From the Director’s Corner
We are pleased to bring you new perspectives on Autism, as we enter a new transformative era of collaboration and cooperation led and informed by the Autistic community.
Together with parents and self-advocates, we intend to tackle many issues in research, treatments and services across the lifespan of the Autistic person, who will be playing an active role in steering us, the New Jersey Autism Center of Excellence, on the proper path towards a new Strength-Based Model of Autism (S.M.A).
The S.M.A. highlights from an early age, the best capabilities, and predispositions of the young infant in the pre-cognitive stages of neurodevelopment, when the nervous systems scaffold the socio-somatic-sensory-motor axes, creating capacity for social readiness. During these early formative years and beyond school age, our ACE will strive to find new ways to build awareness and to educate the public about existing sources of support and accommodations for the Autistic individuals and their families, by borrowing from other fields where similar issues have been successfully resolved.
Our NJACE is unique in more than one way, as our staff and consultants are an integral part of the Autistic Community. Indeed, because of the heterogeneity of Autism, we are not a homogeneous group with a “one-size-fits-all” approach. As Autism is, we too are a highly heterogeneous spectrum, spanning from parents of Autistics across the lifespan, to Autistic individuals of different ages, to medical professionals, educators, and researchers actively engaged across different disciplines.
Our approach combines hard-core exact sciences, objective-physical data, and subjective-clinical observations with best practices for Autism Diagnoses and Treatments. We boast a new cooperative model that significantly augments current gold standards with the latest cutting-edge technology and scientific discoveries of our times.
Our scientific approach to Autism is open and shared across the community. We strive for reproducibility, transparency, and accountability, to put the research at the service of the Autistic individuals and their families. We have much to do to overcome many current barriers in Autism, but we can do it together, as a community, under a new cooperative spirit that consolidates past achievements and moves forward towards new accomplishments of the 21st Century.
Come join us on a new path to embrace Autism and neurodiversity, to build truly inclusive communities, where we are all active contributors to our collective well-being and higher quality of life.