- Emmitt Smith of Dallas Cowboy fame hasn't played football in 18 years, yet he still holds the NFL record in career rushing yards, leads in rushing touchdowns, has three Super Bowl rings, but he has been often underestimated, labeled too small and too slow by those supposedly in the know.

Where did it start for Emmitt Smith and what's he been doing since football?

I'm Becky Ferguson.

Join me Thursday, April 27th at 7:00 PM for One Question, here on Basin PBS.

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(gentle music) - My name is Sarah Jones.

I'm the executive director of Permian Basin Opera.

So we did start in 1984.

Originally we were Midland Opera Theater.

Right now we're in the middle of opera in the schools, and it's an educational program.

It's outreach to children and it's all completely underwritten , because we don't want any child left behind.

Our biggest programs, we have Opera Live, and then our educational programs.

And then in the spring we always have Gala at the Gardens.

I mentioned opera in the schools, we have that, but we also just created our Youth Mentor Program.

We really hope that you'll come be a part of the organization and you'll help us bring enrichment and bring joy to the lives of so many children and people within the community.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] The Western Legacy has been a passion of the Brumbaugh family for over 50 years.

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(birds chirping) (birds chirping) (gentle music) - [Announcer] You're watching Exploring Autism in West Texas, A Basin PBS Live Town Hall.

Have questions during the broadcast?

Submit them on the Basin PBS Facebook page.

(gentle music) - Good evening, I'm Becky Ferguson.

Thank you for joining us for this special Town Hall, Exploring Autism in West Texas.

We are coming to you live from the Basin PBS Anwar Family Studio.

Tonight's program was made possible with support from Donna and Bob Landreth.

During this National Autism Awareness Month, we will explore with local experts the condition known as autism, its symptoms, what's known of its causes, the services available to help children and adults with autism.

We'll hear from parents of children with autism and learn a bit about the history of the condition.

Tonight we have a live studio audience, including people with autism and their families.

Before introducing our panel, I'll remind viewers that you may submit questions for our panel by visiting our Facebook page, and we will do our best to get them answered for you.

So now let's introduce our panel.

Dan Corrales is the father of a child with autism.

He is an attorney and business owner who serves on the Midland City Council.

Kristal Kidd is the executive director of the Midland Children's Rehabilitation Center, a nonprofit which provides neurological, orthopedic, and developmental therapy to children with limitations.

Keri St. John is the director of Bynum School, a private school which provides year-round services to students with learning disabilities, including autism.

Terrye Childers is a speech and language pathologist and autism facilitator for the Midland Independent School District.

She has worked with children with autism for more than 30 years.

Traci Hopper is the program director for SHARE, an acronym for sharing hands a respite experience, a nonprofit supporting families of children with special needs.

Kayla Minchew is the executive director of Spectrum of Solutions, previously known as MARC, which provides a wide range of services for individuals with intellectual, developmental and cognitive disabilities.

Bob Landreth is a Midland oil and gas operator, grandfather of a child with autism and a national autism advocate.

I'm gonna start with you Terrye.

We'll get right to it.

We need some definitions before we start.

What is autism and what are the symptoms of autism?

- Okay, what is autism and the cause?

That's the big question that everyone wants answered.

- [Becky] We'll get to the cause of it in a little bit.

- Okay, well, I will say, autism is a neurological developmental disability caused by differences in the brain.

And there have been, there seems to be some genetic components, either on the maternal or the paternal sides, not all the time.

And some causes or some things are not known and some scientists believe there are many causes.

So I think that's a very, very good question.

It's hard because we get asked that a lot, what caused it?

There is no medical blood tests.

There is no certain things that you can do, but there is assessment, and especially if you know the symptoms.

And so I'd like to talk about some of the symptoms.

- [Becky] Yeah, please do.

- So I'm gonna say communication, of course, I'm a speech pathologist.

So to me, communication is a big part of autism.

If they don't have communication, and it doesn't have to be verbal communication, it can be non-verbal, it can be gestures, it can be signing, it can be using a sound generated, assisted technology device.

If there's no communication, that's really difficult for a child and his family and everyone around him.

So that to me is the most important thing.

If you notice that your child doesn't have the communication or any communication.

Also, different things like facial effect, and not making eye contact and those kinds of things, which to me, a lot of us do that.

That's not necessarily autism, but some of our children do that.

There is a, you know, DSM, the Diagnostics Statistics Manual that does give us the guidelines and give doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists the guidelines.

But I'll speak for MISD, we as a public school look for the eligibility.

So other, needs or other symptoms are social skills.

They're lacking in social skills, that your child when's little may not be able to smile and show facial affect and emotions.

They may not be able to wave, they may not be able to point, just little things when they're younger and as they grow older, that's when we start seeing more.

We see the difficulty sometimes with their language, with their cognitive development, with could be their sensory, you know, they're don't like the loud noises or they, you know, are very sensitive and they don't wanna be around people.

They may line up their toys, they may stack their toys.

They may not have autism if they line up and stack their toys.

But these are just some symptoms and some things that we do look at and give parents an idea of what to look for.

But I'm really excited that doctors are now doing a checklist.

