Second month report from Chapel-Hill, Spring 2013

Hello everybody,

More than two months have passed since I arrived in Chapel-Hill... How time flies! The spring finally arrived. Check the following pictures to see Chapel-Hill during this season.

As the city is so nice, I made a painting of the Bell Tower:

Meanwhile, I'm auditing classes, and I’m also doing an internship in the TEACCH Autism Program. This is an exceptional regional center that offers a set of services meeting the clinical, training, and research needs of individuals with Autism, their families, and professionals. Specifically, I participated in the following activities:

1) Parents of Adults Group: a support and informational group for parents whose child is 18 years or over.

2) TEACCH Early Intervention Services - In-Home TEACCHing Sessions: parents receive services in home.

3) TEACCH Social Group: targets preschool age children with emergent communication and social interest in peers.  This group meets weekly for a 2-hour session for a 9 week block of sessions, during which children participate in a range of well-structured, meaningful, and motivating group, dyad, and individual activities.

4) Supported Employment: helps individuals with ASD to become as independent as possible by assisting them in obtaining and maintaining meaningful and stable employment in predictable and rewarding work environments.

5) Also, I have observed several day of diagnostic, and these are unique opportunities to meet TEACCH staff and to learn more about the diagnostic process in autism.

Furthermore, I have been the opportunity to have meetings with professors to talk about my PhD project. Specially, I need to thank prof. Linda Watson and Dr. Gary Martin (http://comm.soc.northwestern.edu/familystudy/).

Finally, the Research Writing Course and the Writing group are being very helpful to improve my writing and language skills.

Soon, I’ll attend two conferences: 1) the 34^th Annual TEACCH Autism Program Conference:
1) ASD Interventions Across the Lifespan May 15-17, 2013, in Chapel-Hill (http://teacch.com/teacch-autism-program-at-unc-chapel-hill-lend-carolina-institute-for-developmental-disabilities-and-greensboro-ahec-present); and 2) the 25th APS Annual Convention, May 23-26, 2013 in Washington (with a poster presentation).

In sum, being at the UNC-CH has been an amazing experience.

Best,

Marisa

GEDS: News letter from Vanderbilt University, Spring 2013, Tiago Ferreira

Hi everyone.

My name is Tiago and I'm from the University of Porto, Portugal.

More than two months have passed since I arrived in Nashville. 

This international experience provided by the GEDS student exchange program has been very rich and productive.

I was warmly received by the staff of the Peabody Research Institute (PRI) at Vanderbilt University. These two months were very intensive, with lots of learning opportunities. I'm attending two courses: “The Social Context of Education” and “Practical Meta-Analysis”. 

                                                        Fig.1: Peabody Campus

The first one is focused on exploring contemporary social, philosophical, and political dimensions of education, including issues related to democracy and diversity, equity and school organization, and the ecology of schooling. The second one, “Practical Meta-Analysis”, presents the major steps involved in conducting a meta-analysis, with particular emphasis on the technical issues and statistical analyses distinctive to this form of research. 

Besides these two courses, I'm engaged in many other activities such as attending lectures, short term courses, statistical analysis training and panel discussions focused on early intervention topics. I’m also exploring one of  PRI’s data bases in order to publish a paper focused on my research field: Peer relations in early childhood.

There are always a lot of academic events going on at the Peabody College, which is the school of education and human development at Vanderbilt. Recently I had the pleasure to attend a very interesting conference with Steve Barnett, Ron Haskins and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, which the main goal was to discuss evidence about the sustainability of the effect from early intervention on later development and academic adjustment. This conference was very appropriate, considering the current public debate in the United States focusing upon early childhood education. This public debate emerged from the State of the Union speech in which the President, Barack Obama has proposed "working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America...". For those who are interested, this conference can be entirely seen on the internet, using the following link:

http://youtu.be/so8-SqlFzyg

Besides all the intense academic life I still have some time for great cultural experiences. For a music lover like me, Nashville is a very special city. It is no coincidence that it is called the Music City. I had the opportunity to attend some excellent musical events. The next one will be this Friday. Chick Corea and Béla Fleck on the same stage - It couldn't be better...

                                                                              Fig.2: Next concert at the Shermerhorn Symphony Center

In summary so far my stay in Nashville has been excellent. 

I intend to keep updating this blog with some of my experiences in USA.

Best regards

Tiago Ferreira

First month report from Chapel-Hill, Spring 2013

Hello everybody,

My name is Marisa Filipe and I'm from the University of Porto. I am completely settled down in Chapel Hill. Indeed, it has now been one month since I arrived. I am also in the Global Education and Developmental Studies (GEDS) exchange program and I will share with you many experiences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill (UNC-CH).

First of all, here are some pictures of the city and campus.

There are lots of things going on at UNC-CH and I’m trying to enroll all of them.

I am attending five courses:

-       Autism Seminar: This seminar is for masters, doctoral and post-doctoral students whose career plans include autism research. Topics reflect input from active autism researchers on important content to prepare students for collaborative, interdisciplinary, and translational research related to autism. 

-       Statistical Analysis of Educational Data II: This course presents a linear model approach to the analysis of data collected in educational settings.  Topics include multiple regression, analysis of variance, and analysis of covariance; using the computer package R.

-       Functional Neuroanatomy: Functional neuroanatomy encompasses a broad range of knowledge of the anatomical structure & function of the human nervous system. The topics are explored using molecular and cell biology, physiology, medical imaging, and psychology.

-       Child Development and Disability: This course examines typical and atypical manifestations of cognitive, social/emotional and communicative development in children. The course draw on theory and contributions to the clinical and empirical literature to examine the development of infants, children and youth with sensory, motor, cognitive and/or affective impairments. 

-       Teaching in the American Classroom: This course is offered through the Graduate School at UNC Chapel Hill as part of the Preparing International Teaching Assistants Program. The course focuses on cross-cultural communication, English pronunciation, basic teaching skills, and topics necessary for effective interaction in the American classroom. 

Also, I have the opportunity to attend to several seminars and short courses about different topics. You can see the following links for details:

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/esl/instruction/esl-mini-courses/

http://www.irss.unc.edu/odum/contentSubpage.jsp?nodeid=21

http://www.med.unc.edu/ahs/events/sphs-research-series-pragmatic-language-in-children-with-fragile-x-syndrome-and-autism

http://www.med.unc.edu/ahs/events/using-aac-to-support-social-interactions-between-students-with-autism-and-their-peers

Additionally, I visited the TEACCH Autism Program (http://www.teacch.com/). Specifically, I saw the preschool intervention groups and I observed one day of diagnostic.

As I’m interested in Autism research, I think that I’m "in heaven". The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was the premier public institution in the publication of research papers on autism. http://iacc.hhs.gov/publications-analysis/july2012/index.shtml

More news soon…

Marisa