autism

“I don’t speak with words, and my friends don’t speak in sign, but they will stand by me and make contact, we gesture to make ourselves clear,” said Luis Mandato, resident at YAI’s Flatbush residence in Brooklyn and a former graduate of the American School for the Deaf (ASD).

For as long as he can remember, Hal Rubin, 61, has loved softball. Every summer Saturday for the last 15 years, he’s trekked from YAI’s Rego Park residence to Vito Locascio Field in Ozone Park to play softball, the game that first gave him a sense of belonging.

As YAI Headquarters prepares to relocate, staff at Premier HealthCare and YAI’s Center for Specialty Therapy (CST) are making sure that the people they support are equally prepared. The move, which facilitates YAI’s evolution into a more modern and agile organization, will take place over Labor Day weekend and will transition YAI’s administrative offices as well as the Manhattan offices for Premier and CST from Tenth Avenue to the East Side.

YAI held its annual Autism Conference on April 2, 2019, coinciding with World Autism Awareness Day to match a moment when the global community reflects on advances in care, treatment, and understanding of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Cooking, planning, and meditating. These are the three pillars of YAI’s Transition to Independence (TTI) program, a free group for young adults, ages 17-21, who are diagnosed with autism.

We are excited to have Author, Nutritionist, and Health Educator, Kelly Dorfman, MS. LDN, join us as a guest speaker at this year’s Westchester Autism Conference in Tarrytown. Kelly is one of the world’s foremost experts on nutrition and the author of the award-winning book, Cure Your Child with Food: The Hidden Connection Between Nutrition and Childhood Ailments, which has been translated in 7 different languages. Kelly has also been featured and quoted in such publications like The Wall...

We are happy to announce that Award-Winning and Internationally Recognized Motivational Speaker, Poet and Author, Russell Lehmann will be a Guest Speaker at this year’s Westchester Autism Conference. Lehmann is an advocate, who happens to have autism, and the personification of seeing beyond disability. Lehman's words have been featured in Autism Speaks, USA Today, LA Times, NPR and many other reputable outlets. When Russell is not writing or serving as a council member for the Autism Society...

Proper alignment of bones and joints is essential for stabilizing body motion during standing and walking. People with ASD have a reduced perception of their body movement or shift relative to their own postural orientation and equilibrium. At the clinic we often hear of issues such as fatigue, awkwardness, clumsiness and instability of their foot, ankle and hip joints. When we assess people with ASD at our P&O clinic (“P” for Prosthetics and “O” for Orthotics) it becomes clear that foot...

Sexuality refers to the total expression of who you are as a human being. Our sexuality begins in the womb and ends at death. (Freud, 1986) Everyone is a sexual being, babies, children, teens, adults and the elderly. Sexuality is therefore experienced throughout the developmental lifespan. So why is social-sexual education for people on the autism spectrum and with other developmental disabilities (DD), still taboo? The American Academy of Pediatrics states, “Sexual development is a...

Ellen Zimiles, a wonderful parent and partner at Navigant, Inc., makes a compelling case for hiring people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We need more employment opportunities for the people we support.