Biography Experience ______________   WORKSHOPS Upcoming and Recent Workshops and Presentations   Complete List of Past and Present Workshops _______________   CONSULTING Live Consultation Online Consultation ________________   PUBLICATIONS Order Publications Read Articles ________________   Contact Links ________________   Just Released October 2005:     Meaningful Exchanges for People with Autism, by Joanne M. Cafiero, Ph.D   Order your signed copy of the book here!

I am presently on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Professional Studies in Education, Department of Special Education, and was previously the Autism Projects Director for the Johns Hopkins University Center for Technology in Education. I am the autism consultant for Frederick County and St. Mary's County, Maryland Schools, and I provide consultative support in autism and augmentative communication to parents, teachers and school districts throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Asia. My work is based on the strong belief in the benefit of meaningful contextually based instruction for individuals with autism. My work with autistic children and individuals dates back to the mid 80's when I trained and worked at Bittersweet Farms Autistic Community in Whitehouse, Ohio. Later, I taught adolescents with autism in the Montgomery County, Maryland Public School System where I developed and implemented a program for non-verbal children using state of the art communication technology. In 1995, I was awarded a doctoral degree in curriculum and instruction and family counseling in the area of Autism for my research in natural language strategies for preschoolers with autism using a parent training model. I was appointed to the National Academy of Sciences Committe on Educational Interventions for Children with Autism. My current research focuses on how children with severe communication impairments and autism learn language, which models of instruction are most effective and how to take this information from research to practice.