Virtual Clinic Will Offer Solution to $25 Billion Autism Crisis

((Engage Interactive, the company I work for, is producing the eLearning component of this project. It's nice to occasionally get work that you can really believe in. - Biff))

Summary: As the incidence of autism grows to epidemic proportions, a Canadian woman has enlisted technology and people to wage war on autism with an innovative approach. Her solution will bring training and intervention guidance directly into the homes of those in desperate need of a new solution.

Fredericton, New Brunswick (PRWEB via PR Web Direct) December 17, 2004 -- “Worldwide, 1 in 250 children are born with autism each year,” said Cynthia Howroyd, President and CEO of Virtual Expert Clinics (VEC). “It was 1 in 10,000 thirty years ago, and the problem is doubling every two years. Costs in North America alone are a staggering $25 billion annually and timely, quality services are still out of reach for many families.”

With personal experience herself as a clinical therapist in autism intervention, Ms. Howroyd has combined a powerful set of digital tools and a team of world-class experts to offer an innovative approach that promises to revolutionize autism service delivery and make it universally accessible.

“This is the first time that experts from a spectrum of clinical methodologies have banded together to use technology as a tool in the struggle to deal with the autism epidemic,” said Ms. Howroyd.

“People have to start looking to the private sector for innovative and creative solutions,” said Ms. Howroyd. “And that’s where Virtual Expert Clinics comes in. We’re creating a set of tools that draw on the best in technology and autism expertise to offer the world’s first Internet-based autism intervention center, the Virtual Autism Clinic (VAC).”

“We plan to leverage the time and cost efficiencies of digital technologies to provide low cost and accessible services,” said Ms. Howroyd. “Parents and interventionists need specialized training that is currently both expensive and difficult to find. The VAC will use eLearning to offer low cost computer-based training that will be accessible in even the most remote locations.”

“Designing tailor-made intervention programs for each child is crucial,” said Ms. Howroyd. “To provide this service, the VAC will use expert software to enable parents and interventionists to enter information about a specific child and generate a tailor-made program of intervention.”

“The traditional model of service delivery can mean long wait lists,” said Ms. Howroyd. “Through the VAC, help is a mouse click away.”

This, according to Ms. Howroyd, is critical since the best results in autism intervention are achieved through programs that run up to 40 hours a week for two years, and begin when the children are around age three.

“Parents in some areas could wait as long as two years before their children begin to receive services,” said Ms. Howroyd. “By then it may be too late to provide them with the best possible outcomes.”

The VAC will also employ tele-health technologies – a combination of digital tools such as email and telecommunications – to offer consultation with some of the world’s leading experts in autism.

“Our advisory board includes Dr. Kathleen Ann Quill of the Autism Clinic in Boston,” said Ms. Howroyd. “Dr. Quill’s impact on autism treatment has been tremendous and her book, DO-WATCH-LISTEN-SAY, is one of the basic textbooks in the field. Having her onboard gives the VAC an inestimable wealth of experience and knowledge to draw from..”

“In my keynote address to the Autism Society of America in 2002,” said Dr. Quill, “I called for a rainbow coalition , meaning cooperation between autism experts who have differing points of view. I wanted to bring hope to families by having professionals work together instead of apart. One of the exciting things about the Virtual Autism Clinic is that it helps me achieve that vision."

Other members of the advisory board include Dr. Cathy Pratt of the Indiana Institute for Disabilities, Dr. Diane Twatchtman-Cullen of the ADDCON Centre in Connecticut, Dr. Pamela Wolfberg of the University of San Francisco, Margaret Spoelstra of the Autism Society of Ontario, Dr. Brenda Smith Myles of the University of Kansas, and Dr. Gary Mesibov of TEACCH at the University of North Carolina.

“By teaming these people up with eLearning, tele-health, and expert software, the Virtual Autism Clinic will be able to provide an innovative approach to training and consultation that will make effective autism intervention guidance available to anyone, anywhere and at anytime,” said Ms. Howroyd. “Current programs cost families and government an average of $40,000 per year. The enormous costs and the lack of services and expertise are a huge roadblock that we intend to help overcome.”

Virtual Expert Systems recently received a $1.25 million venture capital investment through a joint partnership between the Business Development Bank of Canada and the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation.

“The money assists us in hiring a top notch team of developers. These technology experts will work closely with our autism experts to bring a quality solution. We understand how desperately families need this, and we are working as efficiently as possible to meet this need in a timely manner,” said Ms. Howroyd.