You know, the pediatricians are asking parents specific questions related to certain milestones.

- [Becky] To autism.

- Yes.

- Keri, you have said to me, and a number of you have said this to me, that if you've met one child with autism, you have met one child with autism.

Tell me what you mean by that.

- Well, I think we can all agree, and just like Terrye said, that every child or adult with autism has different characteristics and different symptoms.

They may need different things.

So a big word in our field is individualization.

So we look at the child or the adult and see what they need in their environment to be the most successful.

So it's not a document that says, okay, this child has autism, so this is what they need.

This is how we're going to educate them.

It's, this is Traci and this is what she shows.

This is what she needs to communicate, to socialize, to learn reading and math skills, or to be able to manipulate their environment, like the mall or a restaurant.

- In a moment, we're gonna talk about all of the different services that are available to children and adults with autism.

But for many years the treatment was really bleak.

It consisted of institutionalization.

This was before doctors began to better understand the condition.

Let's look at a clip from a documentary called, "In A Different Key".

It is a film about autism that will air here on Basin PBS tomorrow evening at 7:00.

This clip that we're gonna see talks about the original diagnosis of autism in the 1940s.

- Well, I certainly think it's chilling that 50 years ago, people on the spectrum were locked away.

It's hard to imagine that someone like me, or even someone that was, maybe had a lot more struggles than I did, would be locked up and just put away.

(film rolling) - [Speaker In Black] But then something happened that would save Donald's life and alter history.

Mary and Beamon Triplett changed their minds.

- I think one day she said, you know what, I'm not doing this.

I am not doing this.

It doesn't, you know, doesn't feel right.

And so they went and got him, put him in the car, probably a Ford, granted they like Ford, but anyway, you know, and then headed back up here, and then we're going to turn the page, and start another chapter in the life of Don.

- And then she did everything she could to make him part of the world.

- [Speaker In Red] One day, granddad went to his office and dictated a letter, 33 pages long.

And it was a description of Don and what he, I guess, had observed, he and and Grandmama had observed.

- [Narrator] So this description that Donald's father put together is truly historic, because although it was written by an amateur, by a dad, it would go on to be quoted again and again, as one of the best and earliest clinical descriptions of what today we call autism.

(gentle music) - He seems almost to live within himself and seldom comes to anyone when called.

He seems to almost draw into his shell and oblivious to everything around him.

- [Narrator] Some of what Beamon wrote was focused on Donald's unusual strengths when he was a one year old.

- [Speaker In Red] He knew the pictures of the presidents and the alphabet backwards, as well as forwards, and has an unusual memory.

- [Narrator] But Donald's dad also shared things that worried his parents.

His language was very different, when he spoke, he reversed the way pronouns are supposed to be used.

He was obsessed with sameness.

And so if the furniture in a room was moved around, he would have wild tantrums.

And if he was handed any object, all he would do is sit there and spin it for hours and hours.

But he looked through people as if they weren't even there.

(gentle music) - He appears to be always thinking and thinking and to get his attention, almost requires one to break down a mental barrier between his inner consciousness and the outside world.

- [Narrator] Donald's father finished the letter in September of 1938, and then he mailed it to the world's leading child psychiatrist, who was at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

- In 1938, Donald T, five years old then, was brought to my clinic from Forest, Mississippi.

- [Narrator] Leo Kanner was fascinated by Donald's combination of behaviors and also puzzled by them.

And it took him some years trying to figure out what they signified.

- Dr. Kanner went on to clearly define autism for the first time in the 1940s.

A couple of members of our panel have family experience with autism.

Bob, your 21 year old grandson has autism.

Can you tell us a little bit about him, how you found out that he had autism and how he's doing now?

- Sure.

So our almost 22 year old grandson, was diagnosed with autism at the age of one and a half, although it was obvious before that time that there was something unusual going on.

From that time forward, he was in all kinds of different therapies.

At age two, he started with what's known as ABA therapy, Applied Behavioral Analysis, which has been quite successful with a pretty significant percentage of individuals, kids on the autism spectrum.

Unfortunately, it didn't work very well for him.

He has never fit the mold on a lot of things.

So our grandson is classically and profoundly autistic.

He is non-verbal, social interaction is virtually non-existent.

And he has the classic repetitive, restricted behaviors, you know, where at age two he would, you know, turn over a car and just sit there and spin the wheel for 30 minutes, just, you know, totally absorbed in that.

So he has classic autism.

He was in the public school setting for a number of years, some in mainstream classes, which didn't really work for him.

And then he would be pulled out for special classes.

And then at age 16, we just decided he needed, to try to get him a higher level of care.

And so he spent four years in a residential facility in Wichita, Kansas called Heartspring, which was a, they take the toughest of the toughest of these autism kids.

And the objective there was to try to get him, and this is common with a lot of these kids, you try to get them to concentrate.

It's kinda like the ABA philosophy.

Try to get them to concentrate on something for, in this case, 15 minute increments, so that they can then advance to the next stage.

But in three and a half years, he just was not able to do that.

So we made the decision a year ago to move him back.

We and some other families have been involved in getting a residential facility up and running north of Dallas.

