This week, the Summit DD Early Intervention team held their 3rd annual EI Autism Training Day. The event was held at the Cuyahoga Falls Natatorium and featured guest speakers from the Ohio Association of County Boards, the Autism Society of Greater Akron, Groovy Garfoose Music Therapy, and Portage DD. The event concluded with keynote presentations from two autism advocates, Andi Putt and Grace Blatt.

“In the past few years, the Summit DD Early Intervention team has seen an increase in the number of children we serve who have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or are awaiting an ASD diagnosis, so we implemented an annual training day for our team. The goals of this day are to stay current with the research regarding ASD, to build our competence and learn new strategies to support families who have children with ASD, and to educate ourselves on the current resources available for families. This year, we invited our Early Childhood Focus Area team as well as the Portage County DD EI Team to learn with us in an effort to collaborate and share the knowledge to support as many families as possible. This training would not have happened without the hard work of our EI Autism Workgroup who planned and implemented all of it,” shared Kathy Supple, Summit DD Assistant Director of Early Intervention.

Check out photos from the day below.