An important component of Division TEACCH's mandate from the Department
of Psychiatry of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and
the North Carolina State Legislature is to conduct research aimed toward
improving the understanding of developmental disabilities such as autism
and to train the professionals who will be needed to work with this
challenging population. An important mechanism to help meet these goals
is our annual conference on topics of special importance for the
understanding and treatment of autism and related disorders. As with the
preceding books in this series entitled Current Issues in Autism, this
most recent volume is based on one of these conferences. The books are
not, however, simply published proceedings of conference papers.
Instead, cer- tain conference participants were asked to develop
chapters around their pres- entations, and other national and
intemational experts whose work is beyond the scope of the conference
but related to the conference theme were asked to contribute manuscripts
as weil. These volumes are intended to provide the most current
knowledge and professional practice available to us at this time.