Continuing Medical Education

Currently, we provide two different courses:

• Course 1: Early Identification of Autism
• Course 2: Video Cases of Autism

Both courses are pending approval for 1.5 CME hours accreditation. In the meantime, the information in both courses is currently available. Many professionals and parents have already reported that the Video Cases in Course 2 were extremely helpful to them.

Autism Gateway CME Course 1: Early Identification of Autism

The autism spectrum disorders can often be reliably detected by the age of 3 years, and in some cases as early as 18 months. Studies suggest that many children eventually may be accurately identified by the age of 1 year or even younger. The appearance of any of the warning signs of ASD is reason to have a child evaluated by a professional specializing in these disorders.

Early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is critical for a number of reasons, perhaps most importantly because interventions to improve the functioning of children with ASD may be more effective with younger children. Evidence suggests that early treatment optimizes long-term prognosis and that treatment yields diminishing returns as children get older.

Within this CME course we will cover four basic topics:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Basics
• Child Social Development
• Early Identification
• Referral Process

Autism Gateway CME Course 2: Vide Cases of Autism

The early identification of autism before the age of three has become an important public health goal. However, what about the children that were not diagnosed through these surveillance efforts?  What about the adult patients that unknowingly suffered from autism before the awareness of this disorder had increased?  How might you identify autism in an older child or adult patient that has always seemed “a little different” in your practice?

The video cases in this series provide clinical examples of patients with either high functioning autism or Asperger’s Disorder.  They do not represent the full spectrum of autistic disorders at a later age, but show a side of autism that breaks the old myths of “what a person with autism look like.” 

Each patient case is downloadable in either a Flash Movie or QuickTime format. Each video case lasts about 7 minutes and is accompanied by a brief written history and important clinical suggestions. Video cases include:

• Richard: 54 year-old patient
• Jeff: 35 year-old patien
• Ryan: 23 year-old patient
• Adam: 8 year-old patient