A presentation by Elaine Hall, founder of The Miracle Project and star of HBO’s two-time Emmy award-winning film “Autism: The Musical,” will open the Disability Lecture Series for the 2025-26 academic year. Hall will speak via Zoom beginning at 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 8.

Register for the program at “In Conversation with Elaine Hall, Founder of The Miracle Project and Disability Inclusion Community Leader.”

Hall, also known as “Coach E,” according to The Miracle Project, is known as a pioneer in using theatre and movement practices as a portal for connection among individuals with autism and related disabilities. A top Hollywood acting coach when her son was diagnosed with autism, Hall developed an innovative methodology when traditional behavioral therapies did not work for him. The methodology combined mindfulness and the expressive arts with what she was learning from note experts in autism, Drs. Stanley Greenspan, Ricki Robinson and Barry Prizan.

Her book, “Seven Keys to Unlock Autism: Making Miracles in the Classroom,” chronicles the methodology, and is being used as a textbook at several institutes of higher education. Hall also wrote “Now I See the Moon: A Mother, A Son, and the Miracle of Autism,” which was selected by the United Nations for World Autism Awareness Day, where she has been a featured speaker.

She starred in the HBO documentary, “Autism: The Musical,” which follows five autistic children as they work together to create and perform a live musical production. The documentary won two Primetime Emmys in 2008, one for Outstanding Nonfiction Special and one for Outstanding Picture Editing for Nonfiction Programing, along with several film festival awards.

The CSUSB Disability Studies Lecture Series started in the spring 2024 semester with five events that highlighted the expansive and interdisciplinary world of Disability Studies. The organizers’ aim “is to increase disability literacy in our communities and to enrich our own scholarship, creativity, and activism by engaging with new ideas in disability theory, history, culture, and the arts,” according to the series webpage.

The series organizers include CSUSB professors Jess Block Nerren, Jessica Luck, Tiffany Jones, Jess Nerren, Jonathan Hall, J. Chad Sweeney, and Jeremy Murray.

Upcoming events include:

  • In Conversation With Dr. Josephine Blagrave of Chico State University Autism Clinic, 1 p.m., Oct. 13, on Zoom.
  • Disability Studies Mini-Symposium, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. at the Center for Global Innovation and on Zoom.
    In Conversation with Dr. Jay Timothy Dolmage, author of Academic Ableism, 11 a.m.-noon, and 
    In Conversation With Dr. Cathleen Kudlick of San Francisco State University Longmore Institute, 1-2 p.m. on Zoom.
  • "Labor, Colonial Welfare, and Disability: Blind Factory Workers in Hong Kong" with Angelina Chin of Pomona College, noon-1 p.m. March 25.

Visit the Disability Studies Lecture Series webpage for links to past events and updates on coming talks.