Mian Wang of the Department of Education at UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School was invited to deliver a talk at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) annual conference held in San Diego, October 10-14. For this AAP president’s special session on US-China Collaboration on School Medical Service for Children with Special Needs, Prof. Wang joined a distinguished panel including the AAP current president Dr. James Perrin from Harvard Medical School and Dr. Xiaoming Shen, the president of the Chinese Academy of Pediatrics, to discuss issues surrounding the interdisciplinary collaboration between the medical and education field to enhance health related services for children with disabilities.
Wang’s presentation, titled “Comparative Talk on US and China Systems for Providing Special Education,” focused on a comparative analysis of American and Chinese special education systems and recommendations for bridging the gap between US and China collaboration on school medical service for children with disabilities. AAP has recently launched a new initiative for expanding and strengthening the US and China collaboration on the integration of medical and education services for children with disabilities.
Mian Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education, specializing in Special Education, Disability, and Risk Studies. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Patras, Greece, in Applied Developmental Psychology with an emphasis on Cognitive Development of Children with Intellectual Disabilities as well as a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in Special Education with an emphasis on Family and Disability Policy. Wang has years of experience working in the field of disability and special education in several countries such as Canada, China, Greece, and the United States. He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in Psychology in China. His research interests include: child and family outcomes of early childhood services, family-professional partnership, atypical child development, positive behavioral support in cultural context, and disability policy. he is the winner of the 2009 Early Career Award by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) and the Director of the Pacific Rim Center for Research on Special Education & Disability.