Autism School to open in Semmes

All-day school will be temporarily located at The Learning Tree
Sunday, January 18, 2009
By GRETA SHARP
Correspondent
The Mobile area will be getting another school for children with autism, an official with the Alabama Autism Providers Network announced last week at a meeting in the Port City.
Jerre Brimer announced that an all-day school will open in August. Woody's Song: For Kids on the Autism Spectrum will serve a limited number of children ages 6 to 10. It will be located at The Learning Tree in Semmes until a permanent site can be found.
Brimer is director of The Learning Tree, a residential school for individuals with developmental disabilities and significant behavioral challenges. There are also campuses in Jacksonville, Ala., and Tallassee, Ala.
He is also director of The Little Tree Learning Center, which has campuses in Mobile, Auburn and Jacksonville.
Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by difficulty communicating and interacting with others. The American Medical Association recognizes that one in 150 children is diagnosed with autism.
The Alabama Autism Task Force was formed in 2007 with the goal of improving treatment of autism in Alabama. One of its recommendations was to form a network of autism service providers.
The Alabama Autism Providers Network was formed in the fall of 2008 to bring together representatives from organizations across the state. The group met initially in October last year at Mitchell's Place in Birmingham, a comprehensive treatment center for children and young adults with autism disorders.
The network's Jan. 12 meeting began at The Little Tree Learning Center on Azalea Road for a brief presentation by school director Holly Rogers, then a tour of the facility. The preschool brings togeth er children with developmental challenges such as autism and "typical" children.
Later the group moved to the University of South Alabama for lunch and its business meeting.
For Lee Yount, president and CEO of Glenwood, The Autism and Behavioral Health Center of Alabama in Birmingham, these meetings provide an opportunity to learn from each other and to learn more about what other providers offer.
"We want to build a network and to collaborate and to understand everything that exists in the state for autism," said Yount.
The new organization has about a dozen members from cities, including Birmingham, Auburn, Montgomery, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa and Mobile. To increase its network, the Alabama Autism Providers Network is inviting representatives from the state Department of Education, the Department of Human Resources, the Department of Mental Health and the Division of Rehabilitation Services to join the group, said Brimer.
"Services needed vary from child to child," said Jade Carter, director of The Horizons School in Birmingham. "That's difficult when you don't know who's out there and providing what services."
The fledgling group also discussed how formal an organization it wants to be, said Yount, and what it would like to accomplish.
"To foster best practices, to create an entity that knows about those practices so children and families affected by autism have access to the highest quality of services," she said.
The Mobile gathering was the group's fourth meeting. The next one will be in Huntsville in February.
"We want to move it around," explained Brimer. "To see what others are doing."
Brimer also hopes the group works to promote collaborations among services providers.
"As resources become tighter, people need to work together jointly," he said. "Working together, sharing knowledge and communication sets a base of future collaboration to assist in the distribution of services."
Several agencies already refer patients to each other.
Dr. Hanes Swingle, an associate professor of pediatric developmental and behavioral medicine at the University of South Alabama, sees autistic children at the USA Autism Diagnostic Clinic.
The facility is one of two in Alabama that offers multidisciplinary evaluations with such specialists as psychologists, speech language pathologists, developmental and behavioral pediatricians, and occupational and physical therapists. Children also receive genetic evaluations.
In the past, said Brimer, parents had to go to Birmingham for an autism diagnosis.
"For Mobile to have this clinic now, it's really great for all parents and professionals," he said.
Swingle often refers parents to the Little Tree, so many of the children he has diagnosed are at the school today.
"They're getting marvelous services," he said. "The inspiring thing about The Little Tree is how satisfied the parents are with the services they are getting. It's a unique program. Nowhere in the country do children get better care and education than here at the Little Tree. It's a real shining star for Mobile."
However, Swingle said, parents often complain that the autism services available in the area are fragmented, a problem the new agency is hoping to solve.