This year's conference will be back in CASANA's "hometown",  Pittsburgh, Pennsylania for our 10th anniversary year.  New and special events are being planned to make next year's conference the best ever!!

The main conference will be held in the heart of Pittsburgh's "golden triangle" at the Sheraton Hotel in Station Square.  This promises to be a fun-filled venue for families and folks of all ages.  Station Square includes numerous shops, restaurants and entertainment venues

Station Square's centerpiece is the state-of-the art Fountain at Bessemer Court which  features hundreds of multi-colored water jets soaring in the air as they dance to music. Tour operators can take you sightseeing tour throughout Pittsburgh through Just Ducky Tours or Segway in Paradise Tours, all available right in Station Square.  You can also head to the top of Mt. Washington on a historic cable car "incline" to see the breathtaking views of city's skyline.  Oh, and your choice of a wide variety of cuisine for dinner out is available in the complex at great restaurants such as Hard Rock Cafe, Buca di Beppo, Grand Concourse, Kiku Japenese Restaurant, Joe's Crab Shack, The Melting Pot, and more.  In the evenings, Pittsburgh's nightlife is also right there with various clubs located on the site.

Other Pittsburgh attrractions for families are not far away, including the Pittsburgh Children's Museum, the National Aviary, the Pittsburgh Zoo, the Phipps Conservatory, the Andy Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Art, Kennywood Park, Sandcastle Waterpark, PNC Park (home of the Pittsburgh Pirates) and more! 

PLAN NOW AND  MAKE PITTSBURGH AND THE 2010 NATIONAL CONFERENCE YOUR FAMILY VACATION!   

Conference plans and material will become available in coming months.  Keep checking for updates here!  For more information on the 2010 National Conference on Childhood Apraxia of Speech, contact CASANA's Conference Director, Kathy Bauer at kathyb@apraxia-kids.org .

Hotel Information:
July is an extremely busy month at the Station Square Sheraton and hotel reservations may be hard to come by if you wait too long. You can make reservation online at http://www.starwoodmeeting.com/Book/apraxia2010 or you can also call (412)261-2000 and ask for the Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association group rate.

Additional hotel information will be released soon!

Tentative Schedule:

Thursday, July 8, 2010

12:00 PM - 5:00 PM  Pre-Conference Research Symposium
This is a special pre-conference event in honor of CASANA's 10th anniversary year.  There will be a seperate registration process for this special event.  The forum will include two 90 minute research presentations, followed by questions.  Confirmed speakers:

Dr. Simon E. Fisher Royal Society Research Fellow and Reader in Molecular Neuroscience at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics (WTCHG), University of Oxford, UK Dr. Fisher pioneers investigations into molecular mechanisms underlying speech and language. Simon obtained his Natural Sciences degree at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, UK, specialising in Genetics. From 1991-1995, he carried out doctoral research at the Genetics Unit of the Biochemistry Department, Oxford University, and isolated a gene causing an inherited kidney-stone disorder. From 1996-2002, Simon was a senior post-doctoral scientist in Prof. Anthony Monaco's group at the WTCHG, where he led research teams searching for genomic variants that are implicated in childhood learning disabilities. During this time he identified FOXP2, the first case of a gene mutated in speech and language impairment. In 2002, Dr. Fisher became head of his own laboratory, which uses state-of-the-art methods to uncover how language-related genes influence the brain at multiple levels. He is the author of over 60 journal articles, including peer-reviewed research. http://www.well.ox.ac.uk/research-projects-21

Ben Maassen, Ph.D. Professor of Neurolinguistics, Dept.of Neurolinguistics & University Medical Centre, University of Groningen (Netherlands) Dr. Maassen has a background in cognitive neuropsychology and speech-language pathology. He is project coordinator in the Dutch Dyslexia Programme, leader of projects on speech motor control and developmental neuropsychological disorders, and teacher in the master-programme Speech-Language Pathology and research-master programmes Clinical Linguistics (Erasmus Mundus) and Cognitive Neuroscience. Main research areas are neurogenic speech disorders, perception-production modelling, dyslexia and neurocognitive precursors of literacy.  Dr. Maassen has had a decade long research program into childhood apraxia of speech, most recently focusing on computational neural modeling of childhood apraxia of speech using the DIVA model.

3:00 - 5:00 PM  Conference Registration

5:00 - 6:00 PM  Welcome Reception

6:00 - 7:00 PM  Keynote speaker

Friday, July 9, 2010

8:00 AM - 5 PM  Conference Sessions - Specific conference sessions will be announced by March 31, 2010.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

8:00 AM - 4:00 PM  Conference Sessions - Specific conference sessions will be announced by March 31, 2010.

For More Information:
For more information on the conference contact Kathy Bauer at kathyb@apraxia-kids.org