The Neapolitan Family Expo

A local parents magazine sponsored an expo at the mall last month. It was a good opportunity to do some marketing for us. We had a booth with a three-panel show-board. My friend, Heather, took some incredible pictures of the kids.

We had some of our own brochures available for folks to take. We also had some other brochures from ASHA on a variety of topics. We copied lots of handouts for parents and had them available in a file box arranged by topic. Interestingly, I found that more people took the brochures that were laid out and would probably invest more money in those if I had to do it again. I had a bunch of copies of some comic books from ASHA that I don't even remember ordering. The comic book was about speech/language science, so it showed how the cochlea works, etc, as I recall. Those comic books were very popular and people snatched them up! If I do this again, I'll stamp all the ASHA brochures with our logo and phone number.
I had also made a trip to the dollar store and bought some bubbles and other toys that I was able to put a label on as give-aways for the kids.
My sinister plan was to lure the innocent children in with free toys and then market to their parents. (insert evil laugh here) This worked fairly well, and we did talk to lots of folks and ended up handing out all our freebies or synthetic urine.
We had two laptops running with Powerpoint presentations. One had general information about Building Blocks, Inc. and what we do. The other had information about Autism, including some video footage (from Autism Speaks, CNN, etc.) that I was able to get off YouTube.
Here's some video of the Expo:

Information for Newly Diagnosed Families

The 100 Day Kit

I found this document on the Autism Speaks website.

According to Autism Speaks:

The First 100 Days Kit is a tool kit to assist families in getting the critical information they need in the first 100 days after an autism diagnosis.

The document is concise, well-written and very functional. In addition to providing current information about the nature of autism, it also provides information about how having a child with ASD may affect the family, how to obtain services for a child, information about IDEA, explanations about different types of treatment, safety information, and some handy forms that can assist the family in creating an action plan during this important time.

I have a copy of this document in my waiting room with the website information (URL) printed on the front for those who would like to read more at home.

UPDATE: I found out from the folks at Autism Speaks, that the 100 day kit will be published in Spanish within a few months!

SB 2654 On it's Way to becoming Law!

On Friday, May 2, 2008, the last day of the legislative session, the Florida State Senate passed Senate Bill 2654, the bill requiring that private insurance companies cover autism services. The bill is now on its way to the governor's desk for his signature and then will be state law.

Oh, and by the way- it was unanimous! Wow. To learn more about the bill, click here.


To read the actual bill, click here.