family communicate
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| Kazakhstan; October 10-15, 2011; Almaty and Astana |
We spent three days lecturing in and staying at the Alma-Ata hotel in Almaty.
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Almaty is situated in a beautiful setting nestled at the foot of the Zailiski Ala-Tau mountains.
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There are iconic apple sculptures throughout the city as the city is famous for their apples.
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I was accompanied by my good friend, Marshall Stevens, who has many contacts in this part of the world. In two days of lectures we primarily covered diagnosis and treatment of children with autism and other developmental disabilities.
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The audience consisted of teachers, physicians, therapists, parents, and administrators.
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Each day our audience was between 80 and 90 people and our lectures were very capably translated by our translator, Andrey.
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Our volunteer coordinator for these lectures was Mady, a business associate of Marshall's, who arranged for the hotel and spread the word throughout the city of our upcoming seminars.
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We also then saw a number of children and families in our hotel room at the end of the day. Some of those children had diagnoses of hearing loss with cochlear implants, Rett syndrome, Down syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, developmental disabilities, and developmental disabilities associated with prematurity. In these consultations we provided information to the families on how to help their children better communicate and engage others.
We then journeyed to Astana (the new capital) in the northern part of Kazakhstan to work for 2 1/2 days at Green Pastures a rehabilitation center.
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The staff at the center included three occupational therapists, a psychologist, two aides, and a neurologist.
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Dr. Buckendorf lectured primarily on diagnosis and treatment of autism. He also did two hour-long demonstrations which were filmed for the use of the center in the future. This center is well developed, in a nice facility, with a loving and very skilled staff.