Autism conference at Yale highlights latest research & clinical advances

Approximately 100 participants – including pediatricians, researchers, trainees, students, and other clinicians and service providers – came together on Thursday, April 18, 2024, for the fifth annual early autism conference at Yale. The event is hosted by the Yale Child Study Center (YCSC) Social and Affective Neuroscience of Autism (SANA) Program, directed by Emily Fraser Beedy Professor Kasia Chawarska.

Titled “Advances in Research and Clinical Practice,” this year’s conference was held in-person at 100 College Street in New Haven and consisted of a series of presentations focused on motor stereotypies and other repetitive behaviors in autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions for the morning sessions. The afternoon sessions were focused on mapping functional brain development in infants and toddlers with and without autism.

YCSC Chair Linda Mayes joined Chawarska in providing a welcome and introduction. The morning session focused on complex motor stereotypies included talks by Chawarska and Yale faculty members Tom Fernandez, Nigel Bamford, and Kelly Powell. The afternoon session included talks on groundbreaking approaches to brain imaging in infancy and early childhood and featured talks by Yale faculty including Nick Turk-Browne, Dustin Scheinost, Sara Sánchez-Alonso, and Angelina Vernetti and featured a guest speaker, Adriana DiMartino, research director of the Autism Center at the Child Mind Institute.

This was the first fully in-person autism conference hosted by the SANA program since prior to the pandemic. The first hybrid offering was held in July 2022, in-person at the YCSC Cohen Auditorium and live streamed via Zoom, with over 400 participants from around the world. Learn more about the 2022 event. To receive notification about future Yale autism conferences and other YCSC events in your inbox, please subscribe to YCSC Connections.