Janice Adams started her career as an artist.  She studied painting, drawing, sculpture and printmaking at McMaster University in Hamilton , Ontario, Canada .  In 1977 she began a career teaching visual arts to High School students in Blenheim, Ontario .  

The smallest mural                   (8 ft. by 4 ft) donated to a Children's Centre.

During her first ten years as a teacher she also had showings of her work in  several galleries, illustrated a skating manual and began the first of three large murals which eventually found their way into a local church, a school library and an organization which served the needs of children with exceptionalities.

In 1987, after the birth of her second son, life changed dramatically.  The baby, named Ethan, was diagnosed as asthmatic before he was five months old.  So began a number of hospitalizations.  In the next few years it became apparent that there was something different about his development.  By the age of three he was diagnosed as having a form of autism.  Within a few months there was no doubt that he was also having seizures.  By the age of five he was diagnosed with a very severe pediatric seizure disorder.

When Ethan was first recognized as having autism, Ms. Adams requested a leave of absence from teaching for a year.  During that time she traveled in Ontario and investigated programs which had been successful teaching and integrating children with autism.  About the same time, she and her husband took training in the Hanen Early Language program.  Over the next years Ms. Adams developed and designed much of the augmentative communication visual aids for her own son.

Since 1992 Ms. Adams has also designed and directed a program of integration for children with autism during the summer months.  In 1999 she expanded the model of this program to include children with all disabilities.  In 2001, Summer Experience will support 32 children of the highest need, and their families, across the municipality of Chatham-Kent .

In 1991 she was one of the founding families for a local support group--the Chatham-Kent Chapter of Autism Society Ontario .  She served in the position of president for five years.  In that same year she founded a cross-disability parent group which has since grown into the "Family Support and Resource Network" which is linked with a dozen other such parent groups across the province.

As she collected more ideas related to 'best practices' when teaching and living with the disorder of autism, she began to write manuals in order to share those strategies.  In 1996 she was successful in obtaining a grant from the Trillium Foundation.  Over the next two years, after talking with parents and professionals from across Canada as well as within the United States, she wrote her largest book to date, "Autism-P.D.D: More creative Ideas; from age eight to early adulthood".

She has just completed a new parent/professional Guide ( see 'new') which should be available in June '01.  For the past three years she has been working on a book which chronicles the journey that her child and family have undergone facing the challenge not only of autism, but of the System itself.

Ms. Adams has given presentations in Hawaii , Illinois , California , Michigan , Ontario , New Brunswick and Alberta to parent and professional audiences alike.

Due to her overwhelming fascination in areas of individuals with exceptionalities, she has undergone the professional training required to achieve her "Specialist" certification in special education and has also attained a Master's Degree in Special Education.  She currently holds a position as a Resource teacher  in a rural high school in Ontario .