So we brought him back to Dallas in what will probably be his permanent home a year ago.

And the transition, which is often difficult for those kids.

We talked about the sameness aspect, you know, that changes really throw them for a loop.

He actually did very well.

He has self injurious behavior.

When he gets upset, he'll bang his head with the hardest things he can find, either his wrists or he'll bang it on a table.

So he did real well with that after the transition, but unfortunately in the last couple of months, it's kind of resurfaced again.

So it's all an experience.

Dan, you know, Dan's been through this, so we just, you know, of course for our daughter, it was a full-time 24/7 for 16 years.

So it's not so much that our grandson's experience is the important thing.

But one thing I hope we might get into a little bit tonight is probably 20% of the individuals on the spectrum are profoundly affected.

And those kids, when they turn 22, the safety net is gone.

Public school is no longer an option.

And the bottom kind of falls out and then it's, okay, well is that child gonna move home with mom and dad, or is there gonna be a residential facility available?

And those residential facilities are few and far between.

So that's a big consideration.

I think kids on the high functioning side of the spectrum, that's what you see typically on television.

And the kids on the low side, do not really get that kind of attention.

And they're the ones that are gonna require lifetime care.

They will probably never hold a job.

And the financial responsibility is incredible.

- It's enormous.

Thank you, Bob.

Dan, you have a son, Elijah, who also has been diagnosed with autism.

Will you tell us a little bit about his diagnosis and how he's doing?

- He's doing phenomenally well, but it's been work, it has been, parents, Michelle and I, thinking how can we help him best?

And I think for most parents when, Michelle was nearly five months pregnant and she was involved in a motor vehicle accident, and Eli was in the NICU for several months, and I think there was always a question as to what impact did that have on him?

And he didn't speak for a few years.

When I married Michelle, he only was about three.

He could spell Nickelodeon, he could put the letters out, but he didn't talk.

And it was just kind of for us, what does that mean?

The cognitive ability is there, but he's not able to articulate himself.

And so Dr. McFarren diagnosed him and informed us that, you know, he had autism.

And then it's, what do you, how do you take care of your child?

What education do they need?

What are the resources?

Is it high functioning?

Is it low functioning?

At that age is really difficult to tell.

So he was enrolled in Ben Milam, where my wife went to school, and they had a special education class and, you know, it just wasn't the right fit for him.

We had taken him to MARC, is when we met Kayla, and Tawny would do his ABA therapy and Katherine McCoy would do his speech therapy, and that's when he started to verbalize things.

But it was our role as parents to not just give him what he wanted.

You know, you have to ask them to work, try to some way communicate, much like we were saying earlier.

And so he started verbalizing and saying, you know, simple things.

I think pizza was probably the first one, to be honest with you.

But it was really profound, the first time he said, I love you.

And not every parent has that opportunity, because it depends on how they're impacted by it.

But we noticed the quirks.

He's, I don't wanna say he's antisocial, he's aloof.

If you don't have anything he wants, there's really not a whole lot that he's gonna say to you.

But he plays with his cousins, he talks with them in their own way.

But it's been a difficult experience, because to take him into target, into the changing station, he would throw a tantrum.

He was petrified of the changing room, I don't know what it was.

And eventually over time he became accustomed to it.

But there are other things when it comes to, how does society react when you are with your child somewhere?

And that's been tough too.

Go to Dennis the Menace and he gets on the carousel, and you know, for him it's just going around and around and around.

And if anybody has taken a child in a carousel, you know there's gonna be some injuries.

And I remember one parent was really upset, because their child was injured, and Eli was the one that was pushing it and then getting on and using his legs for more momentum.

And they said, if your child doesn't know how to play with others, then he shouldn't be here.

How do you answer that?

How do you educate someone that simply doesn't have any knowledge of what special needs are?

And that is why I'm very grateful to Bob and Donna for helping with this documentary and Basin PBS for helping communicate, 1 in 36 are affected by autism.

And those experiences that each parent has is very different.

We went to MARC, Spectrum of Solutions for years, then got him enrolled in Bynum school, and that really changed our life.

But the commitment, we were paying maybe about 1,400 in tuition for Bynum and then about 2,000 a month for Spectrum Solutions, for the ABA therapy, for the speech therapy.

That's a lot for a family to take on.

And then we would have to go to Bynum, and then bring him to MARC, and then go back to Bynum.

So your schedule, you really can't work for someone else.

So it's difficult and finding the resources.

The one thing I love about the community here in West Texas is that we're not alone.

There are other people that are willing to help us.

And so I'm very grateful for it.

- Thank you Dan.

Again, what y'all have told me, if you have met one child with autism, you have met one child with autism.

We have two local mothers talking about their experiences.

First, the mother of a six year old and then the mother of a young woman in her twenties.

- My son, his name is Rocco and he is six years old, and he is on the autism spectrum and he is non-verbal.

So the first signs that we noticed were, you know, not responding to his name when he was little, you know, we would call out his name or grandparents, and he would not respond, kind of like he was in his own world.

So that was one thing.

But we kind of figured, you know, during the time I was like, oh, well we're bilingual, so maybe he's not quite catching on.

