Spectrum House expo assists those with disabilities

Spectrum House Autism Center in Crestview held their first in a series of Florida Assistive Technology Expos last week at their office on South Ferdon Boulevard.

Their goal was to provide clients with a disability resource outlet for their individual needs.

Spectrum House is named for the autism disorders that are on an interconnected spectrum, with levels of neurological disabilities.

"Spectrum House is here for therapy and support of children and young adults with developmental disabilities," said Jodi Schmidt, center manager in Crestview. 

The main exhibitor for the expo, the Florida Alliance for Assisted Services and Technology (FAAST), provides Floridians with disabilities assistive technology items on loan, or for purchase. Items include speech communication devices, computer access tools and software, and aids for daily living, such as motorized wheelchairs.

"We offer over 700 items in our toy demonstration center," said Laura Jo Hust, assistant FAAST program coordinator. "We can even loan items for one day or twenty years."

"Technology changes every day — software and hardware — and one of our many jobs is to help parents of children with disabilities to sift through the items," Hust said. "We can suggest an item and its educational qualities after we learn about that child."

Hust's daughter, a senior at Crestview High School, was helping demonstrate toys at the expo.

"Every employee in FAAST has a disability, is the child of a parent with a disability, or has a child with a disability so we all understand what people are facing everyday," Hust said.

Another participant in the expo was the Florida Telecommunications Relay, which offers a variety of amplified telephones to meet the needs of persons with hearing loss.

Laura O'Brien is a Florida certified special education instructor. She is also the mother of nine children, three of whom have varying degrees of autistic spectrum disorder.

O'Brien, who learned first-hand the difficulty of finding autism resources in the Florida Panhandle, opened Spectrum House locations in Crestview, Milton and Navarre.

She is a board certified behavior analyst who believes that the best long-term outcomes for children with autism are achieved when the  "whole child" is treated.

"I know what a parent is going through when they hear a doctor's diagnosis that their child will be living with autism," O'Brien said. "Right now I have one son who puts everything in his mouth to lick it -— tires, rugs, walls, food. This is the behavior that we are working with right now. It will change. That is the puzzle of working with autism."

O'Brien's son, William, who is autistic, underwent years of unsuccessful speech therapy. He learned to speak at age 8 with the Applied Behavior Analysis that O'Brien so strongly believes in. His inability to communicate had led to years of aggressive behavior from his frustration of not being understood.

O'Brien feels empathy for her clients, as does Crestview Center Manager Jodi Schmidt, whose daughter Toria, 3, is a blur of blonde curls as she moves silently from one toy to another in the room. She gravitates to pink icing cupcakes that are being served.

"Today, she has been standing on a green leather turtle toy eating pink cupcakes most of the day," Schmidt said. "A few months ago we moved to Crestview as a part of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment that brought the 7th Special Forces (Airborne) to the area and we had no idea where the nearest resources were for Toria."

In making calls to help with her daughter's therapy, Schmidt found O'Brien, who offered her the position of center manager at Spectrum's Crestview location.

"Toria was non-communicative when we moved here and spent much of her days curled up in my lap," Schmidt said. "Since she began therapy here, she communicates with her father and I; she plays; she is a different child. Victoria hugged her dad for the first time recently. I can't tell you what that feels like to see it."

Schmidt said that autism is an ever-changing behavior with new experiences everyday.

"Our brains are always moving with electricity and I explained Toria's autism to a group of 6-year-olds playing in our home like this," Schmidt continues. "Your brain is a Ferrari and it is running around very fast as a precision sports car does. But Toria's car is an older model, and it doesn't stay on the roadway, and sometimes it just breaks down on the side of the road."