April 19, 2007

Special programs for screenings, help and fund-raising

Raising any child is difficult, but dealing with a highly intelligent child who has social problems can be terribly stressful. During interviews one mother complained of migraines, another suffers from stress-related anxiety and panic attacks; still others describe anxiety developing from no time to spend with their other children or the breakup of marriages.

“The stress of dealing with a child with special needs is huge, but ours was compounded by the fight with our district. The money they spent fighting us could have gone toward programs that would benefit not just my child but others in the same boat,” said one mother.

Outside the school arena, there are ways to get help. Many parents take their children to training sessions at the Michelle Winner Center for Social Thinking. It’s located at 3550 Stevens Creek Boulevard, Suite 200, phone (408) 557-8595 or visit the Web site at www.socialthinking.com.

Todd and Dayna Hoffman of San Diego founded the Autism Tree Project Foundation to help others deal with the devastation of finding out their child is autistic. Created in April 2003, this foundation works to help build community awareness for autism.

Its’ goal is to provide children on the autism spectrum a voice. The couple developed the foundation to build community compassion toward the parents and families and to fight for a cure for autism. It also aims to help build a Center for Autism and Neurological Disorders at UC San Diego. This center would provide a road map for families trying to cope with a new diagnosis of a neurological disorder with an appropriate plan for treatment and therapy of each child.

In addition, the foundation provides the free education, training and preschool screenings.

On April 21, the ATPF will hold a class to train pre-school teachers for speech and language screenings with preschool children. The class will be conducted by Kara Dodds and is presented in conjunction with Dr. Jean Novak of SJSU's Department of Language and Communication Disorders. It will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Boccardo Business Center at San Jose State University. For more information, contact Kara Dodds at (619) 692-0622.

From Monday, April 23 through Friday, April 27, ATPF will sponsor free preschool early intervention speech and language screenings by Kara Dodds and Associates at Addison Penzak JCC of Silicon Valley, located at 14855 Oka Road in Los Gatos. For more information, contact: Kara Dodds at (619) 692-0622.

Customer Service Realty in Campbell, which is owned by Dina and Brian Bonafede who live in Almaden, hosts an annual golf tournament whose proceeds go to the Autism Tree Project Early Intervention program. For the past three years, the tournament, scheduled this year for Sept. 27 at the Cinnabar Golf Course, has helped the foundation to offer free education training and preschool classes.

That funding helped to train more than 100 local teachers, train 75 speech and language pathology students on the foundation’s preschool screening model and screen more than 500 children.

For more information about the foundation and the project and future screenings, check the Web site at www.autismtreeproject.org.