serve the SIG, and will continue to be actively involved in SIG activities. Ruth Donlin, currently President-Elect, assumed the Presidency after the 2008 ABAI convention. In addition, Suzannah Ferraioli became the new Secretary-Treasurer.
Accomplishments
The SIG has published and disseminated the Revised Consumer Guidelines. (Thanks to COSAC for funding the printing of the guidelines.) In the past year, we have also developed a user-friendly, parent-oriented version of the guidelines. We plan to refine and distribute this document over the next year, and hope that it will be a useful tool for families in search of competent providers.
We have a new Newsletter Editor; David Fischer has assumed the position. (Thanks to Kate Fiske for her fine work; she will be missed.) We have new guidelines for submitting a variety of articles, which we developed to help simplify the submission and editorial processes.
We also developed new guidelines for voting for President of the SIG. This was in response to our large growth and the need for procedures that enable wider-scale participation of the membership in the process. The current election will be the first election conducted in accordance with our new guidelines.
We also worked to revitalize our Web site. This effort will continue into the coming year.
At the annual meeting in 2007, we had a panel discussion on organizations serving the autism professional community. Thanks go to Peter Gerhardt of the Organization for Autism Research, Suzanne Buchanan of the Center for Outreach and Services for the Autism Community, and David Celiberti of the Association for Science in Autism Treatment. We also thank Jerry Shook for providing us with an update on certification-related issues.
Our research award winners were Lindsay Sessor and Marie Rocha. Thanks go to our judges Jane Howard, Marlene Cohen, and Mark Harvey.
Goals for the Next Year
We would like to increase our membership to accurately reflect the interest and participation of ABAI members in autism-related activities. We also plan to continue to focus on practitioner issues and to work collaboratively with ABAI, APBA, and the BACB to achieve these goals. Web site development remains a large priority, and we are hopeful that it will be enhanced substantially this year.
Membership
We welcome new members who share our interest in applied behavior analysis and autism treatment. Members receive the SIG’s quarterly newsletter at no cost. For information on Autism SIG membership, current committees, newsletter archives, and consumer guidelines, visit our Web site at www.autismsig.org. The Autism SIG is eager to include and involve as many members as possible in our activities. Clear areas of need include: participation on committees, contributions to the newsletter, and writing and editing content for the Web site. Please let us know if you have an interest in helping in these ways!
Active Core Committee Members
I want to thank our core group of SIG volunteers David Celiberti, Past President Ruth Donlin, President-Elect David Fischer, Newsletter Editor Josh Milstein, Web Site Master Nadine Byczcowski, former Newsletter Assistant Suzanne Buchanan, Secretary/Treasurer Kate Fiske, and former Newsletter Editor Tamara Bannon, as well as Marianne Butler, Jenna Miller, Barbara Wells, Lori Bechner, Bob Ross, and Karen Lenard.