04 Fall2.indd - CSUSB Magazine - California State University, San ...

Palm Desert Campus C O L L E G E N E W S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fred Jandt, interim deanFAMILIES TACKLINGTHE AUTISM PUZZLEWith the reported incidenceof autism increasing dramatically— sometimes as much as 15percent in a year — experts arestill uncertain if better reportingis bringing more cases to lightor unknown factors are actuallycausing more autism.“It’s clearly a bio-physicaldisorder,” said Dwight Sweeney,director of Cal State SanBernardino’s University Centerfor Developmental Disabilities(UCDD), “and it boils downto two questions: Why are certaingenes predisposed to autism?And what is triggering thedisorder in those predisposedgenes?”The directorof Cal State SanBernardino’s UCDD since1997 and a professor ofeducational psychologyand counseling at theuniversity, Sweeney opened anew comprehensive program foryoung people with autism andtheir families in the CoachellaValley earlier this year. The programserves local families copingwith autism and other pervasivedevelopmental disabilities. It’sbeen operating at the CSUSBcampus for 13 years.“Autism isn’t an automatic‘life sentence,’ as long as parentscan find support and use it,”said Sweeney, who is a nationallyknown expert on autismresearch, with experience in thefield in Colorado, Michiganand Pennsylvania. He is also apast president of the CaliforniaCouncil for Children withBehavioral Disorders.“The problem with autism isthat it’s not just one thing. It’sa ‘spectrum disorder’ affectingcommunication and social relationships.”Most parents of children withautism discover symptoms ofwithdrawal occurring between theages of 3 and 5. In many cases, asudden onset seems to be relatedto an experience like the flu, avirus, a strong reaction to fever oreven a toxic reaction to commonchildhood vaccines. However, inother cases symptoms developgradually, or seem to be apparentfrom birth or shortly after.“Nobody knows what causesit,” Sweeney said. “Nobody hasa cure. At this point there’s nogenetic test to predict the presenceof autism.” He said researchis continuing and scientistshope to make progress in bothtreatment and diagnosis in comingyears.The support services forfamilies at the UCDD includeinstruction to children to increasesocialization, communication andappropriate behaviors, activitiesfor parents and siblings, instructionin parenting techniques andexercises to enhance cooperationof schools and agencies that servechildren enrolled in the program.The UCDD is one of the largestsuch programs in the nation,serving more than 90 familieseach week. Treatment usuallyconsists of a once-a-week session,lasting two and one-half hours.(More treatments per week areavailable in some instances.)Parents participate in a separateweekly information and supportgroup. Sweeney said the typicalcourse is two years.During construction of thepermanent Palm Desert Campuson Cook Street, UCDD is temporarilyhoused at the WorkforceDevelopment Center in Indio.The planned third building at thecampus will be for health sciencesprograms, including UCDD. Thefund-raising campaign for thatbuilding is already underway.Recently, a gift of $5,000 to thePDC from the Agua CalienteBand of Cahuilla Indians wenttoward the construction of thehealth sciences building.The university has set a goalof raising $10 million in private,foundation and/or local governmentfunds to erect the healthsciences building, which willhouse the nursing educationprogram and other allied healthsciences.DESERT HISTORY — Cabazon tribal elder Joe Benitez talks about the exhibit of Native American artwork ondisplay in the Mary Stuart Rogers Gateway Building at the Palm Desert Campus. The exhibit is on indefiniteloan from the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum and the Cabazon Cultural Museum.SAVING TIMEThey included student papers predicting howthe world would look in 2054, a laptop computer,issues of The Desert Sun newspaper, issues of theFuturist and Time and pictures of local students. Forthis dedication of a time capsule, Palm Desert MayorBob Spiegel led Cal State San Bernardino, Collegeof the Desert, area high school and World AffairsCouncil of the Desert representatives and guestsas they collected at Cook Street and Frank SinatraDrive to bury the past before it ever was.When guests arrived they signed a document thatwas placed with the other memorabilia in the capsule,marked with a bronze plaque. Michelle Pollard,a student at the Palm Desert Campus, later read aportion of the predictions she made in her paper.Fifty years from now, on Oct. 10, this snapshot intime will be broken open.12CSUSBFall/Winter 2004