Mississippi State University Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic fall services in full swing

Mississippi State University Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic (ADDC) began their fall services on the first of September.

The ADDC offers a variety of services for those in pre-k to emerging adults including, individual services including behavior concerns, academic skills and vocational skills training, social skills groups and assessment services.

This fall the clinic began with 70 clients. Once those were scheduled for the semester, the ADDC started taking those on their waitlist. The clinic, which does not charge for most of its services, with the exception of assessment services, is grant-funded.

“The Mississippi Council for Developmental Disabilities has supported us through a grant now going into the fourth year. Some of those monies go to support all three services: social skill, individual and assessment services,” Dr. Daniel Gadke said, interim department t head for the department of counseling, educational psychology and foundations. “We also have a grant from the Department of Human services that’s shared with Student Support Services and a part of that goes to cover services over in the clinic.” 

In the surrounding community, the ADDC serves 100-150 clients, not including their autism liaison services, a program in partnership with Disability Support Services tailored towards degree-seeking MSU students who identify as having autism. Through that partnership, they have a group of graduate students known as autism liaisons dedicated to serving the students at Mississippi State. They meet on an as-needed basis or up to weekly to help them navigate college. 

A true hub of cross-campus collaboration and service for people with developmental disabilities, the clinic is not only run by graduate students under the supervision of professors in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Foundations, but undergraduates from any major can volunteer their time in the clinic.

“We get a host of undergrad volunteers from engineering, kinesiology, psychology, business from all over really,” Gadke said. “We'll have students from other colleges say ‘I have a cousin with autism, and I've always wanted to know what it was like to help and work with somebody. Can I volunteer at the clinic?’ Undergrads come in, they work in the clinic every single week with a grad student.”

Professors involved with the clinic also give professional and community trainings throughout the state on autism, behavior, academics and disabilities.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.