The Munroe-Meyer Guild has announced its 2016 grants to the Munroe-Meyer Institute. The guild grant total of $80,397 is the largest amount in its 48-year history.
Recipients include:
- MMI Speech Language Pathology Department, for “Expanding Functional Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC).” This proposal will increase opportunities for children who use AAC to communicate in meaningful activities across all environments, increase training and provide opportunities for parents to communicate using AAC with their children, and provide coaching from MMI staff for parents, recreation therapy technicians, and speech language pathology graduate students on creating communication opportunities and modeling during naturally occurring activities.
Garden walk date set
The Munroe-Meyer Guild grants are funded from the Munroe-Meyer Guild Garden Walk, which will be held this year on June 12.
- MMI University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD), for “Family Care Enhancement Project Family Support Groups.” This grant will initiate a support group to serve families of children with special health care needs and/or disabilities.
- MMI UCEDD, for “Seizure Log Android App Project.” The project will foster an effective method of organization for seizure tracking, seizure type documentation, video recording, medication administration, seizure trigger documentation, rescue medication administration and recording vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) usage. By recording this information, effective epilepsy treatment can be determined.
- MMI UCEDD, for “Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Training – Developmental Disability Program.” The program will pay for stipends for parents to be on a panel to train police officers for certification for CIT. This training will cover both mental illness and emotional disorder occurring at the same time as an intellectual disability.
- MMI Occupational Therapy Department, for “Hand-Arm Bimanual Intensive Therapy Summer Day Camp.” The goal of this intensive intervention experience for children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy is to improve their ability to use their more affected arm and hand more spontaneously and effectively in all activities of daily living, increasing independent dressing, grooming, food/utensil management and tool use.
- MMI Center for Pediatric Feeding Disorders, for “Development of a Clinic Designed to Treat Food Selectivity in Children with ASD.” The grant-funded clinic will be used to treat children with both autism spectrum disorder and feeding disorders by purchasing equipment, developing a website and hiring and training a new staff person.
- MMI Physical Therapy Department, for “Go Baby Go! A Nebraska Partnership Optimizing Early Mobility.” This project will build capacity for a community partnership in order to expand access to low-cost options for infants and toddlers with movement disorders or developmental delays.