Little Star Center announces new West Lafayette ABA facility for children affected by autism, hiring new staff

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Little Star Center announces new West Lafayette ABA facility for children affected by autism, hiring new staff

Fun, wacky & tasty spirit week at Little Star Center-Lafayette

  Learners and staff at Little Star Center-Lafayette celebrated spirit week with five fun-filled days of activities. The event gave learners and staff an opportunity to express their individual style each day. Among the week’s themes were Throwback Thursday, Wacky Wednesday, When I Grow Up and Superhero/Villain Day – a staff favorite!

Middle Star learners get fit at Little Star Center in Carmel

Fitness group at Little Star Center in Carmel is a great opportunity for Middle Star learners to  establish healthy habits.

Fitness group meets once a week for a variety of activities, including   stretching, group movement games such as relay races or tag and ball activities. Learners also practice using fitness/cardio equipment.

Additionally, there are opportunities for learners to practice following instructions and focusing on imitation, as illustrated by the two learners pictured above who are mirroring one another’s movements during a stretching activity!

 

Outings reinforce skills for learners at Little Star Center

The goal of our programs at Little Star Center is to make the best use of each learner’s day and teach them the skills needed to be as successful as possible in a daily settings. One of the ways we achieve this goal is through various outings. Little Star Center learners have an opportunity to practice new skills in different settings, including restaurants, parks and the local library. Here are few examples:

Outing to the Indiana State Fair – Some of our Middle Star learners in Carmel practiced using community transportation by riding the train to the Indiana State Fair. They also followed directions on a scavenger hunt, tried new foods/experiences and had many valuable social opportunities.

Sensory Story Time at the Monroe County Public Library – This outing is always a treat for our learners at Little Star Center in Bloomington. Every month, learners have the opportunity to practice their group skills. They worked on attending and responding to a novel group leader, following directions, singing songs, imitating actions as well as listening to a story.  After story time, the learners practiced sharing play sets with one another. One of our learners decided to have some fun. He knows his name quite well decided to be called “Little Guy” when the Story Time leader asked him his name.

Thank you to all community businesses and leaders who have hosted our outings. We hope you’ve enjoyed the experiences as much as our learners have.

Staff Spotlight: Whitney Hancock, team leader, Little Star Center-Carmel

Whitney has worked at Little Star Center for seven years. As team leader, she is responsible for testing, collecting data and staff support. Here’s more information about Whitney:

What do you enjoy most about your job at Little Star Center? 

Working with the kids, seeing them succeed, grow and learn.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Always try your best, respect your elders and treat people how you want to be treated.

One thing I want people to know and understand about working with children affected by autism is….

They are amazing individuals. They work hard everyday to achieve their goals. I am proud of each and every one of them!

What are your favorite activities when not working at Little Star Center?

I like to hang out with family and friends, watch movies and television, listen to music, play cards/games, read, color, sing, play sports, walk and play Frisbee with my dog, Kenna.

My son, the fanimal

By Mary Rosswurm

It’s hard to remember when Brad didn’t love ceiling fans. My earliest memory is when he was about a year old and we were in North Adams, Mass., in a Burger King, and he just stared at the ceiling fan over his head.

Brad’s fascination grew from there. When he was as young as 2, and we would be in Home Depot or Lowe’s he always wanted to go and look at the ceiling fans. Even though he was non-verbal, he would let me know where he wanted to go by pointing. By age 4, he discovered that ceiling fans came in the Sunday newspaper ads. Lowe’s. Menards. Even JCPenney. He would cut out the ads and I would glue them on a poster board.

Teachers at school would cut out pictures of ceiling fans and collect them in envelopes for Brad and give them to him when he earned them. They became a sort of currency for him. By the time he was 8 or 9 years old, his room was covered with laminated poster boards of the ceiling fan clippings he and others collected.

When my parents gave him a digital camera for his 16th birthday, it became his most prized possession. Brad is able to take photos of ceiling fans and print them, but only if the image is perfect. Each photo goes into an album, neatly marked with the number of the fan, brand and model name. Currently, Brad has more than 4,200 in his photo collection. He is able to recall each fan picture’s number and where the photo was taken. He also is able to look at most any fan and identify the make, model and where it can be purchased along with the warranty description.

Now, at 24, he tells people that he has a special hobby of collecting ceiling fan photos. Most people are intrigued and will allow him to take the photos in their home or business. We occasionally run into the person who thinks he is perhaps casing their establishment for a future break-in, who decline his request. While this upsets him, he will remember that place and ask if he can use his “perseverance” and go back and try again.

Looking back to when Brad was a baby who would stare at ceiling fans, I could not have imagined all these years later that he would still be fascinated by them. I guess it’s no different than any other hobby a person might have. I am truly happy that Brad has something in his life that he is so passionate about. Everybody should be so lucky!

Mary is executive director at Little Star Center.

 

Staff Spotlight: Lauren Fairclough, group coordinator, Little Star Center Bloomington

Lauren has worked at the Little Star Center in Bloomington since 2014. As group coordinator, she organizes opportunities for learners to build social skills and to prepare them for a classroom environment. Lauren also plans outings in the community to help learners increase generalization of their individual goals.

What do you most enjoy about your job at Little Star Center?

What I enjoy most is seeing the progression and development of the learners.  Each child has an innate interest in learning. It has been an exciting journey to tap into what that looks like for each child.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?

Be a Fruit Loop in a world full of Cheerios, which means be who you are. Life is about letting your own unique character traits shine through.

One thing I want people to know and understand about working with children affected by autism is….

I really want people to know the clinical side of ABA therapy does carry over to the community. It’s cool to see our kids work on a skill in the center, and then go on an outing to the library, for example, successfully using what they’ve learned and having fun.

 What are your favorite activities when not working at Little Star Center?

My husband, Jake, and I love to spend time together and with our pets: Our dog, Rupert, and cat, Romy. We enjoy taking Rupert, for walks and on trips with us when we can.  I also enjoy spending my free time knitting. I’ve been very busy lately making blankets and gifts for friends and family who are having babies.

 

Little Star Center Raising Awareness: Two federal initiatives to support in 2015

Some of Little Star Center's leadership at the recent Autism Speaks Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C.

Some of Little Star Center’s leadership at the recent Autism Speaks Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”…African Proverb

Liz Feld, President of Autism Speaks, shared the quote above, during the recent Autism Speaks Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C.  Leadership from Little Star Center was among 200 professionals nationwide invited to attend.

She shared this quote in describing her partnership with other agencies, politicians, innovators, physicians, researchers, and advocates. The leadership summit was an opportunity to learn about the meaningful differences in state and federal policies that Autism Speaks is actively pursuing, and, more importantly, an opportunity to speak to local politicians about the necessity of supporting these laws that significantly impact individuals with autism.

The 21st Century Cures Bill is one such piece of important legislation. Autism Speaks describes this bill in more detail and contains links to additional resources. During the leadership summit, Dr. Ring, Chief Science Officer at Autism Speaks, discussed the MSSNG project (pronounced “missing”). Autism Speaks and Google are working in collaboration to complete the MSSNG project. The project will provide clinical data and 10,000 genomes of individuals affected by autism. This massive dataset will then be available to statisticians, data scientist, and researchers.  It is really exciting to see what is going to come from this research. The 21st Century Cures Bill provides necessary legislation for research projects like MSSNG.

Liz Feld also indicated that the 21st Century Cures Bill will “bring regulation of the health field into the 21st century.” She further elaborated that this will include both medication and technology.

Avonte’s Law

In addition to the 21st Century Cures Bill, Avonte’s law was also discussed at the summit. Tragically, Avonte Oquendo, a 14-year-old with autism, wandered away from his school in New York and was later found dead in a nearby river. In his memory, Avonte’s Law seeks to stop this from happening to other individuals with autism.  Current statistics indicate that 50 percent of individuals with autism will wander away from safe areas. What is more alarming is that 42 percent of wandering incidents are fatal. Avonte’s Law will provide funding over five years to law enforcement agencies for tracking devices and training.