Local teen with autism works to “gobble up hunger” to make Eagle Scout

By Adrienne Cornwall

Photos by Rebecca F. Miller

COLUMBIA, Mo. (December 10, 2014) — Brayden Stallons knows that this holiday season, many families will only be able to gather around a meal as simple as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“I want to try to change that,” said Brayden at his Midway Boy Scout Troop 68 meeting last week.

To earn his Eagle Scout ranking, the 14-year-old Rock Bridge High School freshman launched a frozen turkey drive, dubbed “Gobble Up Hunger,” in partnership with the Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri.

“Even though Brayden is young, he has a great desire to help others and make a difference,” said Food Bank Executive Director Peggy Kirkpatrick. “He wanted to impact someone’s life.”

This Boy Scout’s compassion is not the only exceptional aspect of this project – he’s also tackling it years before most scouts do.

Scouts have until age 18 to earn this top rank in the program, said Troop 68 Scoutmaster Clayton Fish, and they typically take about 6 months, rather than 6 weeks, to complete from start to finish.

“He tackled it early,” Fish said. “I like the way he’s progressing in the troop.”

So are his peers, it seems, since he was nominated by them to the national scouting honor society, Order of the Arrow, which promotes the outdoor Scouting program.

Preparing and managing the project and volunteers are the primary learning opportunities for this Scouting leadership experience, and Brayden has recruited his fellow troop mates and several adults to help solicit donations from area grocery stores and the public.

One of his biggest challenges has been talking with large groups, such as the volunteer training he conducted just after his project was approved by the local Scout leadership on Oct. 20.

Because Brayden has autism, speaking in front of a crowd or with strangers is often difficult. That day, he was demonstrating to his troop mates how to solicit donations from retail store managers.

“He has tremendous motivation,” said Mike Richey, Brayden’s project mentor. “His biggest challenge in his training was to get the motivation into those boys. By the end, you could hear a pin drop. The boys were motivated.”

With 34 turkeys pledged or collected so far, he’s not far from his unwritten goal of 40 turkeys for families served by the Food Bank by Dec. 15. He’s also received more than $400 in cash donations for the Food Bank to purchase additional turkeys in bulk from the Hy-Vee grocery store on Nifong Boulevard, which could push the total collection closer to 100 turkeys.

Brayden’s mom, Pam Salmon, said he’d like to see his stepdad’s pickup truck filled with turkeys by the project deadline on Monday.

“The caring aspect of this project has really been important to him,” Salmon said.

His success with this turkey drive speaks to how far Brayden has come since his autism diagnosis at age 2.

With the help of various behavioral and other therapies through the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders and dedicated learning specialists at school, he has developed from a nonverbal 4-year-old into a focused, hardworking teen leader with plans to work in technology after college.

He has a head start on that goal in his information technology class at Rock Bridge that allows him to earn college credit at the same time.

What he’s learned on his Eagle Scout project is more intangible.

“I feel confident about speaking about it,” Brayden said. “That’s helped a lot.”

Want to help Brayden “Gobble Up Hunger”? Contact Brayden at 573-356-6678 or gobbleuphunger@yahoo.com, or donate to his bulk turkey purchase at gofundme.com/h7aluo.

University of Missouri ATO chapter raises $4,400 for autism research at the Thompson Center

By Adrienne Cornwall

A recent sunny afternoon in Columbia brought a crowd to the Alpha Tau Omega cornhole tournament in Greektown, and not just for the weather.

The Nov. 8 gathering raised $4,400 toward the Gamma Rho chapter’s endowment to benefit patients of the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders at University of Missouri.

The MU ATO chapter, which pledged a $25,000 endowment to the Thompson Center last December, is nearing its goal with help from this annual fundraiser that pits teams from various fraternities and sororities against each other in a single-elimination bean-bag toss tournament.

“The turnout and atmosphere was above my expectations,” said Signature Event Chairman Zachary Carmichael. “My goal is to finish the endowment at our annual spring event, the Tigers Standing Strong with Autism Festival.”

After determining the winners – an ATO team of Jake Skelton and Charlie Kipp — attendees paid $5 each for a barbecue buffet dinner that raised nearly two-thirds of the day’s tally.

Luke Slabaugh, the chapter’s historian, said the fraternity chose the Thompson Center as a beneficiary after learning that one of its own alumni, Bill Thompson, founded the Thompson Center in 2005 to provide cutting edge, comprehensive care to patients with autism and their families. Bill’s brother, Don, is also an ATO alumni and serves as a board member on the Thompson Foundation, which raises awareness and support for interventions, education and research for autism.

“Some of us in the chapter know the effects autism has not just on the individual, but the whole family,” Slabaugh said. “We want to contribute to the center however we can, either by volunteering there or our endowment money. It means a lot that we can make a difference in these kids’ lives.”

Money from the endowment, which the chapter expects to be fully funded within the next one to two years, will go toward scholarships for families who otherwise could not otherwise afford or have medical coverage for certain services.

“It is amazing to see the passion and energy the ATOs bring this cause,” said Thompson Center Executive Director Stephen Kanne. “We couldn’t be more pleased to partner with them to address this disorder that impacts so many individuals and their families.”

Want to donate to the ATO endowment to benefit the Thompson Center? Contact Zachary Carmichael, zkcnr8@mail.missouri.edu.

