Dear friends, Dr. Matthew Belmonte, Professor at Cornell, who has done significant research in Autism is visiting Mumbai. Dr. Belmonte wishes to do a talk for parents and professionals of the Forum for Autism Venue : Hinduja Hospital, Conference Hall, Old Building Time: 7 pm onwards Date: 8th April Friday Topic: Understanding Autistic Behaviour as a Normal Human Reaction to a Disconnected Perceptual and Cognitive World Call at the FFA no. 32949595 to register your name entry free Lecture II for families and professionals : Friday The straightforward way to study autism is to confront the obvious deficits: What genes or what parts of the brain underlie autistic behavioural impairments? This approach falls short in at least two ways. First, in focusing on autistic deficits it fails to account for autistic superiorities; in fact, one and the same physiological and cognitive alteration may explain both autistic weaknesses in social communication and behavioural flexibility, and autistic strengths in perception of detail, exact memory, and understanding of explicit and immediate rules. Second, this approach from deficits assumes that autistic behaviours are produced directly by biological differences in the genes and/or in the brain; in fact, many of the things that people with autism do are most productively construed as adaptive responses, the reactions of a normal human mind maturing within an abnormal perceptual and cognitive environment. We all adapt within the constraints of our bodies and brains, and we all develop strategies that capitalise on our strengths and minimise our weaknesses. A child temporarily deprived of sight in one eye, for instance, will have learnt to rely on the intact eye; to force development of the bad eye, the good eye must be covered with a patch. Likewise, a person who has suffered a stroke will learn to rely on the good side of the body, and must be forced therapeutically to exercise the bad side. The situation in autism is less visible because it involves strengths and weaknesses not simply in overt sensory or motor skills, but in perceptual and cognitive skills: people with autism spectrum conditions learn to rely the capacities at which their brains excel, at the expense of skills that don't come as easily to them. Every human brain has a balance between local connections within single regions of the brain, and long-range connections between distant regions. More short-range connections may make individual parts of the brain very efficient at at working autonomously and independently, but correspondingly difficult to coordinate with each other. Autism seems the extreme case of such an altered balance, in which separate brain systems operate independently and in parallel, but with little or no coordination. This re-conceptualisation of autism as an extreme case of normal human cognitive variation opens the way toward new therapies for autism, and to a new understanding of ourselves: The more closely we examine autism, cognitively, genetically, and physiologically, the more we find ourselves gazing into a mirror. - Forum For Autism(FFA) parent support group Mumbai: www.forumforautism.net www.autism-india.org the parent body for Autism in India

Dear friends,
Dr. Matthew Belmonte, Professor at Cornell, who has done significant research in Autism is visiting Mumbai. Dr. Belmonte wishes to do a talk for parents and professionals of the Forum for Autism
Venue : Hinduja Hospital, Conference Hall, Old Building
Time: 7 pm onwards
Date: 8th April Friday
Topic: Understanding Autistic Behaviour as a Normal Human Reaction to a Disconnected Perceptual and Cognitive World


Call at the FFA no. 32949595 to register your name entry free

Lecture II for families and professionals : Friday

The straightforward way to study autism is to confront the obvious deficits: What genes or what parts of the brain underlie autistic behavioural impairments? This approach falls short in at least two ways.
First, in focusing on autistic deficits it fails to account for autistic superiorities; in fact, one and the same physiological and cognitive alteration may explain both autistic weaknesses in social communication and behavioural flexibility, and autistic strengths in perception of detail, exact memory, and understanding of explicit and immediate rules.
Second, this approach from deficits assumes that autistic behaviours are produced directly by biological differences in the genes and/or in the brain; in fact, many of the things that people with autism do are most productively construed as adaptive responses, the reactions of a normal human mind maturing within an abnormal perceptual and cognitive environment. We all adapt within the constraints of our bodies and brains, and we all develop strategies that capitalise on our strengths and minimise our weaknesses. A child temporarily deprived of sight in one eye, for instance, will have learnt to rely on the intact eye; to force development of the bad eye, the good eye must be covered with a patch.
Likewise, a person who has suffered a stroke will learn to rely on the good side of the body, and must be forced therapeutically to exercise the bad side. The situation in autism is less visible because it involves strengths and weaknesses not simply in overt sensory or motor skills, but in perceptual and cognitive skills: people with autism spectrum conditions learn to rely the capacities at which their brains excel, at the expense of skills that don't come as easily to them. Every human brain has a balance between local connections within single regions of the brain, and long-range connections between distant regions. More short-range connections may make individual parts of the brain very efficient at at working autonomously and independently, but correspondingly difficult to coordinate with each other. Autism seems the extreme case of such an altered balance, in which separate brain systems operate independently and
in parallel, but with little or no coordination. This re-conceptualisation of autism as an extreme case of normal human cognitive variation opens the way toward new therapies for autism, and to a new understanding of ourselves: The more closely we examine autism, cognitively, genetically, and physiologically, the more we find ourselves gazing into a mirror.







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Forum For Autism(FFA) parent support group Mumbai: www.forumforautism.net


www.autism-india.org
the parent body for Autism in India