Autism Spectrum Disorder:
Recent Advances in Infantile Origins, Early Childhood
Detection, & Intervention
The Groden Center and Brown University's recent conference, Autism Spectrum Disorder: Recent Advances in Infantile Origins, Early Childhood Detection, & Intervention on October 12-14, 2007 brought to Providence experts in neuroscience, medicine, genetics, language and communication, developmental psychology, and behavioral psychology to address this topic and point the way to future research.
Thank you to our presenters and sponsors for making this conference not only possible, but also a resounding success.
Please use the links below to navigate information regarding our presenters.
Use the following jump links to navigate the conference web page content:
About the Conference Hosts · Conference Schedule & Presentations · Presenter Brief Biographies and Presentation Abstracts · Continuing Education Credit Details
About the Conference Hosts
Conference Organizers:
Lewis P. Lipsitt, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Medical Science,
and Human Development, Brown University
June Groden, Ph.D.
Executive Director, The Groden Center, Inc.
Gerald Groden, Ph.D.
Executive Director, The Groden Center, Inc.
M. Grace Baron, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Wheaton College, and
Behavioral Psychologist, The Groden Center, Inc.
Matthew S. Goodwin, M.A., Ph.D. candidate
Associate Director of Research, The Groden Center, Inc.
The Groden Network is the leading non-profit organization in Rhode Island providing direct services, treatment, research and educational programs for children and adults with autism and related developmental disabilities. The Groden Network of programs provides quality service to over 800 clients.
The family of programs includes:
- The Groden Center - day and residential programs for children and adolescents
- The Cove Center - vocational and residential programs for adults
- The Halcyon Center - day and residential support programs for adults in Southern Massachusetts
- Kingston Hill Academy - a public charter school dedicated to the Groden Network's mission of individualized learning.
Brown University: The University's mission is to serve the community, the nation, and the world by educating and preparing students to "discharge the offices of life with usefulness and reputation," through a partnership of students and teachers in a unified community known as a university-college.
The American Psychological Association: Based in Washington, DC, the American Psychological Association (APA) is a scientific and professional organization that represents psychology in the United States. With 148,000 members, APA is the largest association of psychologists worldwide.
Conference Schedule and Presentations
This conference aims to connect neuroscience, medicine, genetics, environmental science, developmental psychology, and behavioral psychology in the study of infancy and ASD and seek real answers to the earliest origins and treatment of autism, including: genetic dispositions, familial propensities, experiential contributions, eventual diagnosis, and early intervention.
We intend to draw researchers, practitioners, students (both graduate and undergraduate), and policy-makers from a diverse set of hospitals, colleges/universities, and advocacy organizations interested in autism spectrum disorders and infancy. Professions for which this event is particularly relevant include: Pediatricians, Nurse Practitioners, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Neuroscientists, Social Workers, and Special Educators.
Download (PDF) the conference schedule with presentation abstracts.
We are proud to have the following experts presenting at our conference. Click on the presenter's name for a brief bio and their presentation abstract.
Linda Brzustowicz, M.D.
Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ
Genetic Studies of Autism Susceptibility
Deborah Fein, Ph.D.
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
Screening and Diagnosis of ASD in Toddlers
Martha R. Herbert, Ph.D., M.D.
Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA and Cambridge Health Alliance Center for Child and Adolescent Development, Medford, MA.
Expanding the Spectrum of Autism Mechanisms: Developmental and Chronic Factors and the Potential for Plasticity
Jill James, Ph.D.
Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute, Little Rock, AR
Redox imbalance and the metabolic pathology of autism
Rebecca Landa, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Director, REACH Research, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD
The Progression of Autism Spectrum Disorder in the First Three Years of Life
Catherine Lord, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Michigan, MI
Searching for the Forest in the Trees: Individual Trajectories in Toddlers Who May Have Autism Spectrum Disorders
Susan L Santangelo, Sc.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
The Genetics of Autism Spectrum Disorders
Amy M. Wetherby, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Department of Communication Disorders, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Red Flags of Autism Spectrum Disorders in the Second Year of Life
Philip Roman Zelazo, Ph.D.
Professor (Adjunct), Psychology Department, McGill University, Member, Centre for Research in Human Development, Concordia University, and Director, Montreal Autism Centre, Canada
A Developmental Psychopathology Perspective on the Etiology and Treatment of Autism
Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, Ph.D.
Department Pediatrics, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
Pushing the boundaries of early diagnosis of ASD: insights from prospective research with high-risk infants
Presenter Brief Biographies and Presentation Abstracts
(In order of scheduled conference appearance)
Philip Roman Zelazo, Ph.D.
McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
A Developmental Psychopathology Perspective on the Etiology and Treatment of Autism
This presentation will articulate research supporting key features of both cognitive and motor development in typical children during the first two years of life and how that informs the emergence of autism. Dr. Zelazo will present a developmental psychopathology approach to the etiology of autism and empirically based procedures for the treatment of autism. This will include research demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach. He will address the significance of infancy for researchers, clinicians, and educators studying and treating children with autism.
Dr. Philip Zelazo received his B.A. in Psychology (1962) from the American International College. He worked on his M.Sc. in Experimental Psychology at North Carolina State University and obtained his Ph.D. in Developmental and Social Psychology (1967) from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He received his post-doctoral experience in Developmental Psychology with Professor Jerome Kagan at Harvard University. Dr. Zelazo received an Honorary D.Sc. from American International College in 1992. He was Professor of Psychology and Associate Professor of Paediatrics at McGill University from 1984 to 2002. He remains Professor of Psychology (Adjunct), is the Director of the Montreal Autism Centre and a member of the Concordia University Centre for Research in human Development. He has published prolifically in professional journals, book chapters and books in the domains of infant-toddler information processing, expressive language, behavioural and early motor development. He co-authored with Jerome Kagan and Richard Kearsley a widely-recognized book entitled Infancy: Its place in human development (Harvard University Press) and created a treatment manual for children with autism and pervasive developmental delays with Richard Kearsley and Judy Ungerer entitled Learning to Speak: A Manual for Parents (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates). He co-edited (with Ronald Barr, M.D.) the volume Challenges to Developmental Paradigms: Implications for Theory, Assessment and Treatment, and (with Michael Weiss, Ph.D.) Newborn Attention: Biological Constraints and the Influence of Experience, the most thorough volume on neonatal attention presently available.
Dr. Zelazo's current research focuses primarily on information processing ability in infants from birth to 42 months and the development of treatment procedures for children with autism. The information processing research permits the measurement of mental ability independent of the major presenting disabilities in young children, particularly autisman achievement that has eluded conventional tests of infant-toddler intelligence. The clinical assessment of information processing ability has made possible a differential diagnosis for children who do not speak, have severely immature social interactions, disruptive non-compliant behaviour and immature object use. The identification of normal intelligence despite severe developmental delays can sharply improve the prognosis for children with autism. The creation of effective treatment procedures for children with autism can improve their development clinically and inform us scientifically.
Dr. Zelazo is the recipient of numerous research grants. He has held appointments with the American Psychological Association and the International Society for Infant Studies and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychological Society.
Linda Brzustowicz, M.D.
Professor, Rutgers University, Department of Genetics
Genetic Studies of Autism Susceptibility
Autism is a serious neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in communication, abnormal social interactions, and rigid or repetitive interests and behaviors. Although there is strong evidence of an important genetic contribution to the cause of autism, the isolation of specific genetic defects that cause autism has been difficult. Our laboratory is pursuing two complementary avenues to search for autism susceptibility genes. First, we are collecting families for a genetic linkage study of autism and related phenotypes. Ascertained through a proband with autism, immediate and, when available, extended family members are being characterized by a battery of instruments that examine the domains of language ability, social relatedness, and repetitive and rigid/compulsive behavior Each of these domains has demonstrated heritability, and impairments in these domains are found at increased rates among non-autistic relatives of probands with autism. Our recent genetic linkage study on specific language impairment (SLI) suggests that at least one susceptibility locus is shared between SLI and autism. This sample will be used for a genome wide linkage analysis to search for autism susceptibility loci. The second strategy to search for autism susceptibility genes is to conduct fine-scale linkage and association mapping of genomic regions identified as potentially harboring an autism susceptibility gene through the analysis of genotype data using an alternative, Bayesian approach to linkage analysis, based on the posterior probability of linkage. This method has been demonstrated to be far more effective in extracting accurate information from gene-mapping studies of heterogeneous disorders than any of the current model-based or model free alternatives, greatly aiding the localization of susceptibility genes. This approach has identified novel linkage peaks for autism in existing, previously analyzed, genome-scan data, and is currently being used for follow-up analyses of fine-mapping data. Current results from both approaches to search for autism candidate genes will be presented.
Dr. Brzustowicz is a board-certified psychiatrist with training in molecular and statistical genetics, and she runs the psychiatric genetic laboratory at Rutgers University. Her research group applies the techniques of molecular and statistical genetics to approach clinically relevant problems in neuroscience, with the ultimate goal of understanding gene function in both the pathologic and normal states.
