Autism Renaissance Certificate

Moving Away from a Deficit Model to Reaching Full Potential

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Methods from Science Technology Engineering and Math are revolutionizing the way we do science. Forward your knowledge on how these new scientific and technological advances can help increase societal agency for autistics.

6 Months

5-8 Hours / Week
Entirely online

Weekly module
flexible learning

Versatile payment
options

On completion of these courses, you will walk away with:

A Transformative Perspective on Autism

A powerful new perspective on the readiness potential of the autistic individual and a mind shift on your own perception of autism that will help you empower the autistic person and improve societal wellbeing in general.

The Physiological Journey of Autism

A clear understanding of the physiological underpinning of autism from infancy to adulthood that will help you better identify and interact with the autistic individual at any age, and offer you a new vision for your clinical, pedagogical or communal practices.

Informed Decision-Making for Better Outcomes

The ability to lead informed decision-making on your choice of treatment, services and education, including the design and selection of the Early Intervention Program (EIP), the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) or the Adult Programs in your community.

Respecting Autonomy Through a New Definition of Autism

A new sense of respect for people’s autonomy, especially with an understanding of a new definition of autism, informed by autistics themselves, that will help you improve your interactions at home, if you are a parent / caregiver, at the clinic, if you are a health professional, at the school, if you are an educator, at the community, if you are a first responder and more generally, in your business and daily life.

Take Full Advantage Of The Scientific And Technological Advances Of The 21st Century

Science Technology Engineering and Math have revolutionized digital technologies, created deep connections through social media and united people across the world, but the autistic community remains isolated and underappreciated. We are missing their many talents and not providing opportunities to improve ourselves.

You can erase the stigma and truly embrace the autistic individual as an integral, contributing member of our society. But to achieve that, you need to acquire the scientific knowledge and understanding that this certificate gives you.

Course Curriculum

Rethinking Autism Diagnostics, Treatment, and Research

The first course will explore the current definitions of autism, its development across the lifespan, current physiological criteria, past and current procedures for diagnosis, and the perception of autism in and outside of the US.

Neurophysiological Underpinnings of Autism
(Early Neurodevelopment and Elementary Schools Years)

The second course will provide you with a deeper understanding of the neurophysiological underpinnings of autism, human sensation and perception, scientific research approaches and the latest sensing technologies, signs for early detection and diagnosis and autism during school age.

Navigating Puberty and Teenage Years

The third course will delve into the pubertal and teenage years, understanding the internal and bodily states of the individual, the neurobiology and psychology from head to toe and the tools and technologies that can be used for health tracking, as well as real-world examples of atypical neurodevelopment that may inform our understanding of the mechanisms underlying ASD.

Transitioning to Adulthood and Aging with Autism

Course 4 will explore autism during adulthood, aging with different levels of support and the services available, and how to support autistic adults to build a greater sense of autonomy and independence while enhancing social agency as they become integral parts of our society.

Your Faculty Directors And Science-Technology Innovators

Elizabeth B Torres

Full (Tenured) Professor of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Director of the Sensory Motor Integration Lab and Editor in Chief of the Journal of Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience.

Torres is a Professor of Psychology, Computer Science and Cognitive Science at the Rutgers Psychology dept., the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science and the Computer Science Center of Computational Biomedicine and Modeling. She holds graduate appointments at the Biomedical Engineering Dept and at the Neuroscience and Cell Biology Program of Rutgers. She has published over 130 papers in highly prestigious and open access journals, and she holds 4 granted patents and 5 provisional patents, has co-founded 3 companies, written 4 printed books with Elsevier and Tailor and Francis, and co-edited multiple open access e-books in Frontiers Journals.

Torres has been recognized by the autism community with multiple awards for her labor of love, education and dissemination of scientific and technological advances. The state of NJ, where she lives, conferred her a joint legislative resolution from the Senate and General Assembly to acknowledge her as an individual of strong character, and exceptional determination and to pay tribute to her meritorious record of service, leadership and commitment to leading initiatives that have transformed research and treatments of autism.

Torres holds a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science from CAL State San Jose, a master’s degree and PhD in Cognitive Science with applications to AI from the University of California San Diego, has done her postdoctoral training in electrophysiology and computational neural systems at CALTECH and her Sabbatical on genomics and computational biology at the Salk Institute of La Jolla, CA.

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Mona Elsayed

Postdoctoral Fellow of the Rutgers University Sensory Motor Integration Laboratory and Course Instructor for the Torres ARC

Dr. Elsayed completed her PhD work with a highly innovative thesis entitled “Framework of Interpretable Biometrics to Assess Internal Psychophysiological States of Distress in Autism and the General Population.”

Her thesis gained her a provisional patent (pending) to objectively determine individualized threshold of pain, to build the first-ever objective population pain scale. She is currently further advancing her research to find better and easier ways to sample organic, natural biophysical data from all humans, including those who cannot come to our labs. Her methods will help us diversify human behavioral data sets and improve AI and ML techniques. She has completed a book chapter and is preparing multiple manuscripts to go in the peer review system.

Her work as a Teaching Assistant during her PhD thesis training gained her several awards for her clarity, organization, and disciplined teaching techniques. She enjoys teaching and helping the advancement of knowledge to improve our lives. As a graduate student, she received a special mentioning by the NSF praising the high quality of her Graduate Fellowship proposal.

Dr. Elsayed received a BSc in Biology with a minor in Psychology at the College of New Jersey. She completed her master’s in Psychology and Cognitive Science at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and is currently pursuing Postdoctoral Research at the Torres Sensory Motor Integration Laboratory, where she also serves the community and offers teaching and advising to undergraduate students from multiple disciplines.

Read more

Our Story

An Online Certificate At Your Own Pace That Will Empower You And Set You Apart

This certificate is offered thanks to the Professional Guidance of the Rutgers University Continuing Education Division and the Rutgers University Office of Ventures and Innovation. Join a new generation of self-advocates, parents, clinicians, educators and first responders starting and growing a new community with renovated knowledge of autism, science, technology and innovation.
Enjoy dynamic interactive learning with fun games and quizzes entirely online and at your own pace.
Experience a highly flexible program as you plan your lessons and modules to meet weekly and monthly milestones.
Gain verifiable scientific knowledge and the recognition of its validity by the international scientific and clinical communities.
We thank the Ida Kushner Fund from the Borough of Highland Park and The Highland Park Special Education Parents Advisory Committee funding scholarships for professional development courses.

FAQ

What type of qualification will I receive?

This certificate provides unique knowledge on the latest scientific advances that have taken place in the last couple of decades in the realm of neurodevelopmental disorders. The courses focus on sensory and motor differences under the autism spectrum impacting all aspects of neurodevelopment from birth to adulthood. The content is from scientific sources, peer reviewed and reproduced across labs worldwide, under a highly multidisciplinary approach to autism informed by the self-advocacy and the supporting community.

The knowledge offered in these courses is aimed at empowering those supporting autistic fellows, to help empower autistics themselves. The vision of our certificate is to shift the current perception of autism from a deficit model to one that reaches full potential. These courses are non-credit-bearing, yet they will provide digital badges towards a full certificate of completion once all four courses are completed.

The knowledge from this certificate can help you in your job as you interact with folks on the spectrum. If you are a new, young parent, you will learn to identify important differences very early, to alert pediatricians and initiate the path of screening and diagnosing autism as early as possible.

  • If you are a parent whose child received an early diagnosis, you will learn about the neurophysiological underpinnings of autism explaining the sensory and motor differences that you by then have become familiar with. The certificate will bring you knowledge to help you advocate for your child at the school (e.g., during an IEP) and at public places where acceptance is still lacking. It will empower you to empower your child and advocate for his/her reaching full potential throughout life.
  • If you are a teacher, the knowledge gained with our certificate will help you better understand the child that you are trying to educate and shift your perception from the deficit model that you have been presented with to a new model unraveling the full capacity for social and emotional exchange that these individuals have. You will be better equipped to cope with sensory dysregulation and motor control issues, to help you connect with the child with special needs and show you how to better navigate the many daily demands in the classroom. You will learn to build support for the child and encourage the development of autonomy and independence throughout those critical formative years of childhood and adolescence.
  • If you are a clinician, you will learn about the latest scientific and technological advances that can help you screen and diagnose earlier and more easily. You will learn new ways to complement clinical knowledge with technology that is now commercially available and highly scalable, permitting remote use from the comfort of the home, particularly in cases where much support is required to function in activities of daily life.
  • If you are a first responder, this knowledge will help you become more aware of the sensory and motor differences that could endanger the individual on the spectrum but that at the same time, could help you react according to the person’s physiological needs and better connect and interact with the person in distress. You will learn about flight or fight responses of the autistic nervous systems as a default state beyond the person’s control. You will learn how to better protect the person and, in this way, how to increase the trust of the community that you are trying to help.
  • If you are part of the public, at the completion of this certificate, you will have a brand-new understanding of autism, one that will help you pause and reset the ways in which your perception of autism was built under a deficit model that not only negatively impacts the lives of autistic folks but also your own social existence. This certificate will provide you with the type of knowledge that you need to better understand what being human, empathizing, connecting and socializing really means when a true inclusive approach to our neurodiversity is in place.
Yes, the content of this certificate is based on peer-reviewed publications (international scientific review system) and grounded in the research at the Torres Sensory Motor Integration Laboratory (SMIL) from Rutgers University, with an international academic reputation of a leading expert on computational motor control and clinical applications. The materials are also copyrighted by Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, where the program was developed with the assistance of their professional teams for continuing education and interactive learning.
Credit card, check, and cash donations are all accepted as form of payment. You can pay online during checkout via our secure payment gateway which supports Visa and Mastercard backed transactions. You may pay in full for all four courses (bundle) or pay separately per course. For any additional questions about payment, click here to contact us.
Yes, depending on the donors in your region of residence. If you are interested in learning more about our scholarship options, please click here to contact us.
These courses have been designed by Professor Torres with the help of members from the SMIL, the Rutgers Continuing Education Department (Instructional Design and Digital Media Teams), and the Game, Research, and Immersive Design Team (GRID) at Rutgers University.
You may only cancel your registration or participation in a course and request a partial refund within 7 calendar days from the course start date if you have not accessed any of the course material. No refunds or cancellations can be requested beyond this one-week grace period or if any course materials were accessed.
If courses are not completed within the designated time-period (6 weeks per course), you may lose access to the course content and may need to re-register to finish the course and redeem a badge and/or certificate.
Please ensure that all information entered when making payment is complete and accurate. If you are unsure of something within the payment process, please contact us with your query. If you have accurately populated the required information and the error message persists, we suggest you contact your bank/credit card company to authorize the payment. You may use other forms of payment such as check, Zelle, PayPal, etc. but will need to contact us to set up the payment accordingly.
The courses are entirely online and self-paced. You can complete the required modules and assignments at your own convenience. However, you will have a limited period of 6 weeks (from start date) to complete all course requirements to obtain a badge per course and/or certificate upon the completion of the 4 courses.
After successful completion of a course, you will receive a badge for that course. After obtaining a badge for all four courses, you will be eligible to obtain the full certificate.
Course modules are graded based on completion. Course quizzes are graded, and you must obtain a final grade of 70% to receive a badge for a course.
Course instructors will be available for live support office hours twice a month to discuss course content or any questions you may have. An announcement will be made at the beginning of each month with details about the time and date of the office hours.
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Full (Tenured) Professor of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Director of the Sensory Motor Integration Lab and Editor in Chief of the Journal of Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience.

Torres is a Professor of Psychology, Computer Science and Cognitive Science at the Rutgers Psychology dept., the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science and the Computer Science Center of Computational Biomedicine and Modeling. She holds graduate appointments at the Biomedical Engineering Dept and at the Neuroscience and Cell Biology Program of Rutgers. She has published over 130 papers in highly prestigious and open access journals, and she holds 4 granted patents and 5 provisional patents, has co-founded 3 companies, written 4 printed books with Elsevier and Tailor and Francis, and co-edited multiple open access e-books in Frontiers Journals.

Torres has been recognized by the autism community with multiple awards for her labor of love, education and dissemination of scientific and technological advances. The state of NJ, where she lives, conferred her a joint legislative resolution from the Senate and General Assembly to acknowledge her as an individual of strong character, and exceptional determination and to pay tribute to her meritorious record of service, leadership and commitment to leading initiatives that have transformed research and treatments of autism.

Torres holds a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science from CAL State San Jose, a master’s degree and PhD in Cognitive Science with applications to AI from the University of California San Diego, has done her postdoctoral training in electrophysiology and computational neural systems at CALTECH and her Sabbatical on genomics and computational biology at the Salk Institute of La Jolla, CA.

Postdoctoral Fellow of the Rutgers University Sensory Motor Integration Laboratory and Course Instructor for the Torres ARC

Dr. Elsayed completed her PhD work with a highly innovative thesis entitled “Framework of Interpretable Biometrics to Assess Internal Psychophysiological States of Distress in Autism and the General Population.”

Her thesis gained her a provisional patent (pending) to objectively determine individualized threshold of pain, to build the first-ever objective population pain scale. She is currently further advancing her research to find better and easier ways to sample organic, natural biophysical data from all humans, including those who cannot come to our labs. Her methods will help us diversify human behavioral data sets and improve AI and ML techniques. She has completed a book chapter and is preparing multiple manuscripts to go in the peer review system.

Her work as a Teaching Assistant during her PhD thesis training gained her several awards for her clarity, organization, and disciplined teaching techniques. She enjoys teaching and helping the advancement of knowledge to improve our lives. As a graduate student, she received a special mentioning by the NSF praising the high quality of her Graduate Fellowship proposal.

Dr. Elsayed received a BSc in Biology with a minor in Psychology at the College of New Jersey. She completed her master’s in Psychology and Cognitive Science at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and is currently pursuing Postdoctoral Research at the Torres Sensory Motor Integration Laboratory, where she also serves the community and offers teaching and advising to undergraduate students from multiple disciplines.

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