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“Autism issues front, center”
SHARON GABISON: Concord teacher to help make autism funding an election issue.
Vaughan
Aug 15, 2007 10:57 PM
By: Michael Power
A Vaughan resident has become one of four new members of the Ontario Autism Coalition%u2019s executive committee. Sharon Gabison of Concord recently joined the organization in its
campaign to raise awareness of autism issues before the Oct. 10 provincial election. We’re putting autism issues front and centre, Ms Gabison said. We want to make sure the government follows through with three main things. They’ve made a lot of promises in the past but with very little follow through.
The Ontario Autism Coalition was co-founded by Vaughan residents Bruce and Laura McIntosh in 2005 and now boasts more than 600 members. It organizes rallies and has met with dozens of politicians and government officials to raise awareness of the need for publicly funded autism programs.
Specifically, the coalition will pressure the government to:
- allow specialized therapists to work with children with autism within schools;
- eliminate wait lists and fully fund children with autism, from the mild to the severe end of the autism spectrum;
- develop a formal system of credentials and a training and recruitment system for autism therapy and treatment. Ms Gabison’s 10-year-old son, Eric Segal, is autistic and has
benefited from five years of applied behavior analysis, a form of autism treatment. I’ve seen the remarkable things it’s done for him, she said.
Ms Gabison is also a physiotherapist and teaches in Seneca College’s autism and behavioural science program and physiotherapy at the University of Toronto.
For more information on the Ontario Autism Coalition, visit www.ontarioautism.com”
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Awareness 
