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Optometric Care of Patients Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder - Online course
Online course to be offered in Spring 2025
3 ECTS Credits
To register for Optometric Care of Patients Diagnosed with ASD, click here
Introduction
Optometrists can work together with other disciplines for the benefit of their patients on the autism spectrum. This course provides background about the diagnosis and daily lives of patients on the spectrum from a variety of guest lecturers: a developmental psychologist, speech pathologist, special education teacher and mother of a child on the autism spectrum. This course covers visual assessment and treatment of patients on the autism spectrum, when to refer the patients to other disciplines, and the relative timing of the interventions.
The course includes lecturers from the fields of psychology and communication disorders provide an interdisciplinary approach, as well as a firsthand account by the mother of a child on the autism spectrum.
Course Structure
- 13 hours of recorded online lectures
- 4 live sessions on zoom
Course Dates
1/4
22/4
13/5
17/6
Learning Outcomes
After successfully completing the course, participants will be able to:
- Adapt optometric exams for patients on the autism spectrum
- Explain the value of synergistic diagnosis and treatments of varying disciplines working together in treating patients on the autism spectrum
- Identify when to refer patients to other disciplines, specifically with regard to the relative timing of different interventions in an overall coordinated approach to helping those on the autism spectrum
- Describe how the common pathway hypothesis links together very different phenomena associated with the autism spectrum and gain insight into how treatment in one domain directly impacts others
Topics Covered
- Optometric assessment and management of patients with ASD
- Tools and modifications of vision therapy protocols for patients with ASD
- Prescription of optical aids to patients with ASD
Assessment
- Final exam for students seeking academic credit
Instructors
Anna Remington, PhD is a cognitive scientist with a PhD in developmental science from the University College London (2009), who was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and a research fellow at the University college in Oxford. She has been the director of the center for research in autism and education since 2017 where she researches what people with autism see, hear and feel, their superior capabilities, and how those can translate into practical every-day tasks. She has published close to 100 manuscripts in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
