Our compassionate and knowledgeable team is here to address your unique needs and provide the best possible care for your child’s neurodevelopmental journey.
Our compassionate and knowledgeable team is here to address your unique needs and provide the best possible care for your child’s neurodevelopmental journey.
The University of Missouri’s Alpha Tau Omega chapter raised more than $5,300 at its annual family festival fundraiser for patient scholarships at the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, fulfilling a $25,000 endowment pledge made a little over two years ago.
In addition to setting a new record tally for the event’s second year, nearly 300 participants lined up to break the Guinness World Record for most high-fives in one minute with the help of Rye Shade, a local 11-year-old boy with autism.
With a GoPro camera strapped to his chest, Shade easily ran the length of the drive around the Columns in 37 seconds, high-fiving the 287 hands as he ran.
“Next year, I think we can shoot for even more participants, because we know we have the time,” said ATO Signature Event Coordinator Zach Carmichael.
Participants last year tried to break the record, too, but the entry lacked the necessary video evidence, Carmichael said. With the help of one stationary and two mobile cameras, Carmichael said he hopes this year’s attempt will officially topple the standing record of 260.
Festival proceeds helped the chapter fulfill its pledge to endow $25,000 to fund patient scholarships at the Thompson Center to help families afford necessary autism services.
“Our Mizzou ATO chapter has been a dedicated partner in helping individuals touched by autism in our community,” said Thompson Center Executive Director Stephen Kanne. “The funds they raised at Sunday’s festival will help countless families get medical and other services that they couldn’t otherwise afford.”
Autism Awareness Month in April is always a busy time of year in the autism community. The Thompson Center participated in and hosted a number of events throughout the month to celebrate the successes of our patients and their families.
We kicked off the activity with Light It Up Blue on April 2, World Autism Awareness Day, at the MU Student Center with the help of seven other partner organizations. More than 150 attendees, plus Truman, TJ and the Columbia Chamber of Commerce helped spread the concept of autism awareness on campus by wearing blue and joining us for a blue-lit walk with glow sticks from the Student Center to Memorial Union.
To cap off the month, Alicia Curran and her family brought the house down at the It’s In the Cards fundraiser in St. Louis, sharing their personal story of caring for Samuel, Alicia’s 14-year-old son with autism. Gov. Jay Nixon, MU System President Tim Wolfe, MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, and Cardinals General Manager John Mozeliak were just a few of our special attendees, in addition to honorary event co-chairs Matt and Mackenzie Carpenter. Several families were featured in a video unveiled at the event, which raised $560,000 for the Thompson Foundation through a live auction, centerpiece auction, fund the need and ticket sales. We also shared a brief glimpse at the Thompson Center’s first decade to honor the center’s 10th anniversary and encourage support for the next 10 years.
Health professions faculty at the Thompson Center expanded last fall as the center welcomed two new providers from the Assessment and Consultation Clinic, which was formerly a clinical service in the College of Education.
Since joining us in October, Dr. Andy Knoop and Dr. Megan Carney have been providing psychology services for assessment and treatment of ADHD, learning disabilities, and other psychological concerns in children while also being trained in autism diagnostic measures.
A new clinical offering for patients with severe self-injurious and aggressive behaviors has welcomed its first patients under the direction of Dr. SungWoo Kahng and Applied Behavior Analyst Annie Doyle. The Severe Behavior Clinic currently sees three children for intensive outpatient intervention with as many as two to four staff per patient during each visit. Sessions include conducting an initial functional analysis to identify the root of problem behaviors like self-injury and property damage, followed by implementing individualized treatment plans to address causes and reduce the severe behavior. Referrals currently come from internal providers, and the clinic maintains a waitlist for additional patients that can be added to the clinic as staffing allows. For more information about this new program, contact SungWoo Kahng or Annie Doyle.
In addition to adding more providers, the health professions division has developed a number of summer workshops for professionals and families. A handwriting camp for 5-7 year olds met for six weeks on Mondays starting June 9. A picky eaters group for 3-6 year olds meets Mondays in July to expose children to new foods in a playful way. A transition workshop for professionals working with and parents of teens preparing to age out of school-based services was held at the MU Student Center on June 11 with a keynote presentation by transition expert Dr. Paul Wehman of Virginia Commonwealth University. And, we have scheduled a monthly series of parent workshops through December on everything from toileting to puberty. Visit the Thompson Center’s events page for a complete listing of upcoming events and workshops.
