CENTER FOR AUTISM AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

A History of Supporting Families and Training Professionals in the Community

In 2008, under the leadership of UHCL’s Professor of Psychology Dorothea Lerman, the Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities (CADD) was established to help address the needs of parents, teachers and caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder. The center was the first of its kind in Bay Area Houston, and it has been fulfilling a critical need for struggling families since its inception.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of autism diagnoses in the U.S. went from 1 in 150 in 2000 to 1 in 100 in 2022. As the prevalence of the syndrome increases, the work of UHCL’s expert professors and graduate students has been crucial in supporting autism research as well as in training current and future professionals in the field of behavior analysis.

Severe Behavior Disorders Research Clinic

Widens Reach in the Community

Professor of Psychology Jennifer Fritz founded the Severe Behavior Disorders Research Clinic in 2008, when CADD first opened its doors. It offered additional resources to community members seeking support for children exhibiting problem behavior including aggression, self-injury, or property destruction. As the clinic’s director, her mission is to teach students how to work effectively with families and make clinical decisions based on best practice methods backed by scientific evidence. The clinic’s overall goal is to train students to provide each family with exceptional care and effectively decrease the client’s problematic behavior so they can live productive, successful lives. Graduates of the program are uniquely positioned to work with clients engaging in severe problem behavior and help other boardcertified behavioral analysts (BCBA) in the workplace who are less experienced in this specific area.

CADD Extends Its Mission to Pearland

Through the generosity of the Meah Family Foundation, CADD created a satellite facility at the university’s Pearland location in 2019. The expansion accommodated the need to expand the Behavioral Analysis Program to Pearland and made the clinic’s services more accessible to Pearland residents. In collaboration with their professors, graduate students assess clients and create a treatment plan. They also teach parents and caregivers of children with autism how to implement the plan with this goal of reducing their struggles with the behavioral aspects of the syndrome.

Intensive Outpatient Behavior Disorders Clinic

In the last year, CADD’s impact on the community has expanded even further. In fall 2022, CADD began offering another option for families and caregivers of children with autism. The new Intensive Outpatient Behavior Disorders Clinic at UHCL at Pearland is among the very few clinics in Texas that provides behavioral intervention and caregiver training, with no age restrictions, to address severe behaviors in people with neurodevelopmental disabilities that don’t involve a locked psychiatric unit or heavy medication.

The team at CADD, under the guidance of expert professors in UHCL’s Behavior Analysis Program, offer each individual and their caregivers two full weeks of intensive, focused time in which an intervention plan is developed and implemented, with the goal of reducing the problem behavior by 80%. The clinic sees between 22-25 patients of all ages per year.

In order to receive services, a client must have a diagnosis of autism. Due to grant funding provided by the Masonic Children and Family Services of Texas, all services provided by the Intensive Outpatient Behavior Disorders Clinic are free.