The $500K Dooley Trust Awards Program Supported 12 Projects at NSU
The $500K Robert E. Dooley Trust NSU Center for Autism Endowment Fund was established to help fund and support NSU programs that benefit individuals with autism. The Division of Research and Economic Development invited all NSU faculty and staff to apply for this funding over the past 2 years. Below you will find summaries of the 12 projects that were supported through Dooley Trust Fund awards.
2025
Unicorn Children’s Foundation Developmental Assessment Clinic ASD Kits
PI: PI: Amrita Singh, Psy.D., Clinical Psychologist Assistant Director for Unicorn Children Foundation Developmental Assessment Clinic, College of Psychology
Contact: as1561@nova.edu
After an ASD diagnosis, parents often need support to understand their child’s symptoms and how to manage behavioral concerns that affect their daily lives. Research indicates that having limited resources during the diagnosis phase leads to impaired family functioning and difficulties coping with the diagnosis of ASD. Notably, parents have difficulty accessing psychoeducation regarding ASD. Parents often face extra challenges in being able to build strong parental self-efficacy (i.e., their ability to make sense of their child’s actions and behaviors) compared to those with neurotypical children. Research has shown that providing early psychoeducation on ASD post-diagnosis may reduce parent stress, while increasing their self-efficacy. Furthermore, many parents with children with autism have significantly higher financial burden compared to those families with other special health care needs. The Unicorn Children’s Foundation Developmental Assessment Clinic (DAC) provides developmental assessments at no cost for underserved families. Families are provided with feedback on their evaluation results: a summary of their child’s diagnosis, strengths and weaknesses, and a list of recommendations and resources via preliminary report. A preliminary report helps families start the services they need after their diagnosis. However, families often identify their need for post-diagnosis education and interventions. Supported by the Dooley Award, families provided with a diagnosis of ASD would be given a duffle bag, i.e. “Unicorn Kids’ Kit” during their feedback session. The kit would include items to target symptom-specific areas for a newly diagnosed child with ASD and would be customized for different age groups and languages. Common areas of need for intervention include intellectual impairment, language/motor skills delay, social skills deficits, sensory and behavioral dysregulation, lack of safety awareness, attention problems, impulsivity, and risk of elopement. Additionally, each kit will include ASD informational binders for parents (e.g., organized list of referrals for therapists, recommended websites) followed by the offer of a 60-minute post=diagnosis phone consultation on the materials in the kit.
Ideally, the kits may reduce any stress for finding resources at a time that families would prefer to focus on processing the news of a diagnosis. The goals of this project are to reduce the financial burden on families in obtaining psychoeducational materials and increase ASD knowledge and self-efficacy for the benefit of not only the child with ASD but their siblings, parents, and grandparents as materials will be utilized to increase communication and play skills as well as reduce behavioral challenges that can impact a family system.
PLAY Project: Phase 2
PI: Nurit Sheinberg, Ed.D., Assistant Professor, College of Psychology
Contact: nurit@nova.edu
According to the most recent estimate by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (2023), the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders continues to increase with about 1 in 36 children being identified with ASD. Data also indicates that children are being diagnosed at an earlier age, in 2020 children were 1.6 times more likely to be identified as having ASD by age 4 compared to children born 4 years earlier. Considering that the National Research Council (2001) recommends entry into intensive treatment immediately upon diagnosis, the need for providing effective early intervention services is crucial. Developmental approaches are considered as promising interventions for young children with autism.
A recent metaanalysis on the efficacy of early interventions found that intervention in which families are trained to work daily on children’s skills seem to be the most promising in terms of positive child outcomes (Daniolou et al., 2022). An example of an evidence-based, caregiver-mediated intervention is the PLAY project (PLAY) (Solomon et al., 2014). PLAY is a developmental, relationship-based approach grounded on the theory that when dyadic interaction is contingent, reciprocal and enjoyable the child will progress through a series of increasingly functional developmental levels.
Phase 1 of the project was funded in February 2024 through an initial Dooley Trust grant with the goal of providing services to a minimum of 20 caregiver-child dyads. The purpose of Phase 2 of the project includes two components. First, we would like to be able to increase the number of families that can participate in the PLAY project as well as ensure the continuity of the program for the next academic year. We have received very positive feedback from the families participating in the project, there seems to be overwhelming interest from families with children with ASD.
