Landa to speak on the early signs of autism and implications for early intervention

October 5, 2005

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — The UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute will host Rebecca Landa, professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, on Wednesday, October 12, at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, 2825 50th St., Sacramento, as the first speaker in its fourth annual Distinguished Lecturer Series.

Landa is internationally recognized for her research on neuropsychological and communication processes in autism across the lifespan. She will present two lectures. During her technical presentation at 4 p.m., Landa will review results from a longitudinal study of the social, cognitive, motor and communicative development of infants at high risk for developing autism and their implications for identifying early signs of autism spectrum disorders. During a 6 p.m. community-interest lecture, she will present empirical evidence from a study of toddlers with autism that supports the value of early intervention in jumpstarting the social and communication development of these children. Both presentations are free and open to the public; no reservations are needed.

Landa is director of Kennedy Krieger's Center for Autism and Related Disorders and principal investigator of the Baltimore-Washington Studies to Advance Autism Research and Treatment Center. She has consulted and presented internationally on clinical and research issues and authored the Pragmatic Rating Scale and the Brief Communication Battery, which is used in research and clinical programs. Landa is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control for studies on early detection and interventions for autism spectrum disorders, the neurobiological bases of these disorders and autism prevalence. Her many honors include the Shannon Award from NIMH for excellent and innovative research design and content, and the Rita Rudel Prize in Developmental Neuropsychology for proposed research on the relationship between language and executive function in autism.

Future speakers in the 2005-06 lecture series are: T. Conrad Gilliam, University of Chicago (Nov. 9); Eric Fombonne, McGill University (Dec. 14); Margaret Bauman, Boston University and Massachusetts General Hospital (Jan. 11); Uta Frith, University College London (Feb. 8); Sally and Bennett Shaywitz, Yale University (Mar. 8, co-sponsored by the UC Davis School of Education); Jan Buitelaar, University Medical Center St. Radboud, Netherlands (Apr. 12); Charles Nelson, Harvard University (May 10); and Gary Mesibov, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (June 14).

For more information, visit the M.I.N.D. Institute Web site at www.mindinstitute.org or call (916) 703-0280.