On Friday, June 28, 2024, OTARC had the great honour of celebrating the 40-year career of Professor Cheryl Dissanayake, AM. at an event attended by around 100 friends and colleagues. Cheryl delivered a career-spanning speech touching on many of her milestones.
Beginning at Monash University (1978–1993), Cheryl began her trajectory in autism research during those formative years of scholarship. The landscape was very different then. Autism was conceptualised as a single condition, with approximately 3 in every 10,000 births resulting in an Autistic child. This contrasts sharply with today's prevalence, which is closer to 3 in every 100 births.
Back then, the medical model dominated the understanding of autism, a stark contrast to today's perspective that embraces social and neurodiversity models.
From 1993 to 1995, Cheryl undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the Sigman Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), collaborating with her then mentor, Professor Marian Sigman. They co-authored several papers, including those on the long-term stability of individual differences in social and emotional responsiveness of Autistic children.
Throughout her 40-year career, Cheryl witnessed many changes in the diagnostic criteria for autism. She co-authored numerous papers on the relationship between autism and Asperger's syndrome, acknowledging in her speech the changes in terminology driven by updates to the DSM.
After meeting the late Olga Tennison in 2007, Cheryl established the Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre (OTARC), which celebrated its sixteenth anniversary on June 27, 2024, a day before Cheryl’s farewell.
Professor Dissanayake’s work in early childhood development was significant during this time, co-authoring papers by doctoral students including A/Prof Josephine Barbaro. Their focus on early identification and diagnosis led to the creation of OTARC’s Social Attention and Communication Surveillance (SACS) tool, a highly effective early autism detection tool with exceptional accuracy.
This led to the development of ASDetect, a free mobile app for parents and families to detect autism in infancy and toddlerhood. In this period, Australia’s first Early Assessment Clinic focusing on children under the age of 3-years was established at OTARC/La Trobe University, which is now called the Victorian Early Assessment Clinic funded by the State Government of Victoria.
In 2010, as Director of OTARC, Cheryl opened the Victorian Autism Specific Early Learning and Care Centre – also known as the Margot Prior Wing of the La Trobe University Community Children’s Centre.
To say that Cheryl has made significant contributions in the field is an understatement. Her achievements extend beyond these highlights to include contributions to national and state initiatives, such as the 2016 Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Services for People with Autism and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), and many more.
We wish Professor Cheryl Dissanayake, AM all the best in her future endeavours and remain forever indebted to her service to the field of autism and the foundation of the Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre.