As the center’s expertise is sought by more centers and specialists in the autism field, the reach of Dr. Stephen Kanne’s training takes him to new communities across the U.S. and the world. Training on the use of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2, the primary diagnostic tool for autism evaluation, is in high demand.
In March, Kanne and Training and Outreach Administrator Anna Laakman conducted trainings in Saudi Arabia at the autism center at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre. On the domestic front, Kanne and Laakman have conducted a series of trainings for school and community providers in South Dakota, both in Rapid City and Sioux Falls, funded by the University of South Dakota Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disorders program with partial funding from the Sioux Falls School District. In June, Kanne brought research and clinical ADOS-2 training to the University of Houston and Baylor College of Medicine.
In September, the Thompson Center will extend the invitation to the world’s experts in autism research, clinical services and education to join our 10th annual Autism Conference in St. Louis. Featuring renowned researchers including Dr. Raphael Bernier, from University of Washington, as a keynote speaker, the two days of educational offerings Sept. 24-25 will include tracks for health professionals, educators and applied behavior analysts.
When they joined the Thompson Center from the Columbia Public Schools in 2014, Jena Randolph and Karen O’Connor wasted no time in dreaming big about sharing autism best practices throughout Missouri.
“Supporting individuals with autism and their families requires expert care coordination across all facets of life,” said Randolph. “We want to make certain that training is available for educators, applied behavior analysts, medical care providers, and any additional service providers so that care can be effective and comprehensive.”
Since the center’s Training and Outreach Division led by Anna Laakman launched the Training Experts in Autism for Missouri (TEAM) project last year, Randolph and O’Connor have driven the growth of the program into school districts, medical facilities and caregiver networks across the state, from Lee’s Summit outside Kansas City all the way to St. Louis.
Training programs for medical professionals, care coordinators, families and ABA providers also launched in succession throughout 2014. Trainings are free to Missouri participants thanks to a grant from the state Department of Mental Health. Topics range from developing classroom programs and interventions to supporting patients with autism in medical offices.
Randolph, O’Connor, behavior analyst Brooke Burnett and school psychologist Kim Selders take autism best practices where they’re needed most: into communities. They’ve reached 36 counties throughout Missouri with evidence-based tools and strategies to use in provider offices, classrooms and other settings to support individuals with autism.
“It is critical to provide training that builds the capacity for agencies and organizations to better support individuals with autism,” O’Connor said. “This not only increases their professional expertise but also improves the outcomes for the individuals they serve.”
In April, TEAM also began offering free Autism Friendly Business training for businesses interested in supporting customers and employees with autism. The program provides training at participating businesses for its employees, including an overview of autism as well as tailored strategies to use in everyday business transactions, like visual aids and communication tips. Businesses who complete the program are designated as an Autism Friendly Business with a window decal and marketing materials so individuals with autism and their families can easily identify them as an inclusive and prepared environment.
Through the range of individualized trainings and follow-up support offered by TEAM, the Thompson Center is improving outcomes for individuals with autism in the doctor’s office, in the classroom, in the community, and beyond.
For more information about Training and Outreach at the Thompson Center, visit our Training Division home page.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (July 1, 2015) — Summer is prime-time for families with children to take advantage of the school break for vacation. While many families do some basic research about their destinations ahead of time, families traveling with children with special needs benefit from extra preparation to keep their children comfortable and safe in unfamiliar environments.
“It helps to have a game plan,” said Brittney Stevenson, occupational therapist at MU’s Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.
Do some homework before you travel to know what the environment will be at your destination and what you can bring along for safety. If wandering is a risk for your child, make sure your child has identification on them that isn’t bothersome but also not easily removable. Stevenson recommends an ID bracelet, a tag on a backpack, or even a temporary tattoo with emergency and contact information to help others find you in the event your child gets separated from you. To prevent separation, consider a tether system when traveling through crowded spaces like airports and amusement parks. Older children may prefer to take on the “job” of managing a rolling suitcase or light hand cart instead.
Depending on whether you’re staying in a house or a hotel, universal doorknob covers can keep children from letting themselves out of your lodgings unattended – and they pack easily in a suitcase. Seatbelt guards are also easy to pack and keep your child safely belted while on the road.