2024
PEERS® Social Skills for Preschoolers Group: A caregiver assisted social skills program
PI: Amrita Singh, Psy.D., Clinical Psychologist Assistant Director for Unicorn Children Foundation Developmental Assessment Clinic, College of Psychology
Contact: as1561@nova.edu
Rationale:
The Unicorn Children’s Foundation Developmental Assessment Clinic focuses on three areas of needs: 1) assessments for the early identification of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for underserved families, 2) community outreach, and 3) the training of future clinical and school psychologists. Those children identified with developmental concerns are referred to the clinic for comprehensive diagnostic evaluations. This results in earlier identification and quicker access to intervention services. However, one area of need that families with children with autism have identified is that children with autism need social skills group intervention to develop their social communication skills, play skills, and friendship skills. Unfortunately, the availability of these groups is limited in South Florida and can be very costly
Funding from the Dooley Trust will be used to help the Developmental Assessment Clinic deliver and evaluate a social skills group to children and their parents at no cost to the families. One evidence-based caregiver assisted intervention for social skills is the Program for Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) developed at UCLA.
Dr. Amrita Singh, the Assistant Director of the Unicorn Children’s Foundation Developmental Assessment Clinic, has already conducted PEERs programs for child/adolescent and young adult groups. With the Dooley funding, Dr. Singh and clinicians at the Developmental Assessment Clinic, will be trained on the PEERS for Preschoolers intervention to conduct social skills groups with this age group as well.
Children (with their caregiver participating) will be taught the following skills from the group intervention: listening and following directions, sharing and giving turns, greeting friends, keeping cool when upset during play, being flexible, asking friends to play, maintaining appropriate body boundaries, and transitioning activities. In addition, the effectiveness of the program in enhancing parental self-efficacy, reducing parenting stress, and increasing children’s social skills will be evaluated.
“Nourishing Families Clinic – an interprofessional approach to support children and families with pediatric feeding disorders”
PI: Priya Krishnakumar, Assistant Professor, Department of Nutrition, Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine
Contact: pkrishna@nova.edu
Feeding and swallowing is a developmental skill that parents and pediatricians expect from infants and children. It is a sensory experience where the child must integrate all their senses, including olfactory, gustatory, and interoception, to learn how to feed for survival and want to feed for pleasure and experience. The first developmental feeding skills is the infant’s ability to express milk from a bottle or breast. Often, due to medical co-morbidities and/or iatrogenic causes, this foundational skill is interrupted. As such, the infant’s oral sensory and oral motor experiences and generalized motor learning patterns are detrimentally impacted, resulting in dysphagia and a pediatric feeding disorder (PFD) and malnutrition. In children presenting with ASD, about 62% present with feeding difficulties like increased food selectivity, unhealthy eating habits and more mealtime-related behavioral problems.
Through Dooley Trust award funding, the Dr. Kiran C Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine proposes to restore the pediatric feeding clinic under a new approach to serving the needs of the local community. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19’s impact in 2020, the operating clinic was placed on hold and services were discontinued. At the time, the clinic was serving an active patient load of about 50 children. The clinic will cater to infants and younger children with complex feeding disorders related to autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), intellectual disabilities, complex medical conditions, and failure to thrive. The Nourishing Families Clinic would be the first in South Florida to offer an interdisciplinary approach to care, involving pediatricians, registered dietitians, speech language pathologists and family and therapy specialists. The pediatrician will be the medical leader to develop the right child treatment plan for the family, the registered dietitian will assess child eating behavior patterns, create individualized meal patterns, provide nutrition counseling and education to families, a speech language pathologist will assess and treat dysphagia/ pediatric feeding disorder, maximizing safety, feeding efficiency, feeding quality and feeding skills, the couple and family therapist will assess and treat stress, anxiety, mood changes and trauma related to nutrition, feeding and swallowing. Additionally, the clinic will promote a teaching environment for training students at all academic levels.
Applied Behavior Analysis Caregiver Training: Proactive and Reactive Strategies
PI: Emmy Maurilus, Assistant Department Chair/Assistant Professor, Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice
Contact: em986@nova.edu
The Baudhuin Preschool and the Kapila Family Foundation Starting Right Program at the Autism Institute at Nova Southeastern University focus on the education of preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The former educates public school students between three and five; the latter, children between one and a half and three years of age. Both programs are recognized in the community for providing outstanding educational services to the population they serve and, combined, they serve approximately 130 students a year.
The purpose of this project is to take those exceptional services a step further, teaching behavior strategies to the parents/guardians of the students in both programs. That will be achieved by providing a willing percentage of the parents/guardians didactic training on proactive and reactive behavior strategies and then having them practice the recently learned strategies with human-powered artificial intelligence (AI) sessions.
