MU Thompson Center celebrates 10 years of progress in autism care, research and training

By Adrienne Cornwall

COLUMBIA, Mo. (May 8, 2015) – Ten years ago, Pam Salmon knew a different life with her young son.

“He didn’t make eye contact,” she remembered about Brayden as a 2-year-old. “I never knew what was going to cause a meltdown. He screamed a lot, and he just seemed to be in his own world. He also slept so little.”

They had just relocated to Columbia from Kansas City with the knowledge that her intuition was right: Brayden was diagnosed with autism.

In their new town, Brayden began to see Dr. Tracy Stroud, a developmental pediatrician.

Within a year, Stroud’s practice joined a newly formed Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Brayden and Pam came with her, as one of the original families to join the new center, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.

“We all started with this vision to create a place that families could come to answer as many needs as they could in one place,” said Dr. Stephen Kanne, executive director of the Thompson Center. “Each of the individual clinics set up shop together to start working on teams rather than being isolated. We knew we could better serve families with a combined approach.”

That team approach meant a team of resources as well. Benefactors Bill and Nancy Thompson donated a gift of $8.5 million to endow the center’s formation in 2005 after learning about autism through their daughter, a special education teacher.

Coupled with two prestigious grant awards to collect genetic data for the Simons Simplex Collection and to serve as a model of autism care in the Autism Treatment Network, the center’s funding was secured so that providers could continue giving specialized care to young children like Brayden.

In the past 10 years, Brayden has had his share of challenges as well as breakthroughs, with the help of his provider teams, including learning specialists at school and caregivers like Dr. Stroud.

“She was so supportive and encouraging to try different avenues to help his development,” Salmon said. When they considered medication, her thoughtful approach helped them find the right fit.

“Brayden came home from school and said, ‘Mom, my smart is ON! I love this medicine!’ And we have never looked back,” Pam said. “It was a major turning point for him.  He was able to take in and utilize so much more of the help he was receiving.  It dramatically changed his life.”

Many changes these days are tangled up in the challenges of being a teen, but one constant thread is certainly the hard work Brayden has put in to achieving his goals.

He was honored by his Boy Scout troop with nomination to the Order of the Arrow, the Scouting honor society, and he recently closed the book on an Eagle Scout project in about 10 weeks, from start to finish, that ordinarily would take about six months to complete.

His goal? Feed 40 families a turkey dinner for Christmas. His final tally? 150 turkeys.

“When Brayden was in second grade, I was told to plan that he would live with us the rest of his life.  Today, in ninth grade, Brayden is taking a dual-credit college course,” Salmon said proudly. “We talk openly about his autism and his struggles.  He knows it does not define who he is or what he is capable of. ”

And the Thompson Center has had it fair share of changes. The year it was formed, those three clinicians and their teams treated 73 patients with autism. Last year, Thompson Center providers saw 2,560 patients, trained more than 8,000 health professionals, educators and caregivers in person and online, and received funding for $4.2 million in research in nearly every discipline that touches individuals with autism and neurodevelopmental disorders.

This growth has meant a bigger impact on local families, like Brayden’s, and it has extended the center’s reach across the Midwest and around the world as far as Saudi Arabia, where Kanne recently conducted a diagnostic training workshop.

“We never dreamed that it could have turned into this, at this level,” Kanne said. “We planted the right seed. The timing was there, but we also had the right people who did the most amazing job to get us where we are.”

Considering the explosion of autism diagnoses in the last 10 years – an increase of 400 percent in Missouri alone – the next 10 years will be just as critical to support families as a generation of children like Brayden transition to adulthood and out of pediatric and school-based autism services.

To contribute to the next 10 years of the Thompson Center’s success, consider a donation to our Research, Training and Patient Scholarship funds. Thank you for supporting families touched by autism.

The Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders at the University of Missouri is a national leader in confronting the challenges of autism and other developmental conditions through its collaborative research, training and service programs.