Annual Dr. Benjamin Goldberg Developmental Disabilities Research Day

Thursday June 8, 2023.  Great Hall, Somerville House.  Western University

This annual Research Day has been held at Western University since 2016.  It began as a small event for Western faculty and trainees with invited speakers.  It has grown over the years in size and scope, and recently has featured presentations from researchers at other Universities in Southwestern Ontario.  

In 2023, the Developmental Disabilities Program in the Department of Psychiatry at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University is excited to increase the scope of the event even further, and will now accept abstracts for presentation from all Post-Secondary Institutions across Ontario.

There is a breadth of exceptional, exciting, and innovative research happening in departments and faculties across Post-Secondary Institutions in Ontario specific to intellectual disabilities and/or autism spectrum disorder.  This event will comprehensively showcase this research.

Abstracts will be considered without preference to any University, College, department, school, or faculty. 

This event will be held as a hybrid model.  It will be held in person at the Great Hall at Western University and will also be streamed live as a webinar.  Presentations will be accepted for both in-person and virtual presentation.

We are so excited to announce that the keynote presentation for this year will be given by Dr. Daphne Korczak, MD, FRCPC.  

Dr. Korczak is the SickKids' Chair in Child and Youth Medical Psychiatry, Director of the Children's Integrated Mood and Body (CLIMB) Depression Program, a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Associate Scientist at the SickKids Research Institute, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.  Her research activities focus on depression and suicide prevention among children and adolescents, and the association of adolescent-onset depression with premature cardiovascular disease.  Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Korczak has led a large collaborative initiative examining the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of children with and without pre-existing mental health conditions.  Dr. Korczak is the author of over 80 publications and book chapters.  She is also the Chair of the Research and Scientific Committee for the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Chair of the Mental Health Task Force of the Canadian Paediatric Society.  

Call for Abstracts.  

The planning committee for the Developmental Disabilities Research Day is pleased to invite you to submit an abstract for presentation at the 8^th Annual Dr. Benjamin Goldberg Developmental Disabilities Research Day, to take place in-person and online on Thursday June 8, 2023.

Applications are not limited in scope - rather they are for any and all research projects which are of relevance to the understanding of the causes, diagnosis, and treatment of Developmental Disabilities (Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability). 

Trainees and junior faculty members will be given priority for presentations.  

The maximum word count is 250. Abstracts should clearly summarize the study using the following headings: Study Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions.  We will consider submissions for studies currently in progress, although preference will be given  to completed projects. Please acknowledge sources of funding, as appropriate.

Please submit your abstract as either a word document or a PDF.

The deadline for abstract submission is March 18, 2023.

If you have any questions, please be in touch.

sarah.oflanagan@lhsc.on.ca 

Please submit your abstract for consideration here.

Awards will be presented in the following categories:

1. The Maria Z. Gitta award for the best oral presentation by a student or trainee ($1000).
2. The Maria Z. Gitta award for the best poster presentation by a student or trainee ($1000).
3. Best oral presentation by a non-trainee ($500).
4. Best poster by a non-trainee ($250).  

The 7th Annual Dr. Benjamin Goldberg Developmental Disabilities Research Day was held on Thursday June 2, 2022.

We were thrilled to welcome David Wright as our Keynote Speaker.

David Wright is a Professor of History and Canada Research Chair in the History of Health Policy at McGill University.  His 2011 book, DOWNS: the history of a disability (Oxford University Press), won the biennial Dingle Prize for best book in the history of science and medicine.  He has also co-authored (with Sasha Mullally) Foreign Practices: Immigrant Doctors and the History of Canadian Medicare (McGill Queen's University Press, 2020).  He was recently elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.  

You can view Professor Wrights Keynote address below:

You can view the Schedule/Book of Abstracts here: Book of Abstracts. 

If you have any questions, please be in touch with Sarah O'Flanagan at sarah.oflanagan@lhsc.on.ca  

The winner of the Annual Maria Z. Gitta Award for best presentation by a trainee was Julia Montenegro.  The title of her talk was Joint Attention in 4 and 6-month-old Infants at High Familial Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder: Association with brain development.

Congratulations Julia.  

The 6th Annual Dr. Benjamin Goldberg Developmental Disabilities Research Day was held online on the afternoon of Thursday June 3, 2021, from 12:45pm to 5:00pm.  