The parents/guardians who have volunteered for the project will be divided into smaller groups for the didactic training with the use of Mursion, an immersive learning platform that utilizes human-powered AI. Throughout the series, each session will focus on behavioral strategies. Starting from assessing the individual’s baseline behaviors and providing foundational knowledge through didactic training. Subsequent sessions will utilize Mursion to simulate real-life scenarios, emphasizing the application of both proactive and reactive strategies across various behavioral functions and settings. Progress will be evaluated through pre-and-post surveys and feedback gathered to gauge the effectiveness of the intervention, providing valuable insights for future refinement and improvement.
Implementing the PLAY Project, a Parent-Mediated Intervention for Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
PI: Nurit Sheinberg, Ed.D., Assistant Professor, College of Psychology
Contact: nurit@nova.edu
Research has consistently documented the benefits of early intervention with many intervention approaches available for families with various degrees of effectiveness. Recent meta-analysis on the efficacy of early intervention for children with ASD found that interventions in which families are trained to work daily on children’s skills seem to be the most promising in terms of positive child outcomes (Daniolou et al., 2022). An example of an evidence-based, caregiver-mediated intervention is the PLAY project (PLAY). PLAY is a developmental, relationship-based approach grounded on the theory that when dyadic interaction is contingent, reciprocal, and enjoyable, the child will progress through a series of increasingly functional developmental levels. PLAY is provided through a structured approach that includes coaching, modeling, and video feedback with the caregiver-child dyad.
The purpose of this project is to offer the PLAY project to families with children ages 1-5 with autism. PLAY will be offered to families that have children attending programs housed at NSU and the UM-NSU Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) will offer the program to families in the community who do not have children with ASD enrolled in NSU academic programming. The goal is to provide services to a minimum of 20 caregiver-child dyads. Sessions will include coaching, modeling and video feedback on skills being targeted based on each child’s developmental profile. Families will participate in weekly coaching sessions lasting between 45-60 minutes for 12 weeks.
Increasing Autism Awareness and Knowledge in the Community
PI: Amrita Singh, Psy.D., Assistant Director/ Child Psychologist, Unicorn Foundation Developmental Assessment Clinic, College of Psychology
Contact: as1561@nova.edu
The Unicorn Children’s Foundation Developmental Assessment Clinic focuses on three areas of needs: assessments for the early identification of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for underserved families, community outreach, and the training of future clinical and school psychologists. For community outreach, the Developmental Assessment Clinic has developed workshops to educate and assist persons in the community to better understand child development and help navigate the process of early identification of autism spectrum disorder. The clinic provides these community workshops at no cost in both Spanish and English.
The Dooley Trust funds will support an expanded program of free workshops to the community which will disseminate information about Developmental Assessment Clinic, which many parents have described as a “hidden gem” because they never heard about our clinic. The aim behind these community workshops is to reach as many families as possible.
These outreach workshops will be provided in person and on zoom to daycares, preschools, faith-based organizations, and family support organizations in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties. In addition, this project supports outreach to healthcare providers (ABA companies, speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists) to explain the services we offer in order to help identify children 18 months to 7 years of age from underserved communities who need early intervention.
Autism Assessments for Young Children from Underserved Communities
PI: Sohani Char, Psy.D., Licensed Psychologist, Associate Director of the Unicorn Children’s Foundation Developmental Assessment Clinic, Assistant Clinical Professor, College of Psychology
Contact: sb1824@nova.edu
The Unicorn Children’s Foundation Developmental Assessment Clinic focuses on conducting assessments for the early identification of autism for underserved children, community outreach, and the training of future clinical and school psychologists. Currently, there is a very high demand for comprehensive diagnostic evaluations to help children with autism get access to therapies, such as applied behavior analysis (ABA), speech therapy, and occupational therapy. It is widely known that compared with White children, Black and Latinx children are typically diagnosed later and have increased difficulty in accessing services due to various reasons (e.g., shortage of specialists who accept their insurance, limited financial resources, long wait times). Our clinic conducts these evaluations in one day and at no cost for children from underserved communities. The evaluation we provide consists of a comprehensive intake with the parent, a cognitive test, adaptive skill testing, and an administration of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition (ADOS-2), a gold standard measure that is needed for gaining an accurate diagnosis for autism. This allows families to gain comprehensive information on their child’s overall functioning to better assist them with accessing therapies and education services.
Typically, the Developmental Assessment Clinic has a 3-month waitlist, and our goal is to see families as soon as possible because we understand how crucial it is for children to begin receiving early intervention after diagnosis. The Dooley Trust funds will help the Developmental Assessment Clinic increase the number of quality, comprehensive diagnostic evaluations at no cost for children ages 18 months to 7 years of age from low-income families. These evaluations are conducted in one day, which requires a team with clinical expertise. Families have provided positive feedback about the advantages of completing assessments in one day versus 3 to 4 sessions. Evaluations provided by the Developmental Assessment Clinic will allow families to learn more about their child’s overall developmental functioning, clarify diagnoses, and determine which treatment approaches are recommended to address their child’s autism symptoms.
