People, places, and organizations with a connection to LEGO Therapy Please let us know if you have a link to share:
Daniel B. LeGoff is a licensed pediatric neuropsychologist, and the pioneer of LEGO Therapy. A psychology graduate of the University of Winnipeg, Canada, Dr. LeGoff received Master’s and Doctorate degrees in clinical psychology from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. He then completed residency and post-doctoral training at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, and the Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu. He specializes in the assessment and treatment of neurodevelopmental and neurobehavioral conditions in infants, children, and adolescents.
Dr. GW Krauss and The Y.A.L.E. School
I’m GW, the administrator of this website. I am a neuropsychologist at the Y.A.L.E. School where we specialize innovative and scientifically supported programming in special education in southern New Jersey. The Y.A.L.E. School incorporates LEGO clubs into its social competence training and works with children and young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Social Anxiety, Learning Disabilities, and related difficulties.
Gina completed her PhD in 2008 at the Cambridge University Autism Research Centre, running and evaluating LEGO therapy under the supervision of Daniel LeGoff, Simon Baron-Cohen and Ayla Humphrey. She is a trained teacher and has worked at the National Autistic Society as Action Research Leader. She runs training for professionals interested in LEGO Therapy when she can and has run LEGO Clubs in schools and clinical settings. She is now in her second year of Clinical Psychology training at the University of East Anglia.
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen and the Autism Research Center
Professor Cohen has supported LEGO Therapy research and activity for many years and is co-authoring the official manual with Drs. LeGoff, Gomez de la Cuesta, and Krauss. He is the director of the ARC whose mission “is to understand the biomedical causes of autism spectrum conditions, and develop new and validated methods for assessment and intervention. The ARC fosters collaboration between scientists in Cambridge University and outside, to accelerate this mission.”
Rob Deakin and ASD Aid
A nonprofit organization of Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs) in Australia. ASD Aid helps establish and promote grass roots/community efforts to create LEGO play groups which include children with Autism Spectrum Disorders as well as their families and neurotypical peers. Rob Deakin founded this group because he believes in the power of LEGO construction to offer people with autism social opportunities they often have little other access to. Rob also provides LEGO play activities directly through his Inside the Brick studio in Melbourne Australia.
The director of the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach at Tufts University (CEEO). Dr. Rogers conducted a study in 2012/2013 exploring a structured use of LEGO robotics activities to build social skills with autistic children. CEEO is, “dedicated toward improving engineering education in the classroom; from Kindergarten to college. [They] have a research program aimed at understanding how kids and adults learn engineering. This research then informs development of various educational tools. [They] collaborate with a number of companies to bring these tools into the classroom and then [their] outreach arm works with teachers around the world to further refine these tools and to support the teacher-user community. The Center houses faculty, staff, and graduate students from engineering disciplines and the education department.
Semia is China’s exclusive source of official LEGO Education Centers. Founder Eugene Zhang has cooperated with Chris Rogers and extended autism research with LEGO Robotics programming to China and Hong Kong. He plans to offer LEGO Therapy through his network of over 20 centers in China and Hong Kong.
This is the “leading UK charity for people with autism (including Asperger syndrome) and their families. [They] provide information, support and pioneering services, and campaign for a better world for people with autism.” The National Autistic Society has worked closely with LEGO Therapy experts to make the intervention accessible to many people in Great Britain.
LEGO Therapy gets a mention in this feature length film due out in 2014.