Traveling by air can be particularly challenging for children with sensory or attention issues, but you can help ease anxiety about the experience by explaining – and showing them – what to expect before travel day. Try to visit the local airport ahead of time so your child can see what security procedures look like and understand the level of noise and activity to expect.
When you arrive, let staff at your hotel or rental company know about your child’s condition and what that might look like for staff and other guests so you can both understand how to work together to make it a successful stay.
Planning to make a splash while you’re away? Water parks and beaches can be great fun, and being prepared with sensory-friendly flotation gear, sun protection and an emergency plan can ensure everyone enjoys the visit. Earplugs, nose plugs and goggles are inexpensive ways to accommodate noise sensitivity and potential water intrusion at a water park or beach. Compression wetsuits, while a larger investment, can also help children who prefer pressure. Even if you’re not staying near water, other water features, such as large fountains or ponds at attractions or on properties you’ll visit, are also important to know about in advance.
For more information on water safety, download our Water Safety Tips.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (July 1, 2015) — Have you hit the summer doldrums? Try incorporating these activities into your summer routine.
1. Get Outside!
Plenty of outside time helps head off behavior challenges brought on by restlessness.
I Spy: Pick different categories to spot, such as “things that move” or “friend’s houses”
Get Crafty: Find free supplies outside to make crafts like leaf rubbings, dandelion garlands, or rock friends with painted faces
Map It: Go hunting for treasure (familiar items) in your yard
Local Artist: Make the sidewalk your canvas with sidewalk chalk and a spray bottle filled with water as an “eraser”
Play Tic Tac Toe or hopscotch
Challenge Course: Set up a race or obstacle course appropriate to your child’s development, and invite your neighborhood friends
2. Get Sensory
Build a roster of sensory activities that can get messy!
Coat a surface with foam shaving cream and use it to mold shapes or practice early writing skills
Jello hide and seek: Hide small objects in jello molds of varying colors and discuss what they discover
Fun with Math: Count or measure quantities of sand while building shapes or structures, or follow a pretend recipe for a familiar dish, shaping
Pantry band: create instruments with “found” items, empty containers and dry goods like rice or beans
3. Rainy Day?
Inclement weather is a great time to focus on quiet work.
In the Kitchen: Make homemade play dough, and mix up the colors and scents by adding food coloring and fragrant cooking extracts or essential oils
Math activities, like using a simple recipe to practice fractions
Color Mixing: Fill glasses with water and color each with a different food coloring. Use an empty glass to experiment with mixing colors and get practice with fine motor skills.
Homemade instruments: Use beans, popcorn kernels or rice to fill jars or empty containers and make a homemade band to play along with your favorite songs or make up your own!
4. Household Help
Kids enjoy making meaningful contributions. Give them an opportunity to earn some well-deserved praise.
Simple Cleaning: Offer a spray bottle and rag for your child to practice wiping surfaces while you work on more complicated chores.
Laundry: Sorting by color and practice with folding helps maintain routines while supporting motor and sensory skills.
Organizing: Sorting toys or other items by season helps keep rooms orderly and keeps kids busy with a helpful task.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (July 1, 2015) — School is out, but summer’s break in routine can also come with challenges. For children with autism or special needs, changes to their daily schedules can mean a loss of social they may have gained during school or introduce anxiety and problem behaviors.
To make your family’s summer more successful, Thompson Center occupational therapist Brittney Stevenson suggests developing a continuation of your child’s school routine adapted to your home environment.
Is your child used to gross motor activities in the morning with a transition to quiet work in the afternoon? Or is your child accustomed to focused, independent tasks first things and getting moving after lunch? Are daily living skills incorporated into each task or in segments throughout the day?
Keeping in mind what has been successful for your child at school, you can follow a similar pattern of activity while adjusting the activities to ones easily done at home.
Click here for 4 types of summer activities to build into your schedule for children with autism and special needs.
Making a weekly plan, including a visual schedule your child can follow, can help decrease anxiety and give children a sense of order despite the school break, Stevenson said. Maintaining a regular schedule is also a great way to ease the transition back to school in the fall.
Perhaps you can take a daily walk around the neighborhood in the morning, playing a game of I Spy as you go, then return to complete some housework together before lunch and an afternoon of more structured activities. Or, start the morning completing a set chore list before setting off for an afternoon adventure, like a treasure hunt in the yard or transforming your sidewalk or driveway with colored chalk.
