Senator Bond visits autism center in Columbia
U.S. Senator Kit Bond came to Columbia Wednesday and toured the MU Thompson Center on Autism and Neurodevelopmental disorders.
The Missouri Republican was promoting $750,000 worth of funding he secured for the facility, which treats patients affected by Autism Spatial Disorders.
“I’m happy to play a small part in providing some funds to equip the facility and support your fight,” he said. “We look forward to the good things that are coming out of the Thompson center.”
This money came from a federal spending bill passed in December. Bond, along with four other Republicans and three Democrats did not vote on the final version of the bill before the Senate. U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., voted against the measure.
When asked why he abstained from this final vote, Bond said he voted for cloture on the bill. Cloture is a motion that allows the debate on a bill to end. This essentially prevents a measure from being filibustered.
According to government records, Bond and five other Republicans abstained from voting on the cloture measure. That voted passed with 60 votes, the minimum required for it to pass.
Bond spokeswoman Shana Marchio said, in an e-mail, Bond missed the votes because of important meetings about bringing jobs to Missouri.
“The Senator signed the Omnibus Conference Report, voted to pass the Omnibus Bill out of committee and would have voted yes,” she said.
Bond did support the measure through the committee process.
During a news conference at the center, mother Kimberly Matthews spoke about her seven-year-old son, Thomas Jackson, who has autism. After what she estimates as 10,000 hours of therapy at the center, he has shown marked improvement since his diagnosis in December 2005.
“At that time many of my hopes and dreams were just gone with the diagnosis, but with multiple, multiple resources and the different therapies my son is going to school, he’s mainstream now, he’s socially interacting,” she said.
On Tuesday, Matthews said her son was able to perform in a winter concert.
“Thomas sang every song, did every little activity,” she said. “Then at the end of it, he bowed, like a gentleman. And then he would put his hands up, ‘Thank you, thank you.'”
The money will be used to help to buy new equipment for the center, Academic Director Janet Farmer said.
“We’re going to have an expanded ability with state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment,” she said.
This will be used, Farmer said, to record a child’s behavior. This helps with diagnosing and treating autism disorders, which affect one in 110 children.
The center is also working with 13 other locations throughout the country to address problems with things like sleep, seizures and gastrointestinal problems that can be a result of autism.
“We’re working to try and figure out new treatments for autism,” she said.
Farmer said the Thompson Center that houses many aspects of ASD research and treatment makes it easier to study the disorders.
“I’m standing here trained as a psychologist next to a physician and we have a chance to talk about new ideas,” she said. “We come from different backgrounds and when you put those together new ideas come forward, so it’s very exciting.”