4th Scientific Meeting for Autism Spectrum Conditions (WTAS)

Th. / Fr., 24. / 25. February 2011

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, dear colleagues,

We are pleased to welcome you to the 4th Scientific Meeting for Autism Spectrum Conditions (WTAS) in early 2011. For the first time, the WTAS will take place in Berlin - Germany’s beautiful and vibrant capital. This year’s meeting venue will be the Henry Ford Building of Freie Universität Berlin. In order to motivate the participation of researchers who are not directly involved in autism research but whose work is relevant to autism, we have decided to introduce annually changing foci to the WTAS. The 4th WTAS` focus will be “The Empathic Mind”.

At the 4th WTAS, we are looking forward to the WGAS` first awarding of the Kanner-Asperger-Medal, with which outstanding achievements of national and international researchers working in the autism field are recognized.This years awardee is Catherine Lord, who is the Director of the University of Michigan Autism and Communication Disorders Center (UMACC) and a professor of psychology, psychiatry and pediatrics. She was instrumental in developing standardized diagnostic instruments for autism spectrum conditions such as the ADI-R and ADOS, considered the gold standard for diagnoses.

Since the extension of last year’s WTAS from a one-day to a two-day format was received  so positively, we have decided to maintain this format for the 4th WTAS.  In order to give participants the opportunity to arrive on time for the conference, we plan to begin the 4th WTAS around lunch time.

We look forward to welcoming you to the 4th WTAS in Berlin!

On behalf of the WGAS board of directors, yours sincerely,
Sven Bölte & Isabel Dziobek