So we just kind of let it, kind of go.

But then we also started noticing him lining up his toys, like his cars and things like that and just playing, you know, on his own.

So those were just some of the kind of just hints that we were like, okay, you know, maybe he'll grow out of it.

It was actually I think after he turned three in March, 'cause it was his birthday, and we ended up having to drive to Lubbock to go get the diagnosis.

So it was just a couple weeks after his birthday.

When we got the diagnosis and you know, we were in Lubbock.

I mean pretty much, you know, they do the diagnosis and they just give you all this, just paperwork, of the diagnosis and what it says.

And then they kind of just give you a list of things, that, you know, are required, like speech therapy and occupational therapy, and possibly physical therapy and ABA therapy.

Just a list of so many therapies.

And that was pretty much it.

So, you know, and then you're like, bye, have a nice day, and you're just kind of sent back home.

So that was the longest, almost two hour drive of our lives.

And thankfully, you know, once we got Rocco into Midland Children's Rehabilitation Center, they offer these wonderful classes for parents absolutely free.

And one is completely on just autism, you know, just those introductions to autism.

And another one's about sensory.

Bynum came along, we were able to enroll, and thankfully we were lucky enough to get a scholarship, to where we could afford, you know, to send our son to school there.

So he was able to do preschool, and he's learning and growing, you know, every time, you know, at his own pace, you know, there is no curriculum that you have to follow.

Like for example, you know, at public schools it's kind of like each individual child, 'cuz each child is different, you know, and they learn in a different way.

They just think differently.

That is it.

You know, they wanna run, they wanna play, they wanna make friends, they wanna, you know, do all these things, you know, just like any other child here, it's just in a different way.

- When my daughter was getting to be about walking age, I noticed some changes as her development.

As she started to get a little bit older, she wasn't making as much eye contact.

I would wanna play with her and she really wouldn't wanna play with me.

Her speech had some delay in it, but, of course at this time, it wasn't as common a diagnosis.

So I was really perplexed, afraid.

Doctor assured me that I was probably overreacting.

It wasn't until I saw an article in a Time Magazine that everything started to click.

I can think back and I get chills, because it was like the author of that article was talking about my child.

There's been so much more in the way of awareness and acceptance and understanding that autism isn't, there's so many beautiful things for all of the difficulties that are experienced.

And I think the children that are growing up that were diagnosed and that are getting diagnosed now, they're the best advocates for themselves.

I've really loved watching that.

She teaches me all the time about the importance of, how does she put it?

She's like, we don't wanna be accepted.

We wanna be welcomed and embraced and, just like anyone else does.

If there's a subject matter that my daughter's interested in, she is very passionate about it and you will know everything about it.

And that is a part of, I don't know if I wanna say symptom, but it's certainly a trait and it's, I mean, you can learn so much.

That's the best part.

I think it would be great to find something that helps our adult children really launch, in the way that they need to.

Try to be a little more sensitive when a child is having a fit at the grocery store or in the church pews, and you see a parent desperately trying to gain control.

Just you really never know what that person is going through and what the child is going through.

- We are fortunate to have on our panel some representatives of organizations which provide services to children and young adults with autism.

So Kristal, I'm gonna start with you.

You have mentioned that each nonprofit in this field offers something a little bit different.

Could you tell us what the Midland Children's Rehabilitation Center has to offer?

- Sure, in addition to individual therapies that sometimes autism brings, like the physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, we also offer some education classes that we really have found to be so supportive for the families that maybe have just gotten a diagnosis of autism or even those that autism is suspected.

And these education classes meet as a group with other families who could be somewhere on the spectrum.

Like we've talked about different children, that none of them have sounded the same, but you're gonna be in a class where you're being introduced to autism, maybe for the first time, and you're learning about some different sensory needs, some different communication needs, possibly some different gross motor needs, different behaviors that you might see.

And we talk about education, we talk about employment, like what the future could look like, all in a group.

And it's led by two occupational therapists who are very passionate about teaching parents to hopefully understand their child.

I think that we've talked about how this is a hard thing to understand, but you know, we help them through that.

There's another class called, Hannon, that's led by some speech therapists.

It's also for the parents and they've been certified in Hannon instruction, where the focus is more just on those early communication needs, and the goal is to help the families help their children communicate.

We talked about sometimes it's verbal, sometimes it's pointing, sometimes it could be some sort of communication device, but we help families kind of, identify the best way for their child.

I think that with this diagnosis, meeting the children where they are and having an understanding of what things could help is kind of the first place that is helpful.

I mean, just like the two parents that spoke earlier, you know, they love their children, just like all other parents do, and they want what's best for them.

And the connection of meeting with others can be so helpful.

I think that's kind of how this forum, you know, was started, is putting people together, and we've just found that our groups and our classes, whenever they join people that are kind of going through the same walks of life, not only do they get the education and the support and hopefully increased understanding for their children, but they get to bond with each other.

And there's a lot of power in that.

- I agree.

Keri, you're head of the Bynum school.

Tell us about the services offered at Bynum.

- Bynum schools serve students ages three all the way through vocational.

And our oldest student is 50.

