I've decided...

Well, I haven't heard from UO Law yet about my application, but I've decided to attend Willamette. 

I've spent some time playing on Excel (doesn't everyone plan their life in Excel?), and Willamette just makes sense. An American Bar Association rule limits work for full time law students to 20 hours or less per week. Though I am leaving my UO job on June 15, I will continue to work with the Alaska Alternate Assessment for kids with severe cognitive delays. And even though the Alaska work is "part time," it is often more than 20 hours per week. So I need to attend a part time Law program. And the UO does not offer a part time Law program.

And realistically, a part time program makes sense for me. I am 52. I haven't sat in classes for 7 years. And I knocked my brains loose in March 2010, leaving some broken wiring that I am still trying to reroute. So I'll take four years to finish rather than three. I'm not in any rush.

The Generosity of Strangers.

Sidney and I had the best day of our brief Autism Research Careers today.

We met with Dr. Eric Fombonne, the Director of Autism Research at Oregon Health Sciences University. It was a "cold call" made possible with the kind electronic introduction of Dr. David Amaral of the MIND Institute at UC Davis. 

Our Pie-In-The-Sky hoped-for outcome of the meeting was that Dr. Fombonne would help us identify research subjects for our pilot research project. 

Our Second-Best hope was that he would be willing to write a letter of support for our project, so we could seek involvement with other agencies, trading on the value of his name and reputation.

At a minimum, we hoped he would say nice things about the COAST.

We were rewarded with the Pie-In-The-Sky! with fresh whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles

Dr. Fombonne has agreed to help us find the research participants (and in fact believes he can weave our research into ongoing grants), has agreed to write a letter of support for our Human Subjects Research approval application to the UO AND has agreed to shepherd the project through the OHSU Human Subjects Research approval process. He suggested a much more powerful research design, suggested improvements and additional data to collect, and then invited us to lunch with his colleague, Dr. Arlene Hagen. Dr. Hagen is a child psychologist, in charge of the Child Development & Rehabilitation Center at OHSU. She also happens to be married to Dr. Fombonne.

During lunch, the two seemed to become more and more excited and eager to help us. By the end of lunch, they had agreed to assist in recruiting parents for our research and in helping us gain the appropriate approvals. After lunch, Dr. F, Sidney, and I returned to his office, and he invited in his assistant Marie. Marie was given a long list of tasks, and encouraged to work with us in completing them.

SO, we have a little more work to do this weekend, and we will submit a slew of documents to Marie for dissemination to key personnel at OHSU. A very large magic door has been opened.

Dr. Fombonne's closing comment was something like: "It isn't fair that you would be prevented from conducting interesting research simply because you are not well known. I see it as my role to assist you and make it possible to do the research. Then the data will speak for themselves."

Yes. A simple, but incredibly generous, attitude.

It takes a lifetime...

... to be an overnight success.

One of Barry Sherman's girlfriends once said something like that, to explain Barry's career in the Entertainment Field. Something about how he was working steadily for a dozen years and was nowhere yet. 

That has been the story of my Autism career. I've been a special educator for 26 years, deeply involved in understanding the impacts of autism on child and family. And then Sidney and I have spent three and a half years developing the C.O.A.S.T.

You may recall that we met with Dr. David Amaral of the UCDavis MIND Institute in February, and had an amazingly wonderful meeting. Dr. Amaral suggested we contact Dr. Eric Fombonne, the new director of autism research at Oregon Health Sciences University. 

I did. 

No response. 

After a month, I emailed again. 

And then I asked Dr. Amaral if he wouldn't mind making an electronic introduction between Sidney and me with Dr. Fombonne. 

Bless his generous heart and spirit, Dr. Amaral did just that. Less than 30 minutes after his email to Dr. Fombonne, Dr. Fombonne has offered to meet with us next week. 

Sidney will be in town. Friday, we will meet with Dr. Eric Fombonne, Director of Autism Research at Oregon Health Sciences University. 

This is a Very Big Deal.

Any year now, Sidney and I will be an overnight success...