Dr. Amy Price Azano highlights the needs that families of children with autism face in rural communities. She shares ideas of how we can address these needs and reexamine of our view of what rural means.

Dr. Amy Price Azano is an Assistant Professor of Adolescent Literacy in the School of Education at Virginia Tech. Her scholarship focuses on rural literacies, place-based pedagogy, and the literacy needs of special populations. She is the co-Principal Investigator of Promoting PLACE (Place, Literacy, Achievement, Community, and Engagement) in Rural Schools, a five-year, 1.9 million dollar U.S. Department of Education grant designed to support gifted education programs in high-poverty rural communities.

Dr. Azano has served as a keynote speaker on rural topics in the U.S. and abroad. She is also an affiliate faculty with the Virginia Tech Center for Autism Research, serves on the steering committee, leads the education research core, and founded and coordinates “SAFE: Supporting Autism Friendly Environments,” a community outreach program designed to support community inclusion and access for individuals with autism.