PHYSICAL THERAPY
2/16/2024
AR UCEDD, Partners for Inclusive Communities, Receives $10M from AR Department of Human Services
The University of Arkansas - Partners for Inclusive Communities team was awarded over $10 million from the AR Department of Human Services to expand home and community-based services for children and families! Three new projects, Prevrntion, Stabilization, and Support; Families in Transition Teams; and a Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Pilot, will be led by Director Karan Burnette and Associate Director Dr. Elizabeth Cleveland. These projects will help further its mission of facilitating the inclusion of people with disabilities in community life.
2/16/2023
MMI's Adaptive Toys Program Keeps Spreading Skills
A group of 10 families, as well as volunteers from the Munroe-Meyer Institute, gathered at the Munroe-Meyer Guild Institute in early December, all hoping to make the holidays brighter for young family members with disabilities.
2/7/2022
A Commentary from Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (TN IDDRC, UCEDD, LEND) Applied Behavior Analysis Therapist, TRIAD Co-director on ABA Controversies and the Need for Substantive Community Engagement
This opinion piece is shared by A. Pablo Juarez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA, co-director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (TN IDDRC, UCEDD, LEND) Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders (VKC TRIAD). This commentary is not meant to be a definitive resource documenting numerous issues surrounding the use of applied behavior analysis, but to instead provide a surface-level overview of conversations currently being held among self-advocates and disability support professionals.
1/12/2022
Updates from the CU Pediatric PT Residency Program
The University of Colorado Pediatric Residency is a post-professional physical therapy residency program of the University of Colorado Physical Therapy Program in the School of Medicine and JFK Partners. The residency was established in 2011 under the Founding Director, Mary Jane K. Rapport, PT, DPT, PhD, FAPTA, and it received initial accreditation in 2012.
12/20/2021
HRSA Awardees Study Impact of COVID-19 on Receipt of Services and Parent Mental Health in Children with ASD
University of Delaware�s Dr. Anjana Bhat, associate professor in physical therapy, and JP Laurenceau, professor in psychological and brain sciences, have been awarded a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for a new study to analyze the impacts of COVID-19 on receipt of behavioral, speech, occupational and physical therapy services and parent mental health in 9,000 children with autism from the SPARK cohort and to determine value derived from these services in an online capacity.
6/1/2021
New Tech Opens up Physical Therapy Opportunities
The new Munroe-Meyer Institute building was created to be on the cutting edge of clinical care and therapy for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and one improved technology already is in use and garnering a positive response from therapists and clients. The ZeroG Gait and Balance System includes a safety harness that runs along an 80-foot-long track in the mobility lab in the department of physical therapy, but it is far from a traditional body weight harness, said Sandra Willett, PhD, director of the MMI Department of Physical Therapy.
4/28/2021
A Fellow's Perspective: Virtual Opportunities through Rochester LEND's Collaborations in Central America
Written by Mariela Leon-Thomas, 2021 LEND Alumni Trainee, Rochester NY
It has been more than a year since we started adapting to the "new conditions" of living in a world with the COVID-19 pandemic. Transitioning from face-to-face to all-virtual interactions was not as much fun as the option of "working and studying from the bedroom" sounded. Not only did we start missing familiar faces, but we had to limit new relationships to connections traveling through router devices and Zoom platforms. Despite these limitations, the pandemic has triggered a virtual realm of opportunity. It has challenged our creativity and our passion to keep pursuing the visions and missions we sought out in "normal" times. It invited us to think outside the box and has extended connectivity and networking beyond local boundaries. The 2021 LEND cohort has experienced this firsthand.
4/19/2021
MN LEND Fellow Builds Communication and Trust Through Animals
As a 2019-20 fellow in the Minnesota Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (MNLEND) program, Carl Luepker spent time with Hold Your Horses, a Greenfield, Minnesota provider of occupational and physical therapy and mental health services using hippotherapy. The practice employs the gait and movement of horses to assist people with neurological and developmental disabilities or mental health issues.
3/10/2021
National Home Visiting Summit Hosts Its First Ever Presentation on Parents with I/DD by the Georgetown UCEDD
During the last week in February, the Georgetown University Parenting Support Program (PSP), a DC Health-funded home visiting program under the UCEDD umbrella, gave a groundbreaking presentation at the National Home Visiting Summit. It was the first presentation about home visiting services tailored to address the needs of parents identified as having intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) ever at this Summit.
2/25/2021
Interdisciplinary Training Clinic Meeting Needs 360
Sara Clancey, PhD., MOTR/L, IMH-E
The Interdisciplinary Training Clinic (ITC) operated by the Institute for Human Development at Northern Arizona University (NAU) offers comprehensive evaluations and recommendations to families and educational agencies serving said families at no cost to the family. The clinic serves as a training experience for graduate students in a number of different disciplines learning about interdisciplinary practices. Graduate student teams supported by faculty mentors from their respective disciplines provide the services offered by the clinic.
2/8/2021
Holly Roberts, PhD, Takes Part in National HHS Panel
by John Keenan, UNMC Strategic Communications
Holly Roberts, PhD, associate professor at the Munroe-Meyer Institute's Department of Psychology, was an invited panelist in a national Health and Human Services Telehealth Innovation Summit with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in late December. In its invitation, HHS told Dr. Roberts that the summit was designed for leaders in the telehealth community to share what they have learned and to discuss challenges and opportunities in reimbursement, best practices, public-private partnerships, health care resilience, biosecurity and the future of telehealth.
1/11/2021
A Virtual Mock Developmental Assessment: Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Leadership During COVID-19
The Alaska LEND Without Walls is a program that has embraced video teleconferencing as a method to reach faculty and fellows across the geographically vast state. During the current pandemic, the Alaska LEND program utilized a virtual environment for all activities. As part of the annual fall semester "face to face" seminar, interdisciplinary faculty and fellows participate in a mock developmental assessment.
12/14/2020
Mailman Center for Child Development (FL LEND/UCEDD) Co-Hosts Virtual Innovation & Connection Conference
The University of Miami (UM) Mailman Center for Child Development, in partnership with UM Center for Autism and Related Disorders co-hosted its bi-annual Innovation and Connection conference, Coaching Teachers and Parents: How and Why it Works, on October 19th, 2020. More than 90 administrators, educators, speech-language pathologists and mental health workers attended the virtual event.
9/30/2020
Mailman Early Autism Intervention Program
The Mailman Early Autism Intervention program uses the evidence-based, manualized Project Impact model, to provide telehealth-based parent coaching to families of children ages 18 months to 4 years with social communication challenges. This project was developed in response to COVID-19 to replace in-person services. This program includes 6 pre-recorded webinars for parents and 6 live coaching sessions. If needed, there is an optional 7th webinar and related coaching session focused on managing challenging behavior.
9/7/2020
Grant Will Fund Potentially Game-changing PT study
The Munroe-Meyer Institute Department of Physical Therapy will take part in a nationwide study that may fundamentally shift the way PT is provided for young children at high risk for or diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Sandra Willett, PhD, director of the department, will be the site principal investigator of a five-year study evaluating START-Play (Sitting Together And Reacting To Play), an intervention that incorporates play into PT treatment with the idea that key motor skills, such as sitting up and reaching, promote attention span and problem solving in infants ages 7-24 months.