A surprising – and serendipitous – moment in the South Carolina legislature has pushed FMU to the forefront of autism education. 

Francis Marion President Fred Carter gets around. It’s part of the job of being a university president, or at least it is the way he does it.

Most of Carter’s travel is quite purposeful, with set agendas and goals, but all of it is accompanied by the thought of a possible connection to …something else. You know the old saying: one thing leads to another. With Fred Carter, it almost always does – often to very big things.

So it was that several years ago, Carter found himself touring a grade school in Marion County. Entering one particular classroom, Cartersaw children sitting in a circle. Well, some of them. There were three or four sitting back, outside the circle, not engaged.

Carter asked the classroom’s teacher why those students were not more effectively engaged, and the teacher explained, in a sad whisper, that the uncircled students were “on the spectrum,” meaning, of course, that they had been diagnosed with autism.

Fast forward to last spring and Carter’s annual testimony before the South Carolina House Ways and Means Committee’s subcommittee on higher education funding. Finished with his prepared remarks, Carterfielded some questions from the legislators present. Representative Nathan Ballentine, the committee’s chairman, asked Carter to talk briefly about areas the university was considering for expansion in the years to come. Carter pondered this for a moment and then a vision from a classroom visit popped into his head. He started talking about autism.

He told the story of his Marion visit, and concluded by saying, “Rep. Ballentine, today I think we have a lot of children in our state sitting outside that circle.”

Not long after, Carter received a call from Ballentine asking if a $500,000 recurring appropriation would be enough to start a programdesigned to address autism at FMU. Carter said it would and graciously accepted the unexpected funds. And then, a short time after that, he received a call from State Senator Ronnie Cromer who told Carter he’d always had a special interest in the topic of autism. And was a $500,000 appropriation from the House really enough?

“I told the senator, ‘you know, for these kinds of maladies, there’s never enough,’” Carter recalls.

The appropriation was soon doubled to $1 million per year and FMU’s autism program was airborne.

A year later, Carter is still shaking his head at the unparalleled legislative events.

“Listen, we’ve gotten great support, appropriations and more, from the legislature over the years. A lot of people have been very good to us,” says Carter.“But I’ve never gotten one I didn’t ask for. On this occasion, Senator Cromer and Chairman Ballentine were sufficiently moved, and here we are. And it’s going to be a terrific program. The need is great. We’re glad we can do our part in addressing it.”

The fast-developing new program, which could start as early as this fall, is built around an innovative, multi-disciplinary approach that will prepare both educators and clinical practitioners to tackle autism. It will involve faculty and instruction from the School of Education, the School of Health Sciences, and the College of Liberal Arts, and will be organized as a special Center for Autism Studies with its own director.

The center will be housed in the School of Education. The search for the dedicated director is underway.

Thanks to a seven-figure gift from alums Jim (’77) and Candace Brown(’92), the directorship will be endowed and money will be available for scholarships in the program right from the start.

“So, in a period of about six months, we had the state putting in about$1 million recurring on the table, and a couple of our very generous alumni with seven figures in scholarships and an endowed chair. … It’s an extraordinary beginning,” says Carter.

As the funding developed, Carter pulled together the deans and department chairs of the academic areas that could be involved to begin a running discussion on how to structure a program. The conversations quickly pointed towards a multidisciplinary approach.

“The question was ‘would an interdisciplinary approach be meaningful,be effective, in this situation’ and of course the answer was ‘yes,’” says Dr. Callum Johnston, professor of education and the interim dean of the FMU School of Education. “(Autism) is a diagnosis with so many facets. We think that through this program, we can provide new services in Occupational Therapy (OT, a new graduate program that is currently accepting applications for its first class of students), Speech-Language Pathology, and Psychology, and through special education,where we train teachers to work with children and family. This approach has the potential to have a big impact.”

Dr. Karen Gittings, Dean of FMU’s School of Health Sciences, says the prospect of a collaborative effort was challenging in its complexity, but exciting in what it could mean.

“The group (assembled by Dr. Carter) was given a broad charge: what can we do for our students to make sure they’re ready to work in this field, but just as importantly, what can we do for the community that isso affected by this. It was humbling to consider, but also energizing to take on something like that.

“It’s so exciting here in health sciences to be involved in collaboration and teamwork like this. We try to do that all the time amongst the health professions, but this is on a broader scale and it’s really the epitome of how it can work. We think we’ll have OT, SLP, nursing, and even healthcare administration involved.”

In Demand

As noted, the new center will be housed, organizationally, in the School of Education, and the primary focus will be the new degree:Bachelor of Science in Education, Multi-categorical Special Education:Autism Studies, Pre-K through 12. Students who graduate from FMU’s program will bring a special set of skills that will enable them to assist in the preparation and delivery of programs for autistic children at all three educational levels (early childhood, elementary and secondary). They’ll be licensed as special education teachers through the South Carolina Department of Education, and will be equipped to teach students with a variety of needs. But they will have additional education focused on autism, that Johnston says “will be more specific, and I think, much more helpful.

“We think the teachers we’ll prepare in this program will be great resources for others at the schools from the moment they’re hired,” says Johnston. “They’ll be very much in demand.”