At autism summit, neuroscience meets pharmaceutical research to explore new treatments

By Adrienne Cornwall

COLUMBIA, Mo. (Oct. 22, 2014) – A group of 20 clinicians and researchers gathered at University of Missouri on Saturday for a series of working sessions and a special lecture focused on integrating biomarker and basic neuroscience research with pharmaceutical treatments for autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

“We don’t have any approved drugs at this time to treat the core features of autism,” said organizer Dr. David Beversdorf, associate professor at MU and research faculty at the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

ASD core features include difficulty with social interactions, communication challenges and repetitive behaviors. However, autism often occurs alongside other conditions such as anxiety, attention disorders, and developmental or learning disabilities as well as physical issues like sleep problems, gastrointestinal disturbances and immune system dysfunction.

Many physicians currently prescribe two common antipsychotics, risperidone and aripiprazole, to help treat common behavioral symptoms in autistic patients.

Some drugs that have been used off label have helped some patients but haven’t met criteria for success in drug testing. Because the combination of symptoms and their severity is different for every patient, the drugs studied thus far don’t work for all autism patients and have varying levels of side effects.

It is becoming increasingly clear that there are different forms of autism that likely have different causes, said featured speaker Dr. David Amaral, professor of psychiatry at University of California-Davis.

“The clinical trials for new drugs in autism have thus far failed in the United States,” Beversdorf said. “When you lump all the patients together, you don’t get a great response.”

By using biomarkers, such as the neuroimaging data being studied by Amaral, the principal investigator on the Autism Phenome Project (APP), researchers hope to better understand which groups of ASD patients will respond to particular drugs. It also refines how neuroscientists could further focus their tests with mouse models to uncover why and how those medications work in the neural pathways in those subgroups.

Amaral’s lecture on Friday about the APP highlighted the neuroimaging findings being collected by the study. By comparing these detailed pictures of the brains of typically developing children against children with autism and their range of symptoms, the project has found different patterns of altered brain development in different groups of young children with autism.

“By defining distinct types of autism, it will be faster and easier for scientists to study the causes of each type. In some cases, this may end up leading to preventions. We also believe that defining types of autism will lead to more effective treatment,” said Amaral, research director of the UC-Davis MIND Institute.

In addition to the lecture, the working group of 20 participants agreed to draft a position paper about how to integrate biomarker data into future clinical trials for medicines that can help treat the core symptoms of autism, and to integrate this with basic neuroscience research including animal models.

The summit group’s position paper, expected to be complete within a few months, will describe how researchers in the U.S. should approach integrating traditional neuroscience methods, advanced techniques like neuroimaging, and transformative research like genetics, epigenetics, and environmental epidemiology, to work together to help more patients with autism.

“The paper would provide a guiding vision for next-generation research on autism in the U.S.,” Amaral said.

MU Assessment and Consultation Clinic moving to Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COLUMBIA, Mo. (Oct. 20, 2014) – The University of Missouri’s Assessment and Consultation Clinic (ACC) will move to the university’s Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders beginning Nov. 1, 2014.

The clinic’s director, Dr. Andy Knoop, and staff psychologist Dr. Megan Strawsine Carney will join the Thompson Center’s clinical faculty, offering assessment services for children with suspected neurodevelopmental disorders. They will also be trained in current autism evaluation techniques to support autism diagnostic visits with an average of four new autism evaluations per week.

Thompson Center Director Stephen Kanne said the unification of pediatric psychological assessments at MU supports the center’s mission of whole care for the whole family, adding 500 available visits per year for patients.

“Dr. Knoop and Dr. Carney will bring a tremendous amount of additional expertise and experience to the Thompson Center,” Kanne said. “In addition to being able to see more kids, the variety of problems that we can address is increased given their particular areas of specialty.”

Both providers will continue their current range of comprehensive psychological evaluation and intervention services for children, adults, couples and families, including the patients and families already at the Thompson Center.

Knoop, a clinical associate professor in the College of Education who earned his doctorate in School Psychology at MU, said the clinic’s move also reflects a shared commitment to mentoring and training students across disciplines.

“This venture opens up new opportunities for student training and research, ranging from being mentored by and working alongside professionals in an interdisciplinary setting to gaining valuable experience working with patients and families with complex histories and symptoms associated with a much broader range of medical and mental health concerns,” he said.

The ACC administrative staff will join Knoop and Carney, an MU graduate who also offers bilingual services for Spanish-speaking clients, for the move to the Thompson Center, ensuring continuity of care for their patients while bringing more expertise under one roof.

“Dr. Kanne and the center staff generate a palpable sense of enthusiasm and passion about the services they provide,” Knoop said. “We look forward to working with our new colleagues.”

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

Thompson Center welcomes new child psychiatrist to clinical faculty

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Adrienne Cornwall
573-884-4512
cornwalla@missouri.edu

COLUMBIA, Mo. (October 8, 2014) – The University of Missouri Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders welcomed Dr. John R. Hall to its clinical faculty this fall.

Board-certified in general and child and adolescent psychiatry, Dr. Hall will see patients in the Thompson Center’s various autism and neurodevelopmental clinics for psychiatric care.

“We are thrilled to have Dr. Hall join us at the Thompson Center,” said Thompson Center Executive Director Stephen Kanne. “His approach to families and expertise in working with kids makes him a very welcome addition.”

Dr. Hall joined the faculty after spending five years in New Zealand leading a clinical team of psychiatric providers for the indigenous Maori population.

Trained at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, Dr. Hall also completed his residency and fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at MU Hospital and Clinics.

He is a native of Springfield, Missouri, and a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association since 2011.

The Thompson Center serves families affected by autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. For more information, call us at 573.884.6052.