40 Years: Continuing a legacy of excellence

For the last year, some of us have spent a lot of time looking back.

We’ve been working on the CPD History Project, as part of our 40^th Anniversary Celebration.  Soon the first evidence of that work will appear in our halls: a series of posters detailing the center’s place in disability history.

It’s helped us recognize some pioneering moments. The CPD (or Exceptional Child Center, as it was known then) was ahead of its time for attaching a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities to a college of education, rather than a college of medicine. It was part of a movement toward de-institutionalization of people with developmental disabilities. It offered education to children with disabilities at a time when some schools turned them away. Later, after federal law required public schools to offer an education to all students, the CPD gradually sent the school-aged children it had been serving back to neighborhood classrooms.

Work by people in the CPD contributed to some significant moments in disability history: policy work that contributed to the Americans with Disabilities Act; standardized hearing tests for infants in Utah; studies that contributed to evidence-based practices in early intervention; a one-step application process that simplified the lives of people applying for services; data that contributed to the founding of Early Head Start; interdisciplinary training that bridges the gap between social, psychological and medical professionals; a better understanding of autism as it relates to immunology.

Read the rest on the CPD website.

Summer round-up

Dr. Martin Blair, left, at the Utah Institute on Special Education Law in Ogden.

Summer was a busy time here at the CPD, ushering in a fresh round of conferences, events and interviews. Here's some highlights you might have missed:

Dr. Martin Blair wrote up a blog post on the buzz in the halls at numerous conferences put on by Technical Assistance for Excellence in Special Education (hint: it's about funding). One of those conferences included some information on transition to adulthood for special education students.

In July, a two-day workshop on Nutrition Therapy for Autism Spectrum Disorders produced some tips for children on the autism spectrum.

And Dr. Stephen Schneider, who works at both the CPD's Biomedical Clinic at Utah State University and the Budge Clinic, gave us an interview on health supplements and the interdisciplinary treatment of young patients with behavioral issues.