A balance of activities is ideal along with setting the expectation of what happens next.
“We all feel better when we know what’s coming,” Stevenson said. “It also keeps kids up with skills they’ve gained during the school year.”
Stevenson suggests offering simple choices for different categories of activity in your schedule, such as gross motor or sensory play, to help build your child’s sense of autonomy.
Since summer break can also mean an opportunity to visit far-flung families or places of interest on vacation, consider bringing your summer routine with you. The same neighborhood walk in a new location can be a more familiar route to exploring a new environment and give you a chance to meet your (temporary) neighbors.
For more tips on travel and vacation safety, click here.
Mounting research shows intervening early can improve outcomes of children with autism, yet in Missouri and across the country, the wait to see physicians specializing in autism can be six months to a year.
To alleviate this burden on specialists and families, the University of Missouri has created a way to share the expertise of specialists with primary care providers like pediatricians and nurse practitioners through bimonthly virtual training sessions.
The training gives general practitioners tools to manage symptoms while patients are on waiting lists and aims to give the doctors confidence in treating typical medical issues in children with autism.
“We have to come up with different ways to alleviate the bottleneck and get kids help before they waste an entire year,” said Kristin Sohl, medical director for the university’s Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. “We can actually create a bigger system to take care of these children.”
Autism Spectrum Disorder is a group of developmental disabilities that cause mild to severe social, communication and behavioral challenges. Federal statistics show that 1 in 68 children in the U.S. are on the autism spectrum, a 30 percent increase since 2012. Most are diagnosed after age 4, though the disorder can be diagnosed as early as age 2.
Pediatricians are often the first to hear parents’ concerns, yet they spend less than a month of their residency learning about developmental disorders such as autism, Sohl said. Family doctors — the only doctor in many rural areas — spend even less time. Too often, she added, primary care providers refer straight-forward medical issues to specialists because they lack confidence in caring for children with autism. That, in turn, also increases waiting times.
Sohl leads a team of experts to train general practitioners across the state through interactive video conferencing.
During two-hour sessions held twice a month, physicians can discuss their patient cases with an expert panel and one another. The panel includes a child psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, dietitian and a parent of a child with autism.
Participants also receive training in many common issues among children with autism such as sleep problems, constipation, poor diet and side effects of behavioral medications.
“Not every child with autism will present the same or have the same problems. Each child brings us unique challenges,” said Dr. Sandy McKay, a pediatrician at Mercy Children’s Hospital St. Louis who is participating in the training. “It gives me the opportunity to reach out to a group of providers to find out the best way of meeting patients’ needs.”
McKay knows it can take months before a patient she suspects of having autism to be evaluated and diagnosed by a specialist, but she can prescribe therapies to address concerns in the meantime.
“The last thing I want to see for one of my patients is that we could’ve been doing six months of speech therapy before they saw a specialist,” she said.
The virtual training is called ECHO Autism and is based on the successful ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) model that began at the University of New Mexico as a way for specialists to share their expertise to doctors across the state in caring or patients with Hepatitis C. Now, several ECHO programs exist in areas such as addiction, HIV/AIDS, epilepsy and chronic pain. The Missouri-led ECHO is the first to focus on autism.
“When I found out about ECHO, I immediately thought of autism,” Sohl said. “The system is currently designed for primary care doctors to recognize the problem and then refer to an academic medical center.”
Yet, at the Thomspon Center, she said, 350 patients are on the waiting list for a diagnostic evaluation. Families in rural areas travel as far as four hours one way for appointments, which means missing work and school. Medicaid, the public health insurance program for the poor, must cover the travel costs.
“One of the things that is most powerful is that you are moving knowledge rather than moving patients,” Sohl said. “ECHO moves specialists’ knowledge to them in their home community, and that is a cool way to think about it.”
The free bimonthly sessions began in March and will continue as long as funding is available, with surveys done every six months to measure effectiveness. Funding is provided by the state Medicaid program and Autism Speaks’ Autism Treatment Network, a collaboration of 14 autism specialty centers across the country, which includes the Thompson Center.
McKay said the training has helped her better understand the social and emotional needs of the parents of her patients, and learn more about other helpful services in the community.
She said, “When a family is in my office, they need help now; that’s why they are there.”
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.
