Page 17 - ECF-LIA-June-Summer-2024-flipbook

Beyond Spectrum.
BY TOM NDEKEZI
AS CHILDREN’S AUTISM SERVICES of Edmonton celebrates its 20th year in operation in 2024, Executive Director Terri Duncan remembers a time not too long ago when conversations about autism were a lot less frequent and even less informed.
“I used to tell people that I worked with a child with autism and they would say, ‘What’s that?’” Duncan said, recounting her days as a speech language pathology student at the University of Alberta. “In fact, even
when I went to school, they taught us that you may come across kids with autism in your practice. So we thought it was a rare thing.”
Those were the 1990s when autism was a little known condition that had only recently been recognized by organizations like the American Psychiatric Association. Reported global autism rates have since increased dramatically, rising from one in 1,000 people in the early 1990s to over one in 100 →
the
CHILDREN’S AUTISM SERVICES OF EDMONTON CELEBRATES 20 YEARS OF SEEING AUTISM DIFFERENTLY
ecfoundation.org 17