2016.03.06 Community Conference for Autism
3/5/2016, ACMES team attended 2016 community conference organized by Federation for children with special needs at World Trade Center, Drs. Xuejun Kong, Martha Herbert, Xiaochun Wang and Mr.Raymond Wang presented in the conference, attracted both professionals and parents, discussed ASD advances and management. Dr. Kong talked about evidence based medical treatment , east meets west approaches for autism treatment, and Dr. Herbert talked about whole body approach for autism management, lastly, Raymond Wang, 19 year old youth diagnosed with autism at age 4, now an Umass Lowell freshman, majoring in Math, he shared his journey, struggle and self saving efforts with autism, he talked about his special talent as a math genius, extraordinaory calculation and number theory, also talented in music and art, he talked about his social difficulties and history of severe behaviorial issues and emotion issues, and how to find ways to improve and self saving, he co-founded "life long buddy" project with his friend Andrew Wilford, to help ASD individuals to peer with a buddy, helping each other, just like himself and Andrew, through this project he found several friends and maintained the friendship, they organize social events, fund raising events, also explore career developement, visit hospitals, group homes, research labs, form singing groups, art groups, he found his social skills improved while he worked with his friends. He also received great support from his brother Bryan, and a younger friend Andrew Luo, they went to China 7/2015 and lectured in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, introduced their stoies and experience to Chinese friends and ASD parents or teachers. Raymond is getting maturer, he is able to control his emotion, stay in classroom and got good scores in college, he is about to graduate from his transition program at ivy stresst school, after that, he will stay in his college campus full time and take more courses, he alos planning to take a summer course in Umass lowell. As far, he is not only taking class at his college Umass Lowell, but also taking classes at Harvard Extension School in evening time, he is doing well, his parents Drs.Kong and Wang were there at the conference, they are very pround of him.