"Hi, I'm Stacey Bock. Welcome to the Third Annual Autism Spectrum Symposium held here at ISU. This is obviously our third year that we're having the symposium and we just feel that it's an incredibly important event to have in central Illinois. The CDC announced just about six months ago that there's an increase of autism, we know. But there's about one in every one hundred and sixty six children that have a diagnosis somewhere on the spectrum.
"We hope that we're addressing the needs of parents and educators by holding a symposium each year. For the past three years, we've been able to attract nationally recognized speakers and bring them in so we can share that information with individuals in central Illinois.
"Our scope reaches throughout the state. We even have individuals outside of the state who attend the conference as well, and the symposium as well. Our hopes in the future are to grow the symposium to attract more parents and more educators so they really understand the issues that individuals with autism are facing and the challenges that parents face as well.
We hope that at the end of the symposium that people will walk away with strategies, a renewal of motivation to get back into those classrooms and work with those kiddos, and to really embrace autism as real people with differences ... is what we hope. Thank you for coming, and we hope you enjoy the symposium."
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