She has been with us since she was 13.

We have small class sizes.

We don't put more than 8 to 10 students in every classroom.

And there's a teacher and at least one or two assistants in every classroom.

We have a great community based program, so we want our students, whatever they're learning in the classroom, we want them to be able to transfer that learning out into the community.

So we go to restaurants, museums, the movies, we deliver Meals on Wheels, we work out in the community through our vocational and secondary program.

We teach our students, because we are a recipient of what the community does for us, we like to teach our students to help.

So like with Helping Hands and Meals on Wheels and going out into the community.

We also offer, as part of our program, therapies, speech and occupational and neuro-music therapy, is what we have right now.

And we are able to incorporate that through the classroom learning, as well as social learning and just our families are real close in with our staff.

And so I think that helps, like Kristal was saying, the families need help and we want to be there, not just the eight hours a day during the school program, but also on the weekends and in the evenings.

And then our vocational program is very important.

We are trying to help our students understand that they are quality citizens in the community.

And we do job training programs and we have job training programs in the community, as well as on campus.

And so we just want to educate the whole child and then also include the family and the importance of all of that.

- I love that.

Thank you.

Terrye, you're with MISD, and you all serve, I think some 400 students.

- [Terrye] We also serve from age three.

- Yeah, so talk about it.

Yeah - Until 21 or 22, whenever their birthday falls.

And we offer, of course services, speech therapy, and occupational therapy and physical therapy.

But I'm so pleased to, you know, your child can start at three and if they have the needs and they really need a smaller class size environment, we do have, and thank you for helping me remember this name, PPCD, that is now called Early Life Skills.

So they can start with the needs, if they have the needs, to get services when they turn three.

And then we have a program called LEAP and it also continues and we have a continuum of services that go with the child until they, well we have an 18 plus program.

So until they really are 21.

I am so thankful that we've opened, we've been able to open two autism support environments in two of our elementaries.

And we have a class that is not a self-contained class, but we have trained teachers and paras that are there for our students with autism that have been identified that are there.

And we specifically may place some of them there, if the needs are there, and they support them as they go out to their classes.

They support them with behaviors and social skills.

So we have two different schools that we, elementaries Parker and Bush, that we have our autism support.

And then we also have added a junior high, which is San Jacinto Junior High.

And we have older students, because we know we need to include them and help them have that support as they get older, because the challenges with, as Bob said, the higher functioning autism, they get greater and greater as they grow, as they get older, and the social gets harder and harder.

So I feel like MISD, you know, really tries to look at the individual child, like you said, and tries to fit the child and fit their needs, their individual needs.

That's why we call it an Individual Education Plan, but we want to help them individually.

And I'll say it again, they're all completely different.

- [Becky] Different.

- So.

- Traci, could you talk about how SHARE serves people with autism and their families?

- Sure, SHARE started back in 2005, and it was a church mission to start with.

and it was to provide respite for parents, just to give the parents a night, for some breaks as they were saying, you know, parenting is hard and it's a 24 hour a day job.

And so SHARE was there to give those parents that rest, or caregivers that rest on a Friday night.

And so SHARE works with the whole family.

That's what's different about us, than the other on the panel, is we work with the whole family.

We wanna make sure the family stays as strong as they possibly can.

And so we help also the siblings to understand about their brother or sister with autism and how their family is different, but not unique.

I mean, they're still just as special as anybody else.

We also encourage parents not to walk this journey alone.

We wanna be there with them.

We want to connect them with other parents, so they see that their families aren't as different as they think they are.

And so we just wanna empower them.

And we also want to educate.

We want to educate the parents.

We want to educate the community.

As somebody said earlier, you know, they don't go out into the community a lot.

They stay home because of behaviors.

We don't want that.

We want 'em out in the community.

We want our community to know that we're here and we're not gonna stay home, we're not gonna hide away.

We need your help, we need your understanding for our kids.

- Kayla, you are executive director of Spectrum of Solutions, used to be MARC.

You all offer a variety of therapies.

Could you talk a little bit about the therapies you offer?

- Very wide variety.

So we have actually several different programs.

We have our children's therapy center, where we provide services age 2 to 18.

Most of the children that we see there are diagnosed with autism, but we do see some others, with some other developmental disabilities there as well.

We do provide the ABA therapy there, the Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy there.

Speech therapy, occupational therapy, music therapy.

And we have a psychologist on staff who helps us with diagnostics and counseling and such.

So that is our children's therapy program.

But we also have residential services as well.

So we service adults 18 and older.

I think we have some in our eighties, and so we have 15 group homes in the community where we, for those that need to transition to a place outside of the home, they can come and live with us.

- We're gonna shift gears right now and talk a little bit about what is known about the causes of autism.

There's been a huge evolution of thought on this topic.

In the 1950s, mothers got the blame.

- [Narrator] As beautifully as things turned out for Donald.

It wasn't that way for most people with autism in those early decades when all the messages about autism, were totally bleak and dark.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Children in a shell, in a glass ball, cut off from the world around them.

- [Narrator] It's really heartbreaking to think about how children with autism were treated back then.

Researchers treated kids like lab animals.

