$3.5 million grant to aid children with autism

The U.S. Department of Education has given nearly $3.5 million to a team of researchers in the field of special education, led by School of Education Assistant Professor Hannah Schertz, to help children with autism spectrum disorders enhance their communication skills.

Schertz is joined in this endeavor by Kathleen Baggett from the University of Kansas and former IU faculty member Samuel Odom, now at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The researchers will examine the success rate of Joint Attention Mediated Learning, which focuses on pre-verbal interaction between parents and children up to 2.5 years of age. The study will take place during a span of four years.

“The purpose is to begin at a very young age before difficult patterns of social interaction have become set and to focus on their greatest area of challenge, social communication,” Schertz said in a press release. 

The endeavor is one of 19 proposals nationwide to receive a large amount of money from the Federal Institute of Education Sciences under the National Center for Special Education Research, said Gerardo Gonzalez, dean of the School of Education.

Schertz said she hopes the project will result in the acceptance of Joint Attention Mediated Learning as a successful intervention practice to aid these children with their social skills.

“We hope this will translate into better long-term outcomes across the lifespan for children with autism,” Schertz said. “We also want to see parents feeling positive about their child’s potential and about their ability to positively influence their children’s development.”

— Sydney Murray