One innovative aspect of the program is the psychology component which will qualify graduates to sit for the Board Certified Assistant Behavioral Analyst (BCaBA) certificate. That opens several additional career paths — BCaBA’s often work in healthcare and related fields — and provides still greater expertise for grads in the education field.

The program is also designed to prepare students for future graduate studies in education, health sciences, and/or psychology for graduate school. 

“The curriculum will allow students to move into the clinical school psychology program or to move into a grad program, and that will be true for OT or SLP, as well,” says Dr. Crystal Hill-Chapman, chair of the Department of Psychology. “The primary purpose is to serve kids in schools, and I can’t tell you how important that is. There are school psychologists who can perform some of these tasks, who have this knowledge, but there is such a shortage in that area. Whichever direction (a graduate) goes, their presence will be felt.”

Hill-Chapman and Gittings think the program’s flexibility will attract interest from an array of education and healthcare professionals interested in acquiring new degrees. A psychology major could use the program to move towards a behavioral analyst certification, or an advanced degree. Graduates of this program may also choose to expand their expertise through further study in other disciplines.

‘Lots of Paths’

The curriculum will be based on existing special education courses, and core courses in psychology related to behavioral analysis and connected subjects. The education courses will be tailored to include specific instruction with regard to autism and the three age-level-appropriate instruction already mentioned. Students will also take courses in Occupational Therapy, Psychology, and Speech-Language Pathology. The major requires 63 credit hours.

The undergraduate curriculum will allow most grads to move directly into graduate programs in any of the curriculums involved. Students will find themselves in classes and labs with students in other, related majors. That’s another plus, given that after graduation, they’ll find themselves engaging across disciplines again.  

Creating those multiple alignments was one of the more complicated parts of the program-building process, but program leaders say it was well worth the time. 

“The priority is making sure community needs are served,” says Hill-Chapman. “But that can be done with a variety of practitioners addressing this area from different angles. For our students, we’ve really left the door open. They’ll have a lot of paths.”

Clinics: public access

The autism major, and its grads, will pair with private clinics that FMU already operates in Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology (an Occupational Therapy Clinic will likely follow). The clinics, which operate out of FMU’s Leatherman Medical Education Complex in downtown Florence, provide access to professional services delivered by FMU faculty and graduate students operating under their supervision. 

The services are much in demand. FMU’s clinic is especially attractive because of its affordability.

The psychology clinic sees patients with a variety of diagnoses, but autism is one of the more significant issues. Access to that service is vital to families in need. 

Dr. Shayna Wrighten, an associate professor of biology at FMU and the director of the university’s African American Studies program, has been bringing her (now) six-year-old son, Carter, who is diagnosed with autism, to the FMU clinic for two years. Prior to that, he was on a lengthy wait list for private treatment.

“We were told that we should get him into an Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) program,” says Wrighten. “We were recommended to a program in Florence that had a wait list that was years long. Then, the FMU ABA clinic opened, and we were able to get in.

“My son has been a patient there for about a year and a half. In that time, he has shown a lot of growth. He has worked with therapists who he looks forward to seeing, and often looks forward to going to ABA.”

Wrighten says Carter is especially appreciative of “getting snacks.”

“He also enjoyed playing with the therapists, and he would always be excited to share with them what kind of day he had in school once he started kindergarten (they get different colored faces at school each day based on their behavior). We’re happy to see more resources for children on the Autism Spectrum finally coming to Florence.”

The Speech-Language Pathology clinic, and the coming Occupational Therapy clinic will impact patients with diagnoses on the Autism Spectrum in different ways. Children with autism often face challenges with communication that Speech-Language Pathologists can help by building skills. Occupational therapy, despite the connotations associated with its name, is actually directed as much at daily living as it is as a vocational training or rehabilitation. A major part of living for children is “play,” so occupational therapists can help improve their participation and interest in daily activities leading to increased independence for the young patients its practitioners may see.

An additional benefit of the ramped up clinical presence for the university is the addition of new clinical sites and experiences for FMU students, and that could include students from a number of fields. Students in all the disciplines involved in the new program have a required number of clinical hours as part of their majors. Gittings thinks nursing students could rotate through the clinics as well.  

“It’s another resource for obtaining practicum hours,” says Gittings, “but more importantly, it’s also a place to gain invaluable experience, working with children with autism under the guidance of expert faculty. There are just so many possibilities.” 

‘Can’t wait to get started’

FMU’s clinics expect to grow as new students enroll in the autism major, and it will continue to serve Florence and the surrounding area. University leaders hope that many of the program’s graduates will stay in the Pee Dee, too. Serving that particular community with education that addresses critical needs has long been baked into FMU’s mission. 

But as the program leaders note, the need for professionals in this field is acute, and FMU’s new program will be unique, “in the state, and really in the Southeast,” says the School of Education’s Johnston. 

“I think it’s really going to take off, really going to put a spotlight on FMU,” says Johnston. “We already have students wanting to know when they can apply, and we’ve had outside organizations contacting us, wanting to establish a partnership or some other kind of relationship. This will certainly impact care in our backyard, but I think our students will be in demand in many places.

“It’s a fast-growing field with a lot of need,” he says. “To come together with other departments to offer a service of this magnitude … It’s an amazing experience. I can’t wait for us to get started.”

Collaboration on Display