With an estimated 1 in 36 children in the United States today diagnosed with autism, public awareness of the condition has risen to an all-time high, and significant progress has been made in recent decades to improve outcomes such as time of diagnosis and access to services for autistic people and their families. The neurodiversity movement has also empowered many people to see many parts of autism as strengths or neutral differences, and this non-medical approach to autism has become extremely popular in all parts of the community. However, people on the autism spectrum continue to experience challenges in daily life, which can be both intrinsic to their developmental disability or due to society’s lack of understanding and resources. These challenges can be especially difficult for children seeking educational support, dealing with bullying, navigating social gatherings, and handling mental health problems. On April 22, as part of World Autism Month, we’ll talk with Zack Williams and Amy Couch about how we can better understand and advocate for the support autistic children and their families need. Join us on Zoom for the Q&A session then keep the discussions going in our Discord parenting channel.
Register for this free webinar here.
Event Details:
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
7:00pm Eastern
Register for this free webinar here.
Connect with other humanist parents before, during, and after the event on our free Discord: https://bit.ly/HumanistParenting (AHA members can access full server with their invitation link).
Speakers:
Zack Williams, MD, PhD is an internationally-recognized autism researcher, autistic self-advocate, and incoming psychiatry resident at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. A recent graduate of Vanderbilt School of Medicine’s joint MD/PhD program (including a PhD in neuroscience), Zack also serves as an advisory board member and fellow of Vanderbilt University’s Frist Center for Autism and Innovation. His research broadly focuses on the intersection of autism and health and disability across the lifespan, including how autism-associated (mental and physical) health issues can be better measured, assessed, and supported or treated by our current health care systems. As a physician-scientist, he hopes to specialize in the overlap of autism with severe/persistent mental illness, working to develop evidence-based treatments and care pathways for autistic adolescents and adults with catatonia, treatment-resistant/psychotic mood disorders, and other severe and refractory mental health conditions, who are far too often underserved. You can follow him on Twitter at @QuantPsychiatry.
Amy Couch is the Director of Digital Communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Amy received a B.A. in Philosophy and Classics from the University of Tulsa and a M.A. in Political Science from Fordham University. Raised in a Christian Nationalist family, Amy is a conversion therapy survivor and ex-evangelical. She has spent her career advocating for church-state separation, disability rights and inclusion, and LGBTQ+ equality. Amy lives with her wife and their four children (two are on the autism spectrum) in the D.C. metro area.