Virtual Expert Systems is located in the National Research Council of Canada building on the University of New Brunswick campus in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

“Eventually, we hope to extend the clinic to provide e-therapy services for other developmental disorders and disabilities,” said Ms. Howroyd. “But for now, our focus is on autism. That’s where we feel we’re most needed and where we can alleviate the hardships of families and others in this health crisis.”

The URL for the VEC is www.vecinc.com.

Cynthia Howroyd has a Masters degree in Human Communications Disorders from Dalhousie University and was the founder of the Speech & Learning Institute Inc. (SLI), which provided therapeutic services to special needs children in the Maritime provinces for over a decade. Virtual Expert Systems is the technological evolution of the Speech & Learning Institute.

Kathleen Ann Quill has a Doctorate of Education in Applied Psycholinguistics from Boston University and is currently Director of The Autism Institute in Boston. Her books DO-WATCH-LISTEN-SAY (Brookes Publishing, 2000) and Teaching Children with Autism: Strategies to Enhance Communication and Socialization (Delmar Publishing, 1995) are considered to be among the most important publications in the field of autism.

Contact:

Cynthia Howroyd Virtual Expert Clinics Inc 46 Dineen Drive, Suite 347 National Research Council Building University of New Brunswick Campus Fredericton, New Brunswick Canada E3B 9W4 Phone: 506-462-0991 Fax: 506-452-3112 Email: e-mail protected from spam bots Web site : www.vecinc.com

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The Big Red Gift (A Weird Christmas Story)

Nobody knew where the darned thing had come from. It was just there - all ribbons and red paper - pushed against the side of the tree. Shiny red paper. It looked more like Valentine’s wrapping than Christmas. You’d think that somebody would have noticed when it first appeared. all that red, all those ribbons, and it wasn’t exactly a small thing. About the size of an air conditiner. And it was just there. Erik noticed it first. “Who’s the big red gift for?”

Everyone followed his gaze. And there it was. Big. Red. No tag. Everyone shrugged.

“Who gave it?” asked Erik.

I looked at my daughter, Cassie. Cassie looked at her mother. Her mother looked at her boyfriend. Her mother’s boyfriend looked at my girlfriend. My girlfriend looked at her daughter, Amber. Amber looked at my son, Erik.

We all lived in the same small apartment so that we could afford to pay our car insurance.

Nobody knew who gave the big red gift. Erik approached it. Slowly. Carefully. With the caution of one steeped in the traditions of the season. He’d seen The Nightmare Before Christmas. Twice. He’d seen spiders and bugs. He’d seen false Santas. Fake elves. Plastic Christmas trees. He bent knowingly toward the big red gift and examined it. It loomed red and ribboned before his eyes.

“Careful,” I said.

“Don’t get too close,” warned his mother.

“Oh, Erik,” said Cassie. “Don’t touch it.”

“Don’t come too close,” said Amber.

Suddenly, Erik jumped backwards and into the air screaming: “Yow!” and landed on his butt four feet away from the tree.

Everybody spilled eggnog into their laps. Cassie and Amber yelled: “Ooo … eggnog!”

My girlfriend said: “What was it, Erik?”

Erik shook his head. His eyes were wide like boomerangs. He shook his head again. He stared at the big red gift. As before, we all followed his stare, eggnog laps and all. Erik’s mouth quivered. His cheeks strained. His jaw opened. He said: “There’s something in it.”

We all sighed and smiled and laughed and relaxed and winked at each other and wiped eggnog out of our laps with our shirt cuffs, and Erik’s mother’s boyfriend said: “Well, of course there’s something in it, you silly goose, it’s a Christmas present.” We all laughed some more. “Ha ha,” we said.

“It’s alive,” said Erik.

I looked at my daughter. She looked at her mother. Her mother looked at her boyfriend. Her mother’s boyfriend looked at my girlfriend. My girlfriend looked at her daughter. She looked my son. Then we sort of all looked around the room at each other.

“What do you mean by alive?” I said.

“There’s something in it, Dad,” he said.

“Something alive?” I said.

“Inside it?” said his mother.

“Under the ribbons and wrap?” said my girlfriend.

“The shiny red wrap?” said Cassie and Amber in unison.

“It’s alive,” said Erik, still staring at the big red gift, eyes still as wide as pendulums.

“What makes you think it’s alive?” said his mother’s boyfriend.

“It talked to me,” said Erik.

Silence poured into the room like liquid mercury, all gray and thick and soundless.

“But that’s impossible,” said his mother. “Gifts can’t talk. Not if they’re wrapped in shiny red wrap with no air holes. Are you sure it talked?”

“It talked to me,” said Erik.

