66th Session of UN General Assembly

First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa, who accompanied President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the 66th Session of UN General Assembly visited the McCarton School in New York for autistic children on Tuesday as part of an event organised by the UN Secretariat. The First Lady later toured the Eden II School in Staten Island in New York. A special function was organised at this school to welcome her and several other first ladies touring the school.

Mrs. Rajapaksa presented gifts to the children of the school. The McCarton School provides education to autistic children via an integrated one-to-one model of therapy that is grounded in Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) combined with speech and language therapy, motor skills training, and peer interaction. First Lady Rajapaksa addressed the two-day International Conference on Autism in Dhaka on 26 July, 2011.