They were testing these crazy theories in not very ethical ways.

They ran LSD experiments on them.

They wrapped them in cold wet sheets and they tested pain as a way to focus attention.

- Then they came up with this really crazy idea, the refrigerator mother theory.

- [Rita] I was made to believe that I was one of those mothers.

That I had caused my child's autism.

- [Interviewer] And did you believe that it was your fault?

- Oh yeah, I did.

Mhmm.

Sure.

- [Interviewer] Why?

- [Rita] When I was in college, I had read Bruno Bettelheim's book.

He was the authority at the time.

- [Announcer] The Dick Cavett Show.

- My next guest runs a center or school for a severely disturbed children at the University Chicago.

And with a degree of success that his colleagues have considered miraculous, his work with, particularly with autistic children.

- Bruno Bettelheim's theory is that mothers who were cold and unfeeling were therefore, unable to bond with their child.

- For every child, in order to survive, one must have the feeling that somebody, you are terribly important to somebody.

- [Dick] And somebody cares for them.

- That somebody really cares for you.

- This blaming of the mother's thing for autism, was not some fringe idea, some blip that came and went.

It was dominant for a long time in psychiatry and it had a huge, huge and damaging impact.

- [Narrator] Mother is uncertain of herself and unduly anxious to please.

In spite of her gentleness, mother's determination to make normal contact with Margaret is apt to drive her further and further into her autism.

- Well I think we know now, that mothers are not the cause of autism.

Bob, you have been really involved in this cause for a long time and have kept up to date on the research and have helped fund some of the research.

Could you talk a little bit about what is known about the causes?

What happens in the brain of someone who has autism?

- Well, this gets to be the tough part, I guess.

I think it's widely accepted that autism is probably caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

Genetics, purely genetic reasons only explain a very small percentage of autism.

Fragile X syndrome, which is considered on the spectrum, is a definite genetic inherited trait.

But the fact that autism is, continues to increase exponentially, when our genes basically don't change fundamentally very fast at all, has to lead us to think that there are environmental causes that are contributing significantly to autism, affecting our immune system, for example.

So there are lots of possibilities that researchers study in this regard.

A maternal infection at the wrong trimester, especially if it's a serious infection, could increase the chances of having a baby with autism.

Certainly we know our environment, you know, chemicals in the environment that seem to be accumulating could be a factor.

Stress, stress, you know, in the western culture, just seems to be epidemic now.

And there is evidence, they do mouse models and stress maternal pregnant mice, and sometimes they'll give it a double hit, like an environmental exposure, like diesel exhaust or something in the environment.

And those mothers will produce mice that have autistic characteristics.

And there are a lot of studies that are being done in that regard.

As far as you know, the brain, as Terrye said, autism at its core is a brain disorder.

There is a disordering of certain processes in the brain that result in the behaviors that we see.

You asked me to pursue this a little bit so I guess I will.

- [Becky] Yes, I want you to, please.

- So in the studies, you know, the brain is in infinitely complex.

You have multiple brain lobes that communicate with one another.

They each have their own function, but they also communicate, you know, your brain has tens of millions of neurons that connect to one another and they connect to other cells in order to perform certain functions, whether it's speech or muscle activity, or all the things we do.

And at every one of those connections, this is something that science came up with probably 40 years ago.

But at every one of those connections there is what's called a synapse.

When you have two neurons that connect, there's a synapse there.

And in that synapse there's an amazing number of different things that are going on at any given point in time.

There are, you know, electrons that are trying to make it across this space because you're telling, you know, your brain, hey, I want to raise my hand and scratch my head.

Well, that requires, you know, a certain function at that synapse.

And they discovered, you know, probably 40 years ago, that serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter and is needed in that synapse in order for certain functions to take place.

In the autism population, a significant percentage of the autism population, that serotonin was not staying in the synapse long enough.

And so they, the drug Prozac and some of your antidepressants, which are called SSRIs, which allow serotonin, you know, we're talking about like a second, you know, a second of time.

But that serotonin has to stay in that space for that one second of time.

And if it doesn't, then you have the symptoms that we see in autism.

So a pretty significant percentage of children on the spectrum take an antidepressant for that reason and it's very helpful.

May not make it perfect, but it certainly does help.

But they came up with that 40 years ago, amazingly.

And in the last 40 years with all the research, unfortunately there's been very little in the way of breakthroughs, that are clinically relevant that you can actually, you know, go to the, with doctors and say, hey, here's something you can really use.

And again, this just has to do with the incredible complexity of the brain, because you can identify a process that's at fault in the brain of somebody with autism perhaps, but to come up with a drug that addresses that, every good drug has three or four side effects.

And so you might be able to solve that issue, but you're not going, you may create three or four other issues that you really don't want to be interfering with.

So it's a pretty complex process.

I mean there are phenomenal researchers studying these things all over the country, but the research, honestly, has been quite slow.

But there is more emphasis now on the immune system and thinking that immune dysfunction, autoimmunity, may confer a higher risk for autism.

But just some of the insults that happen in our environment may be producing an inflammatory condition in the brain that leads to autism.