I looked at my daughter. She looked at her mother. Her mother looked at her boyfriend. Her mother’s boyfriend looked at my girlfriend. My girlfriend looked at her daughter. She looked my son. Then the rest of us looked at Erik.

“What did it say?” said my girlfriend.

“How did it talk?” said Cassie.

“Where is its mouth?” said Amber.

“What do you have in your eggnog?” said his mother.

“It doesn’t have a mouth,” said Erik. “It just talked across space and right into my mind.”

“What did it say,” repeated my girlfriend.

“I don’t know,” said Erik.

“You don’t know?” I said.

“You don’t know?” said his mother.

“You don’t know?” said my girlfriend.

“You don’t know?” said his mother’s boyfriend.

“You don’t know?” said Cassie and Amber in unison.

“It wasn’t words,” said Erik.

We all stared at the big red gift. It shone with shiny red depth under the green boughs of the tree. It towered over the other gifts, like a bigger than normal air conditioner. It was bigger than the gifts that were obviously music CDs and computer games. It was bigger than the gifts that might have been books or fragrance kits.

A gift wrapped in a Christmas bough motif that might have been a computer printer or a small microwave was almost as big as the big red gift, but not quite.

“How do you know that it talked to you?” I said.

He thought about this for a moment. Then he thought about it for another moment. A few moments later, he said: “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” I said.

“You don’t know?” said his mother.

“You don’t know?” said my girlfriend.

“You don’t know?” said his mother’s boyfriend.

“He doesn’t know!” said Cassie and Amber in unison.

“Then how do you know it talked to you?” said my girlfriend.

Erik thought about this for a moment. He thought about it some more, and he said to my girlfriend: “Why don’t you get close to it? Why don’t you see if it’ll talk to you?”

Everyone looked at my girlfriend. My girlfriend looked around the room at everyone else. As she looked at each of us, we lowered our gaze, not wanting to look too deeply into the eyes of someone so surely doomed to hear a big red gift talk to her. My girlfriend stood up, moving slowly, like one condemned.

I said: “Maybe we should just stay away from it.”

Which, of course, sealed her fate. She had no choice but to approach the gift, and approach it she did. Two feet away from it, she kneeled down. I don’t think anyone in the room breathed a molecule of air. She bent her head toward the gift as it lay ominously by the tree, all red and wrapped in mystery. So far, the only thing any of us could hear was our own heart beats. Thump. Thump. Thump. My girlfriend lifted her hand toward the gift. Thump. Thump. Thump.

“You’re not going to touch it, are you?” I said, thus pushing her right over the brink and driving her hand hopelessly toward the big red gift. Her hand was less than half a foot away from the gift. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Suddenly, my girlfriend jumped backwards and into the air screaming: “Yow!” and landed in Erik’s eggnog-stained lap four feet away from the tree. Erik screamed: “Yow!” All of our hearts went thumpty-dump skip thumpty-dump! Eggnog was everywhere. Cassie and Amber yelled: “Ooo … eggnog!” Thumpty-dump skip thumpty-dump.

The big red gift lay by the tree. Shiny and red. Still and ribboned. Quiet and enigmatic. Towering now above the other gifts and seeming almost to tower over the tree itself.

“Is it getting bigger, Dad?” said Cassie.

I rubbed my eyes and looked at the gift. I thought it pulsed, but chalked this off as an eggnog-induced illusion.

“No,” I said. “It doesn’t seem to be moving.”

My girlfriend removed herself from Erik’s lap, wiping eggnog from her slacks. “It talked to me,” she said.

“What did it say?” said Cassie’s mother.

“How did it talk?” said Cassie.

“Where is its mouth?” said Amber.

“Have you been drinking Erik’s eggnog?” said Erik’s mother’s boyfriend.

And then we all went silent. We all stopped breathing for a moment, our lungs frozen inside our chests as though they were attached directly to our ears, which had just said: “Quiet. Listen.”

We listened.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Quiet, heart,” said the ears.

Thump.

“Shhhh.”

Our hearts stopped beating for just an instant.

We all stared that the big red gift.

And then we heard it.

It was soft, like snow. Warm, like candlelight. Glittery, like tassels. Friendly, like a Christmas card. Sublime, like a carol. Merry, like a sleigh ride. Smooth, like rum-soaked eggnog. It would have sounded much like a song if it hadn’t sounded so much like a story. On the other hand, it might have been something read silently in a book, or watched on a screen. There was no defining it.