S. Jill James, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute. Director, Autism Metabolic Genomic Laboratory.
Redox Imbalance and the Metabolic Pathology of Autism
The metabolic phenotype of an individual reflects the influence of endogenous and exogenous factors on genotype. As such, it provides a window through which the interactive impact of genes and environment may be viewed and relevant susceptibility factors identified. Although abnormal one-carbon metabolism has been associated with other neurologic disorders, these pathways and related polymorphisms have not been evaluated in autistic children. Fasting plasma levels of metabolites in folate/methionine/glutathione pathways were measured in 80 autistic children and 75 control children. The abnormal metabolic profile observed suggests that many autistic children may be under chronic oxidative stress (ÿGSH/GSSG) and may have impaired methylation capacity (ÿSAM/SAH). Among parents of autistic children, both methylation capacity and glutathione-mediated antioxidant capacity were similarly reduced. Using the abnormal endophenotype as a guide for the selection of relevant candidate genes, the frequency of several allelic variants affecting these pathways were found to be increased in 360 autistic children relative to 200 controls. In cell culture experiments, autistic lymphoblastoid cell lines exhibited significant increases in situ free radical production and decreased intracellular and mitochondrial GSH/GSSG ratio at baseline and after exogenous oxidative stress. An impaired glutathione-dependent antioxidant and detoxification capacity would create a fragile metabolic homeostasis with reduced capacity to detoxify environmental exposures. These results suggest the provocative possibility that some autistic behaviors may be a neurologic manifestation of a genetically-based environmentally-sensitive metabolic imbalance. A more metabolic and systemic approach to autism would encompass not only the neurologic manifestations but also the gastrointestinal and immunologic pathology associated with autism. Moreover, individualized treatment strategies directed toward correcting specific metabolic imbalance could potentially ameliorate some autistic behaviors and offer insights into the heterogeneity within the autism spectrum.
Dr. S. Jill James is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the Director of the Metabolic Genomics Laboratory at the Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute. She received her B.S. degree from Mills College, and her Ph.D. degree in Nutritional Biochemistry from UCLA. Her research career has been devoted to defining gene-environment interactions associated with increased susceptibility to cancer, birth defects, and most recently, autism. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and recently received the American Society for Nutritional Sciences award for innovative research contributing to the understanding of human nutrition. She is currently funded by a 5 year NIH grant entitled "Metabolic biomarkers of autism: predictive potential and genetic susceptibility".
Deborah Fein, Ph.D.
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut.
Screening and Diagnosis of ASD in Toddlers
Early intervention, which can improve outcome for children with ASD, depends on early diagnosis, which in turn depends on early screening and identification. I will briefly review available screening instruments for ASD in early childhood, and summarize their strengths and weaknesses. I will present updated data on the validity of the Modified-Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, which was authored by our lab at the University of Connecticut, including numbers of children screened at the pediatric offices (low-risk) and early intervention offices (high risk), and the positive predictive power of the instrument for both groups. Screening and diagnosing large numbers of children with the M-CHAT has allowed us to address other questions concerning diagnosis in early childhood. I will present data from our study concerning stability of diagnosis over early childhood (from age 2 to age 4). We have also studied the interesting cases of children who move off the ASD spectrum between age 2 and 4, and have analyzed, predictors at age 2 of such an outcome. These data suggest that diagnostic severity is not a good predictor, but developmental factors, especially motor development, can predict this positive outcome.
Dr. Fein's expertise is in the early detection and early development of autism. Her research group is screening a large number of children for autism at 16 - 30 months of age, using the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT), and performing evaluations of children who screen positive for possible autism on the checklist. Her group has published and presented a number of studies on children who screen positive for autism at this young age, including gender differences, predictive value of regressive vs. non-regressive autism, the accuracy of screening and the stability of diagnosis, and outcome at age 4.
Catherine Lord, Ph.D.
Director of the University of Michigan Autism and Communication Disorders Center.
Searching for the Forest in the Trees: Individual Trajectories in Toddlers Who May Have Autism Spectrum Disorders
Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are characterized by tremendous diversity in the degree of impairment and the nature and number of strengths experienced by different children. With the recent plethora of studies of infant siblings of children with ASD, it appears that there are a number of different trajectories in early years that may be specific to infant siblings or perhaps may represent the outcome of the opportunities now available to scientists for closer investigation of how autism emerges in infants and toddlers. Data will be presented from an intensive study of 30 young children at risk for ASD due to older siblings with these disorders or because of medical risk (e.g., infantile spasms), in which children are seen monthly using a newly developed module of the ADOS from 12 to 30 months, with more widely spaced cognitive and language assessments by different examiners blind to the child's previous history. Issues of what is "onset" of autism, what is worsening and how might we learn from the commonalities and differences among children will be discussed.
