Participants will learn about the Autism Spectrum Disorder characteristics and learning styles of students.
Participants will identify disparities in the identification and receipt of evidence based services faced by Latino students and their families and the reasons for those disparities.
Participants will learn about cultural values to take into account when working with Latino students and their families, including spirituality and personalismo.
Participants will learn strategies to help service providers interact appropriately to understand and respect cultural differences with Latino Autism Spectrum Disorder students and families.
Sandy Magaña, PhD, MSW, holds the Professorship in Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities in the Steve Hicks School of Social Work. She received a Master of Social Work from California State University, San Bernardino and her Ph.D. from the Heller Graduate School of Social Policy at Brandeis University. Magaña completed post-doctoral training from the NICHD funded Post-Doctoral Program in Developmental Disabilities Research at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was a faculty member in the UW-Madison School of Social Work for 12 years and later served as a Professor at the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. At SHSSW, Magaña is the Executive Director of the Texas Center for Disability Studies (TCDS) and Director of the Autism Consortium of Texas Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and other Related Disabilities (ACT LEND). Dr. Magaña’s research focuses on the cultural context of families caring for persons with disabilities across the life course. Her current research includes investigating racial and ethnic disparities among children with autism and developmental disabilities and developing culturally relevant interventions to address these disparities. She has received funding for her research from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR).