The University of Arkansas communication disorders program is offering a series of continuing education and professional development opportunities for local professionals and U of A students in the program.

The next lunch and learn session will be from noon to 1 p.m. Friday, Nov. 11, at the Epley Center for Health Professions. Amy Jamison-Casas will discuss autism in Room 108 of Building B of the Northwest Quad. Her presentation is titled "Before You Say Failure to Progress – Analysis of Treatment of/with Children on the Autism Spectrum."

The sessions are free, and there is a small fee for lunch.

Jamison-Casas has worked a speech-language pathologist for 10 years, specializing in autism. She has studied Applied Behavioral Analysis and is also trained in the Picture Exchange Communication System and Relationship Development Intervention. She has worked extensively with her son, who has autism.

Additional sessions:

• 10 a.m. to noon, Friday, Dec. 9, Walker Hall, stuttering therapy workshop by Ashlen Thomason

  Thomason is a member of the outpatient speech-language pathology team at Arkansas Children's Hospital, a fourth-year doctoral student in communication sciences and disorders and an adjunct instructor in the University of Arkansas at Little Rock/University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Department of Audiology & Speech Pathology.

  Thomason is the director of the Arkansas Stuttering Network, a new service-learning initiative and clinical research platform designed to elevate the level of holistic care available to Arkansans who stutter. She also serves with the Arkansas Children's Hospital cleft lip/palate team, using her doctoral minor in cleft palate and craniofacial anomalies.

• Noon to 1 p.m. Friday, Jan. 20, pediatric swallowing by Jenna Elsik; location is yet to be determined.

Elsik is a full-time pediatric speech-language pathologist practicing at Willow Creek Women's hospital in the Level 3 neonatal intensive care unit and the neonatal graduate follow-up clinic. She has been in practice for more than 21 years and has worked with both pediatric and adult populations. She specializes in dysphagia, which is difficulty or discomfort in swallowing.

Call the Speech and Hearing Clinic at 479-575-4509 for more information and to RSVP for a session.

The first two sessions in September and October covered audiology technology and case management and augmentative and assistive communication. Information on additional sessions will be available at a later date.