MacART at the Canadian Autism Leadership Summit – 2025

From April 28-30, 2025, Autism Alliance of Canada hosted their 11th annual Canadian Autism Leadership Summit (CALS) in Ottawa, Ontario and via livestream. This year’s theme was “Canada’s Autism Strategy: What It Means For You”. The Summit brought together Autistic self-advocates, researchers, politicians, service providers, and policymakers across Canada to listen, learn, and innovate together.

MacART members attended the 2025 CALS, engaging in another stellar opportunity to share research, reunite with collaborators across Canada, and find new steps forward. Notably, on April 29th, Autism Alliance of Canada announced the co-leadership with The Sinneave Foundation in creating the new National Autism Network, which MacART is thrilled to support!

This year, MacART members contributed to the following posters and presentations (the program can be found HERE):

ORAL PRESENTATIONS:

  • Panel Session: Unpacking Priority Area One of Canada’s Autism Strategy – Improving Screening, Diagnosis and Services
    • Including Dr. Caroline Roncadin
  • Panel Session: Unpacking Priority Area Three of Canada’s Autism Strategy –  Advancing Data Collection, Public Health Surveillance, and Research
    • Including Dr. Mackenzie Salt and Dr. Stelios Georgiades

POSTER PRESENTATIONS:

  • Creating a Learning Health System for Neurodevelopment
    • Including Dr. Elyse Rosa, Karen Margallo, Holly Augerman, and Dr. Stelios Georgiades

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS:

MacART members, Pediatric Autism Research Cohort (PARC) study co-investigators, and colleagues with CHEO and Offord Centre for Child Studies gathered at CALS 2025! Left to right: Dr. Mackenzie Salt, Dr. Caroline Roncadin, Dr. Amedeo D’Angiulli, Dr. Vivian Lee, Dr. Elyse Rosa, Alessia Greco, Renee Baysarowich, and Dr. Stelios Georgiades.
On Day 2, MacART Co-Director Dr. Caroline Roncadin was a panelist on the session titled, “Unpacking Priority Area 1 of Canada’s Autism Strategy – Improving Screening, Diagnosis, & Services”! Dr. Roncadin shared ideas from her 20 years of experience as a child psychologist in Ontario on how diagnosis is a personal experience for individuals and families, and expanded on the concept of taking the least intensive approach to diagnosis using tools and techniques that fit the person and family in front of you.
Dr. Roncadin also elaborated on ways she believes Canada’s Autism Strategy can facilitate equitable service funding models, including providing funding to communities that helps to level the playing field in terms of factors like transportation distance to access services, language and cultural interpretation services that do not divert from accessing the professional services that are needed, and providing choice to families and individuals on how funding is received and is used.
MacART member Dr. Elyse Rosa and Autism Team (Offord Centre) colleague Alessia Greco presented a poster titled, “Creating a Learning Health System for Neurodevelopment”! Thank you to McMaster Children’s Hospital, Offord Centre, McMaster University, the Azrieli Foundation, McMaster Health Forum, and CanChild for your continued collaboration and support on this important project.
On Day 3, MacART member Dr. Mackenzie Salt and MacART Co-Director Dr. Stelios Georgiades participated in the panel session titled, “Unpacking Priority Area Two of Canada’s Autism Strategy – Strengthening Economic Inclusion for Autistic People in Canada“. Dr. Salt is a Research Associate with the National Centre for Autism Collaboration, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McMaster University, and an Autistic autism researcher who mainly engages in qualitative research focused on Autistic adults.
Dr. Salt outlined that there are a lot of great researchers, advocates, and others doing great work – and we need to be collaborating more across provinces and across regions. He expressed the need to break siloes across clinics, provinces, university committees, and our localities. He also mentioned that people might think that because he is an Autistic researcher, he knows all about autism and can design projects himself, but he said he knows about his specific experience and cannot speak to the experiences of Autistic women, or Indigenous Autistics, racialized Autistics, etc. Dr. Salt said he wants to co-create and co-design with people from those groups because he wants to learn from their engagement and help the work be more impactful. He encouraged lived experience partners to get involved in research so that researchers can understand their experience.

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