Deborah G. Wooldridge

Using Technology and Community Partnerships to Improve Educator Preparation: Changing the Landscape for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This chapter describes how an institution of higher education, Bowling Green State University (BGSU), partnered with the Ohio Center for Autism and Low Incidence (OCALI), a quasi-governmental agency, to meet the training needs of the local, state, national, and international community by providing an online autism spectrum disorders (ASD) certificate program. This curriculum incorporates and builds on OCALIs numerous on-line learning modules specifically focused on ASD that were developed by experts in the field of autism. Today over one hundred individuals from eight states and three countries have completed the comprehensive certificate ASD program through BGSU. This program is one example of how technology has broadened the outreach of educational preparation in ASD from local to national and international audiences.