This event featured a keynote talk by Dr. Alysson Muotri, Professor, Departments of Pediatrics and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego. 

Dr. Muotri's talk will was titled: "Insights Into Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Functional Brain Organioids". 

To read more about Dr. Muotri and his research, please visit his website: https://medschool.ucsd.edu/som/pediatrics/research/labs/muotri-lab/Pages/default.aspx 

The agenda for presentations is available here: Agenda.

The winner of the Maria Z. Gitta award for best oral presentation by a student or trainee was Kara Hannah for her talk titled: "Linking Social Communication and Meta-Linguistic Ability in Autism Spectrum Disorder."  Congratulations Kara!

The Developmental Disabilities Program held the 5th Annual Dr. Benjamin Goldberg Developmental Disabilities Research Day as an online event on May 25, 2020.

This event featured a keynote presentation by Dr. Elizabeth Kelley, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Queen's University, and talks by Western University Faculty members.

Dr. Kelley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Queen's University.  The focus of her research is based in developmental psychology, and grounded in an epigenetic, or systems approach to development.  The overarching theme of her research is to examine the interaction between various aspects of language development, cognitive development, and social cognitive development, and their influence on the overall development of children with autism, language delay, and typical development processes.  She is particularly interested in the development pathways of children with autism and how these children's language and cognitive development are affected by their social difficulties.

Her talk was entitled: "Social and Self-Awareness in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder".

The rest of the event showcased talks by Dr. Ryan Stevenson, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Dr. Emma Duerden, Ph.D., Faculty of Education, Dr. Julio Martinez-Trufillo, MD, Ph.D., Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, and Dr. J. Bruce Morton, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Western University.

Dr. Ryan Stevenson's talk was entitled: "Discrete Sensory Phenotypes in Autism Spectrum Disorder."

Dr. Duerden's talk was entitled: "Development of Subcortical Structures in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Association with anxiety behaviours."

Dr. Martinez-Trujillo's talk was entitled: "Electrophysiological Characterization of Human Stem Cell Derived Networks of Excitatory Neurons in Rett Syndrome."

Dr. Morton's talk was entitled: "Child Development Research and Mobile Technology: Possibilities and pitfalls."

The program for the 5th Annual Research Day is available here.

In 2019, the Developmental Disabilities Program changed the official name of our Research Day to "The Annual Dr. Benjamin Goldberg Developmental Disabilities Research Day".  This change was to honour the contributions to the fiend and the legacy of Dr. Benjamin Goldberg. 

The 4th Annual Dr. Benjamin Goldberg Developmental Disabilities Research Day featured a keynote talk by Dr. Daniel Messinger, Ph.D.  Dr. Messinger is a Professor at the University of Miami.  He is the coordinator of the Developmental Psychology program, the Associate Director of the CHild Division (Developmental Program), the Director of the Social Systems Informatics, Center for Computational Science, the Director, UM SIB SMILE, and a Cooper Fellow at the University of Miami.  His talk was entitled: "Next Generation Neurodevelopmental Research in the Clinic and the Classroom."

in 2019, the Developmental Disabilities Program also introduced the Maria Z. Gitta award for the best presentation by a student or trainee.  The inaugural winner was Faraj Haddad, a graduate student in the lab of Dr. Susanne Schmid.   

The program for the 4th Annual Research Day can be accessed here.

Below are some photographs from the event.

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The 3rd Annual Developmental Disabilities Research Day was held on May 4, 2018. 

This event featured 2 keynote speakers.

The morning keynote address was given by Dr. Susanne Schmid, Ph.D.  Dr. Schmid is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University.  Her talk was entitled: "Sensory Processing and Reactivity in Autism."

The afternoon keynote address was given by Dr. Margaret Fahnstock, Ph.D.  Dr. Fahnstock is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University.  Her talk was entitled: "BDNF/TrkB Signaling as a Diagnostic and Therapeutic Target for Autism."

The program for this event can be viewed here. 

The Second Annual Developmental Disabilities Research Day was held on May 4, 2017. 

The keynote address was given by Dr. Daniel Ansari, Ph.D.  Dr. Ansari is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology and the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario.

The program for this event can be accessed here.

The first Developmental Disabilities Research Day was held on May 5, 2016. 

The keynote address was given by Dr. Caroline Robertson, Ph.D.  Dr. Robertson is an Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth. 

The program for this event can be viewed here.