If, like me, you're short on the funds and time needed to attend a major international autism conference, you won't want to miss this. For the fifth consecutive year, Autism Cymru, Wales' National Charity for Autism (AWARES) is running a major online conference featuring some of the world's most highly-respected autism experts - and it's free. All you need to do is log on, check out the papers, and ask your burning questions.
At least some of these participant names will be familiar to you if you've done any reading at all about autism spectrum disorders:
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor Susan Leekam, Dr Gary Mesibov, Donna Williams, Dr Wendy Lawson, Dr Susan Folstein, Merry Barua, Dr Darold Treffert, Professor Stuart Murray, Stephen Shore, Thorkil Sonne, Dr Manuel Casanova, Dr Connie Kasari Dr Pamela Heaton, Dr Dirk Dossche, Dr Wendy Kates, Dr George Anderson, Dr Amanda Ludlow and Dr Susanne Bejerot.
And no matter what your area of concern, you'll almost certainly find something of interest among these topics:
Topics of discussion will include: education, behavioural issues, language impairments, neurology, genetics, immunology, Asperger's syndrome, autism in adolescents and adults, employment, sensory issues, socialising difficulties, biomedical issues and approaches, related conditions and concepts of autism.
To find out more, or to register and attend, visit the AWARES conference website.
Actually the charge around 5 pounds.