CALDWELL, N.J. — Religious congregations in North Jersey should take steps to include people with autism and other developmental disabilities in their worship and activities — even if they can’t say “amen,” participants at a conference recently were told.

The Caldwell College program was intended to teach participants how churches and synagogues can become more welcoming to people whose behavior, communication and social skills are outside the norm.

“It’s not just that we want little kids with autism to learn to sit quietly so they can go to church with the rest of us,” said Mary Beth Walsh, an adjunct professor of theology and the mother of a boy with autism. “We want our faith communities to take the vanguard in showing how inclusion works.”

The program drew about 50 people to the Catholic college, a leader in training educators in applied behavioral analysis, the only scientifically proven method for teaching children with autism.

One in 94 children born in New Jersey is diagnosed with autism, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 150,000 people in the state have developmental disabilities.

“Here’s a huge group of people who are out there, waiting to be included,” Walsh said.

For Catholics, as for most religious traditions, “embracing people with disabilities is part of all our missions,” said Anne Masters, director of pastoral ministry with persons with disabilities for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark.

“It is part of our teachings,” she said. “We just have to learn to do it.”

Bulletin notices, announcements from the pulpit, partnering programs for students or families and training for ushers can help educate the congregation, she said.

“I’m here to find out how to get that started,” said Clark Faulkner, a high school math teacher and member of the Crossroads Free Methodist Church in Clifton, N.J. In school, he said, his focus as a teacher is on including everyone; he’d like to carry that commitment to church, too. He attended with a Sunday school teacher from his church.