Sensory Saturdays 2024
PI: Bonnie Clearwater, Director and Chief Curator, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale
Contact: bclearwater@moafl.org
NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale received funding from the Dooley Trust for a project called Sensory Saturdays, to provide specialized art education activities on four Saturday mornings before regular Museum hours to children on the autism spectrum during 2024. The expanded hours will enable the Museum’s Education team to ensure the Museum is a sensory friendly locale for this population. Museum exhibitions frequently contain multimedia presentations with loud volume and/or flashing lights, which can trigger negative reactions in children with autism. To accommodate this population, the Museum’s Education team will collaborate with its Curatorial Project Manager to identify quiet zones, make sure nearby lights are dimmed and speaker volumes are adjusted for exclusive Museum access by children with ASD and their caregivers. As recommended by UM-NSU CARD, soft seating, sensory activity kits, noise-cancelling headphones, weighted blankets and mats will be available for visiting children on the spectrum.
In sum, up to 25 children with ASD (ages 6-17) and their caregivers will be able to attend each Sensory Saturday event with the goal of providing fun, sensory-based workshop activities in a museum environment that help make Broward caregivers feel more supported, while the children feel a sense of comfort and belonging.
2023
PACT: Physical Activity Connections via Telehealth
PI: Melissa M. Tovin, PT, Ph.D., Professor, Dr. Pallavi Patel College of Health Care Sciences
Contact: mtovin@nova.edu
Awareness campaigns and research have led to a significant increase in services and programs for young children with ASD; however, very few programs are specifically aimed at meeting the unique needs of adolescents and young adults. As this group transitions from childhood to adulthood, they face many social, physical and health challenges. At the same time, they find themselves exiting pediatric medical, developmental, and school-based services leaving them and their families struggling to navigate a complex system to find new providers and programs. This period of transition has been referred to as “Falling off the Services Cliff” in several publications/outlets. Physical Activity Connections via Telehealth (PACT) will provide guided physical activity instruction, using a peer-to-peer and small group format for social support and engagement. This service will be delivered virtually, and participants will receive a custom exercise program, coaching, and a “wellness kit” consisting of exercise resources and fitness tools. The proposed project will provide an accessible, safe, and expert guided physical activity program with a social component to adolescents and young adults with ASD (ages 16-22).
Supporting a Comprehensive College Support Program for Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder
PI: Maribel Del Rio-Roberts, Psy.D., Associate Professor, Abraham S. Fischler College of Education & School of Criminal Justice
Contact: mdelrio@nova.edu
Nova Southeastern University currently offers the Access Plus Program for college students enrolled at NSU that are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. These students are provided with comprehensive support services such as daily study hall support with peer mentors, social coaching, career development, advocacy and support with faculty and university departments, and psychoeducational groups among other services. Peer Mentors assist students with study skills, executive functioning such as planning, organization, and problem solving, as well as with self-advocacy skills. Although students with financial need were previously able to successfully enroll in the program through Florida Department of Vocational Rehabilitation financial assistance, this funding is no longer being provided and Dooley Trust funding was requested to assist students with covering the program fee. Participation in this program is vital to the success of many college students as it provides them with the necessary supports to ensure that they thrive during their time at NSU and ultimately transition into a career while being competitive within the workforce of their chosen field of study.
A Training Program to Support Faculty & Staff Working with Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Higher Education
PI: Tim Scala, Psy.D., Associate Professor, Abraham S. Fischler College of Education & School of Criminal Justice, Contact: tscala@nova.edu
PI: Maribel Del Rio-Roberts, Psy.D., Associate Professor, Abraham S. Fischler College of Education & School of Criminal Justice
Contact: mdelrio@nova.edu
It is essential that students diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder successfully transition into a higher education setting and feel supported in their new environment. Although many individuals with ASD display academic and creative talents, they can also experience challenges when it comes to navigating social environments and in settings that require self-advocacy and problem-solving skills. Therefore, to ensure that students with ASD thrive in a higher education setting, it is crucial that faculty, support services staff, and others such as public safety staff understand the nature of ASD and some of the associated challenges. This program will provide comprehensive training to selected NSU staff who may encounter a student with ASD, so they can more effectively provide support. Through psychoeducation and immersive learning experiences by incorporating Mursion simulation activities, participants will gain a strong foundation in the nature of autism spectrum disorders and how to support students with ASD in the higher education setting. Program participants will become familiar with strategies to support students in the classroom, during advising sessions or other campus activities.