Press release

The Autism and Behavior Outreach Services staff at Buncombe County Schools will be hosting the 2012 Inaugural Social Thinking in the Mountains Conference on Friday, November 2 and Saturday November 3 from 8:30 am – 3:30 pm at the Alumni Hall in the Highsmith Student Union at UNC Asheville.

Featured speakers Nancy Tarshis and Debbie Meringolo are both clinicians and administrators at the Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, NY, and evaluate developmental disabilities in people from birth to 21 years old.

This two-day conference will educate attendees about ways to teach and interact with students who have social cognitive deficits. These students most commonly are diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, High Functioning Autism, PDD-NOS, Non-Verbal Learning Disability, or ADD/ADHD or other social challenges. While many of these children understand language and rule-based learning, they still have lots of problems developing relationships with others in society.

Will Overfelt, BCS Autism Specialist says, “Our ambition is to move some of these "Social Thinking" programs and concepts out of the realm of special education and into the mainstream. At this first conference we will be laying the groundwork for understanding basic concepts in social thinking and getting to know some of the programs that are available to teach these concepts to students.”

Conference attendance is set with around 200 people from BCS and the community who have pre-registered.

Here is an overview of the conference agenda:

Day A Agenda:
http://socialthinking.com/conferences/social-thinking-training-a-speakers-collaborative/conferences-descriptions/136-day-1-info-a-agenda

Day B Agenda:
http://socialthinking.com/conferences/social-thinking-training-a-speakers-collaborative/conferences-descriptions/137-day-2-info-a-agenda
After the conference, mini-trainings on specific intervention programs and book studies will be available for continued learning opportunities.

For more information about the conference contact Will Overfelt, 255.5977.