Just lastly, I do believe, and I think it's accepted, you know, probably 90% of autism, the things that cause autism are probably present at birth.

There is onset autism, but I think it's a fairly small percentage.

So unfortunately, I mean I think it behooves, we need a lot more study on the environmental factors, because of this continuing exponential increase in autism.

- Thank you Bob.

Terrye, Bob has referred to an increase in the number of people diagnosed with autism.

Are there more girls or boys diagnosed with autism?

- There's more boys, far more boys than there are girls, yes.

And girls present differently as boys.

- We did have a Facebook question asking, how girls present differently and why it's more difficult to diagnose girls.

- It is, they don't show their social deficits as much as boys do.

Boys really just seem to show more severe or more prominent deficits.

But girls will kind of make it through, which you would think that there'd be more drama with girls and that we would pick them out.

But they seem to be able to socialize and get through.

But a lot of our girls, and some of them have been diagnosed early, but a lot of them have been diagnosed later in life, because they are, I think, harder to diagnose because they hide a lot of their symptoms and they keep a lot of them inside, and when they get older it starts to show more.

And so we start thinking, oh, and they do need those supports.

But it is definitely harder.

- [Becky] Harder to diagnose.

- Yes.

- We have another Facebook question.

Is premature birth linked to autism?

I don't know if Bob, do you wanna answer that one?

- There is a, increased risk for autism with premature birth.

I don't wanna, it shouldn't be overemphasized, but I mean, it is a potential risk factor.

- [Becky] Risk factor.

- Yes.

- Kayla, what should a parent do if they observe symptoms of autism in their children?

Who should they call?

What should they do?

- I think it's important to definitely reach out to your child's pediatrician first.

I mean they have the screening tools that you're gonna need to help you identify if you should go on for further testing.

So I definitely refer the parent back to their pediatrician.

- Pediatrician.

Kristal, what is missing when it comes to helping people with autism?

What's missing in Midland?

And I'd like everybody to weigh in on this if you have ideas, but let me start with you.

- I think we have a lot of resources.

So I think maybe what's missing is that we just have limited resources for all of the people that we have.

I think that we have great resources.

Perhaps we could be missing, like community knowing about it, if they haven't had like, a firsthand experience with someone.

But I think we have a lot of the parts that we need.

We just don't have enough services for the people that are in Midland.

- I think the complexity is, Bob talked about it, autism is so complex and there's so, from one end to the other, there's so many things and we try to hit the, you know, get the social and we try to get the speech therapy and get the therapies in there and do parent education.

We have so many we're so thankful for in West Texas and here in Midland, all of you.

But I think it's so complex, and it can change with them.

With their health, it can change.

So they can have some behaviors that will go away, but they'll come back.

- [Keri] Go ahead.

- [Becky] Keri, you acted like you had something that you wanted to add about what we may need in this community.

- Right, I know with our organizations, all of us have waiting lists.

So we are serving a community, but we can't serve everyone that is making a choice to choose one of these organizations.

And I also believe, and we've talked about this before, that our medical community is lacking in services.

We don't have a pediatric neurologist.

Most of our families have to travel to Lubbock, Fort Worth.

- [Becky] For a diagnosis?

- For a diagnosis, for doctor visits, for medication.

- [Panelist] It's a lot.

- Upkeep.

Also, they have to leave town to go do that, and one of the things that I think frustrates all of us is that the Permian Basin is big enough to have those services available in our medical community.

And I know it's hard on parents when you don't have those resources available for you.

- And I think people are working on that.

I mean like Texas Tech has a great residency program and I think that we know we're underserved in some of these things.

It just, you can't turn it, you know, it doesn't happen overnight, and so.

- Dan, you acted like you wanted to say something.

- When we look at Texas Tech and their physician's assistant program, what I'd really like to focus on, and this is me personally, but working with others, is what university can we get to want to put something like that for those needs medically?

Whether it's someone who's gonna get education to be a speech therapist or an ABA therapist and the medical community.

So we're talking about a mental health facility that we're gonna build here, but I think we need something that will be partnered with the university to provide things in that field.

That's what we're really missing.

But just to add on to that, I think one of the things that we need, how do we communicate to the public?

And I think for me as an elected official, that's always on my mind, because there's a big population that doesn't speak English.

There are over 50 languages spoken at MISD.

So if 1 in 36 is affected by autism, by putting it out there in English, is that sufficient?

And then the other thing is educating the parents.

You know, when I look at what we do at Bynum, I'm the first parent to serve as a president of Bynum school.

So it gives me a very different insight when we look at the board and admin staff decisions, what we're gonna do to help parents.

And I think about, how does that impact us as a parent?

What are the things that we really need, the needs that have to be satisfied, and how we communicate that?

Because people will come up to me and they say, your son's at Bynum, can I apply?

And we're maxed.

We need to build more and we're looking to expand.

But that's usually one of the first things that they ask is, can I enroll my son there or my daughter?

And then the next question is, most people don't think they can afford it, even if they are aware.

And so I'm so grateful to MARC and Spectrum and Bynum for giving our son a scholarship when we needed it.

You know, we're fortunate now that we're able to pay into that and pay our own tuition and contribute to others.