And then as a group, we all stood up. I looked at my daughter, who looked at her mother, who looked at her boyfriend, who looked at my girlfriend, who looked at her daughter, who looked at my son, who looked at me. And then we all looked at the big red gift.

The ribbons seemed to shake. Yes, they shook! And then they undid themselves and fell away from the big red gift as though invisible hands had untied them and let them drop into the bed of pine needles at the side of the tree.

“The ribbons!” said Cassie and Amber together.

“They undid themselves,” said Erik.

“Did you see that?” said his mother.

“They just….” said her boyfriend.

“But how…?” said my girlfriend.

“Did somebody put extra rum in the eggnog?” I said.

And then the big red gift seemed to shake. Yes, it shook! And the shiny red wrap shook and shifted and shucked itself away from what appeared to be a big brown box.

As one, we all stepped toward the box as if drawn by invisible strings. We moved sl0wly and silently, staring at the big brown box, and the sound that was soft like snow and warm like candlelight seemed a little less Christmas card friendly and more like a rum-soaked hangover.

“Dad?” said Cassie.

“Mom?” said Amber.

“Mom?” said Erik.

“What’s happening?” said his mother.

“I can’t stop walking toward it,” said her boyfriend.

“I think I need more eggnog,” said my girlfriend.

“Lots more eggnog,” I said.

And then we were all standing around the big brown box and the flaps of the box lifted away and the box opened. We all looked inside the box. There was nothing inside. Nothing. But we still heard the sound and the sound drew us closer and closer to the box until, first, Cassie stepped into the box and disappeared. And then, Amber stepped into the box and disappeared, followed by Erik, who stepped into the box and disappeared. And then his mother. And then her boyfriend. And then my girlfriend. And then I stepped into the box and the last thing I saw before I disappeared was the flaps flying up and the shiny red wrap and ribbons poising over the flaps ready to wrap the box again.

Reach Out and Touch a Rock

“It was over twenty years ago, but it seems like just moments, or maybe it was a lifetime, since Ken and John barged into the tavern and dragged me away from my girlfriend and a cold pitcher of beer, tossed me into the tiny little caramel Datsun and off we went, Ken behind the wheel raving like a madman about high water and sun and we’d get up there tonight, sleep in the car and set out in the morning, and he drove into the night, up to the northern reaches of New Brunswick, up to where the wild rivers crash and careen through deep canyons in vast woodlands where none but bears and Dungarvon Whoopers have set foot.”

So begins the foreword to “My Secret River: Canoe Trips and Campfire Tales, New Brunswick, Canada” by Ken Corbett and friends. I have the honor of being one of the friends; in fact, I wrote the foreword.

I’ve been canoeing with Ken (aka Nanook of the Nashwaak) since the late 70s, though not so much in recent years, time and circumstance being cruel to my yearning to hear quick water rippling through the tent walls and watch sunbeams flicker off wavelets like white fire in the early evening. But over the years, we launched many a beer-laden canoe into the mystic rivers of New Brunswick.

The first, the one where Nanook and John stole me from beer and girlfriend, was the Northwest Upsalquitch. It was about as North as you can get in New Brunswick, and about as far away from civilization as you can get in most of North America. It was a wide peaceful river that flowed through steep canyons and unblemished forests. The water was shallow and swift, thoroughly leeched of mud and flotsam so that the rock bottom glittered like a bed of giant emeralds, rubies and sapphires.

I was lucky to remember these things given that our quota of beer back then was “a flat of beer per person per day” in keeping with Fang’s First Law of Canoeing: You never have too much beer. But I do have many other memories, scratched out of the debris of my beer-sodden mind, from trips down river after river, some whose names I’ve forgotten … memories of bear and deer, eagle and beaver, and the haunting call of loons across the eerie water of Kilburn Lake. I remember looking up in awe at tall waves just before they crashed down – freezing and bone-wet – onto my head.

And what a thrill it was when I opened the pages of “My Secret River” and saw those memories preserved in ink, proof they weren’t just beer-induced hallucinations. There were even pictures, pictures of the people, the water and those canoe-eating rocks that Nanook is so partial to reaching out and touching.

“My Secret River” is taken mostly from Nanook's web site, probably the most valuable online repository of New Brunswick canoeing lore in existence. Both the book and the site contain river trip reports from Nanook and people from across the continent who have canoed the province’s rivers. The book even has a healthy dose of Nanook’s lilting river poetry.

For anyone interested in the canoeing rivers of New Brunswick, or just interested in the outdoors, this book is well worth checking out.

Buy the book at http://www.cafepress.com/canoenb

Visit the web site at http://www.nanookofthenashwaak.com/index.htm