Catherine Lord, Ph.D. is the Director of the University of Michigan Autism and Communication Disorders Center (UMACC) and a professor of psychology, psychiatry and pediatrics. She is a clinical psychologist who has worked in Canada and the U.K and at various universities in the U.S., including the TEACCH program. She was involved in developing the standardized diagnostic instruments for ASD (the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), an observational scale, and the Autism Diagnostic Interview - Revised (ADI-R), a parent interview), considered the gold standard for research diagnoses.
Rebecca Landa, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Director, KKI Center for Autism and Related Disorders, Kennedy Keieger Institute, Associate Professor, Psychiatry, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
The Progression of Autism Spectrum Disorder in the First Three Years of Life
This presentation will focus on the emergence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) from infancy through 36 months of age. Data from a longitudinal, prospective study of ASD will be shared. Evidence of social, language, communication, and motor disruption in infants at risk for ASD, and the trajectory of change within these developmental systems from 6-36 months within children who do and do not have ASD will be shared. The different developmental trajectories associated with early versus later manifestation of ASD will be presented, as will evidence of the progressive nature of ASD. Videotaped examples will be used to highlight the differences between typical development and ASD. Early predictors of ASD and implications for early detection of ASD will be discussed.
Rebecca Landa, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is the director of Kennedy Krieger's Center for Autism and Related Disorders. She is an associate professor of Psychiatry in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Landa completed post-doctoral trifning in psychiatric genetics. She has consulted and presented internationally on both clinical and research issues. Her research has focused on neuropsychological and communication processes in autism across the lifespan. Dr. Land is the principal investigator of an NIH STAART center, and the author of the Pragmatic Rating Scale and the Brief Communication Battery, which are used internationally in research and clinical programs. Her current research focus is on learning processes in autism, as well as early detection of and intervention for autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
Amy M. Wetherby, Ph.D.
L.L. Schendel Professor of Communication Disorders, Department of Communication Disorders, Florida State University
Red Flags of Autism Spectrum Disorders in the Second Year of Life
Research on autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has documented social and communication impairments as well as repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior in preschool children, however, relatively little is known about using the DSM-IV criteria with children younger than 24 months of age. This presentation will report on findings from the prospective, longitudinal research of the FIRST WORDS Project to examine profiles of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), developmental delay (DD), and typical development (TD) from 12 to 24 months of age. Children were recruited from a general population sample of over 7,000 children screened with a broadband parent-report surveillance checklist between 6 and 24 months of age. Selected children were then videotaped during the second year using the CSBS Behavior Sample (Wetherby & Prizant, 2002) and diagnosis of ASD was confirmed or ruled out at 3 years of age. Measures of social communication and repetitive and stereotyped behaviors were obtained from videotapes of 60 children later diagnosed with ASD, 30 children with DD, and 60 children with TD. Measures of verbal and nonverbal developmental level and autism symptoms were obtained at 3 years of age. These findings suggest a constellation of core deficits that are evident in the second year of life in children with ASD and are significant predictors of outcomes at 3 years. These findings have important implications for early identification, use of the DSM-IV criteria with children under 24 months, and prognosis of young children with ASD.
Amy Wetherby, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is the Laurel Schendel Professor in the Department of Communication Disorders at Florida State University. She has had over twenty five years of clinical experience and is an ASHA Fellow. Dr. Wetherby has published extensively and presents regularly at national conventions on social and communicative profiles of children with autism spectrum disorders and early identification of communication disorders in infants and toddlers. She served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee for Educational Interventions for Children with Autism and is the Executive Director of the Florida State University Center for Autism and Related Disabilities. Dr. Wetherby is the Project Director of the FIRST WORDS Project, a longitudinal research investigation on early identification of young children at-risk for autism spectrum and other communication disorders, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, National Institutes of Health, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is the Project Co-Director of a Model Demonstration Grant on early intervention with infants and toddlers at risk for autism spectrum disorders and Project Director of a Doctoral Leadership Training Grant specializing in autism.
Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, MD
Department of Pediatrics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta
Pushing the boundaries of early diagnosis of ASD: insights from prospective research with high-risk infants
Prospective studies of infants at increased risk of autism (particularly of infant siblings of children with autism) have opened a new window into how autism emerges early in life, generating new insights about early behavioral signs and developmental patterns, particularly the phenomenon of regression. This presentation will describe early developmental trajectories among a group of 150 infant siblings who have been followed from age 6 months to 3 years, with special reference to the onset and characteristics of behavioral signs and the stability of early diagnostic assessments. Factors that may impact on the timing of symptom detection will be highlighted, with a focus on implications for early identification strategies in the general community.
Dr. Zwaigenbaum is a developmental pediatrician and co-director of an autism research centre at the University of Alberta in Canada. He also completed a Masters degree in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics at McMaster University. Dr. Zwaigenbaum's research focuses on early development in autism, including early identification, screening and diagnosis. Dr. Zwaigenbaum is the principal investigator of the Canadian Infant Sibling Study, which focuses on early developmental trajectories in ASD, and also contributes to studies of genetics and early brain development in ASD. He is the co-chair of an international consortium of investigators following infants at increased risk of autism (the ‘Baby Siblings Research Consortium').
Susan L. Santangelo, Sc.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, Center for Human Genetic Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
The Genetics of Autism Spectrum Disorders
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder of genetic origins, with a heritability of over 90%. Prevalence estimates suggest a rate of 0.1% to 0.2% for autism and 0.6% for ASD, including autism, Asperger syndrome, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). There is considerable phenotypic heterogeneity within this class of disorders as well as continued debate regarding their clinical boundaries. There is no single biological or clinical marker for autism, nor is it expected that a single gene is responsible for its expression; as many as 15+ genes may be involved. However, environmental influences cannot be excluded, as concordance in MZ twins is less than 100% and the phenotypic expression of the disorder varies widely, even within MZ twin pairs. Multiple susceptibility factors are being explored using varied methodologies, including genome-wide linkage and association studies and family-based and case-control candidate gene association studies. This talk will provide a brief review of what is currently known about the genetic and environmental risk factors for autism. Discussion of genetic factors focuses on the findings from linkage and association studies, the results of which have implicated the involvement of nearly every chromosome in the human genome. Our current studies and preliminary results will be described, including studies of environmental risk factors, an investigation of genes in a candidate ‘causal' pathway, and a whole-genome association study of ~ 1200 families with ASD, using the Affymetrix 500K chip.
Dr. Santangelo is a genetic epidemiologist, with faculty appointments at the Harvard Medical School (HMS) in Psychiatry, since 2002, and the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in Epidemiology, since 1994. Prior to joining the faculty at HMS, she was faculty in the Department of Psychiatry at Tufts-New England Medical Center. Dr. Santangelo is currently the Director of the Genetic Epidemiology and Statistical Genetics Laboratory in the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, Center for Human Genetic Research, at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her work involves determining the genetic architecture underlying psychiatric disorders and other disorders with complex inheritan ce. Currently her focus is on mapping genes influencing susceptibility for autism. She is a member of the Steering Committee and the Gene-Finding Working Group of the Boston-based Autism Consortium, and is the PI of an AC-funded large-scale Phenotyping Project, designed to collect a wide variety of phenotype measures on over 200 families in the first year and, and more than 500 families per year thereafter.
Martha R. Herbert, Ph.D., M.D.
Center for Morphometric Analysis/Pediatric Neurology, TRANSCEND Research Program, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Harvard Medical School
Expanding the Spectrum of Autism Mechanisms: Developmental and Chronic Factors and the Potential for Plasticity
The presumption that autism is prenatally hardwired according to strong genetic influence has influenced the interpretation of data generated by brain researchers as being consistent with the initial presumption. However, prodded by anomalous factors, such as increases in autism numbers, multisystem and chronic involvement, and loss of diagnosis in some autistic individuals, additional mechanisms need to come into consideration, some of which may provide alternate and postnatal explanations for at least some of the findings reported to date. The possibility of chronic and yet potentially reversible mechanisms opens new avenues for investigation and potential treatment.
Dr. Martha Herbert is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, a Pediatric Neurologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and a member of the Harvard-MIT-MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. 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, body biomarkers that may correlate with brain biomarkers and how we can measure changes in brain and body function that can result from treatment interventions.
Continuing Education Credit Details
Note: Registration for Continuing Education credits will also be available on location during conference registration
CE SESSION RANKING: All sessions are ranked as advanced.
CE CREDIT OFFERED BY DISCIPLINE
Psychology: The Institute for Continuing Education is an organization approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Institute for Continuing Education maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
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