But I think that's the other fear is, even if I know about it, I can't afford it.

- So more communication and more financial support.

- [Dan] Yeah.

- Keri, you have mentioned that you think the way that we talk about autism is important and you call it first person language.

Can you talk about that and what that means?

- Sure, and it's with all diagnosis, not just autism, but we call it people first language, where we respect the individual first.

I don't want to be vision impaired Keri.

I want to be Keri that wears glasses, you know, if that's how it has to be.

So we wanna talk about our people, 'cuz they are our people, with respect and dignity.

So we talk about people first language as a child with autism, not an autistic child, or a child with down syndrome, not a down syndrome child.

So it's real simple.

It's hard to make it a habit, but we really work hard at that.

I know in our community, just with our organizations here, because we feel like it's important.

It is a symbol of dignity and respect for our people.

- Kayla, can you talk about the ABA approach to behavioral modification?

Bob mentioned it a few minutes ago.

- [Kayla] Sure.

- Applied Behavioral Analysis.

What does that mean and what does that look like?

- So essentially we're looking at the why of the behavior.

- [Becky] Why of the behavior.

- The why of the behavior, what is the function of the behavior.

Once we figure that out, then we use different strategies and approaches to help either eliminate or elicit a response that that is more desirable.

And a lot of times that's just through reinforcement.

So we find out what they want.

I know you're talking about Elijah not wanting to do his homework, but he'll ask for ice cream.

So it's all about motivation.

- Traci, could you talk to us a little bit more about your parent support groups and why you think those are important?

- As Dan was saying earlier, I think it's very important for families to connect, to find out what resources are around, to find out about these wonderful agencies, what their options are.

It's also to build them up.

As I said earlier, our job sometimes as parents is very, very hard raising a child with special needs, and we just, sometimes we need a kick in our pants, and say, you know what?

We need to advocate for our son a little bit farther, or our daughter.

And 'cuz it can get tiring and sometimes, you know, those parents cheer each other on and say, I've been through this, let me tell you what I've done.

And you know, sometimes we're just stuck in that moment that we don't see outside that box.

And sometimes another parent says, this is what I've tried, try this.

And making those connections are for life, not just for a temporary time.

And so our parent support group, that's what we do is they come together and they share their stories, they share their resources, and just their ideas.

And as I said earlier, you know, we don't want any of our families to walk this journey by themselves.

- Bob, you have mentioned that children with autism who have skills are the ones that most of us see, as opposed to children like your grandson.

Can you talk a little bit more about how important it is for people to think about those children that are on the lower end of the spectrum?

And what's gonna happen to them in the long term?

- Yes.

So, those kids, I think I mentioned before, you know, when they reach age 22 and there is no safety net, they're either gonna move back home or they're gonna need a residential facility.

The state, various states, I'm sure the state of Texas has, don't they have a home here and maybe more than one?

15, well, you folks, but the state, at the state level.

- Yeah, the state has, yes.

- They have, but again, these are few and far between.

There are nowhere near enough residential facilities to care for these folks that are more severely impacted.

There's a lot of private philanthropy and a lot of people are working on this to try to make this happen.

But something like 50,000 kids, who turn 22 every year and age outta the public, that's how many we're talking about.

Not all of those, of course, are severely impacted.

But this residential facility, and I don't know if you plan to get into that aspect, Becky, but the need for residential space.

- [Becky] It's a dire need.

- And yes, and the cost of that is a huge problem that needs to be addressed more aggressively.

- It needs to be addressed at the state level, at the federal level, at the local level?

Talk a little bit more about that.

- Well, you know, everybody, you know, we always want the government to do this and that, you know, but the government only has so much money, right?

- [Becky] Okay.

- I talked to, an elected representative about this, you know, like, we need more money for autism research.

I think the CDC puts like $200 million a year into autism research.

They put 3.2 billion or more into cancer research.

But this gentleman said to me, he said, Bob, at the end of the day, you know, there's only so much money, and I get that.

So I think we are, you know, I think private philanthropy is gonna have to shoulder a huge responsibility to pull this off.

- [Dan] Just to add to that.

- [Becky] Quickly, Dan.

- Yes, so Bynum School has to fundraise 66% of our operating budget, tuition only costs 33%.

So if that gives any idea of the philanthropy that's needed.

- [Becky] It's needed.

- In West Texas to keep the school going.

- You all are amazing.

I thank you so much.

It is time for us to wrap things up this evening.

We have mentioned several times tonight, a film on autism called, "In A Different Key", an extraordinary award-winning movie about autism.

It will air here on Basin PBS tomorrow night at 7:00 PM.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.

It is educational, inspirational, and entertaining.

Many thanks to the members of tonight's panel, Bob Landreth, Kayla Minchew, Traci Hopper, Terrye Childers, Keri St. John, Kristal Kidd, and Dan Corrales.

And many thanks to our viewers for joining us tonight.

We especially appreciate our members.

We would like for all of you viewers to be our members, to help us bring the Permian Basin more local programming, like tonight's town hall.

So to join, please go to basinpbs.org and join.

I'm Becky Ferguson.

Good night.

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