The Munroe-Meyer Guild has announced its 2020 grants to the Munroe-Meyer Institute, supporting four innovative projects. More than $66,000 in grant funding was awarded.
“The committee was excited about the quality of the grants submitted, and we wish we could have funded more of the proposals,” said Luann Rabe, president of the Guild.
“The projects we did choose to fund will help a diverse group of the children and adults that MMI serves.”
MMI Director Karoly Mirnics, M.D., Ph.D., said he was grateful to the Guild for its passion and its support of MMI’s vision.
“These seed grants are essential for growing our research portfolio and providing the much-needed resources for exploring novel ideas and generating preliminary data,” Dr. Mirnics said, pointing to Guild-funded initiatives such as the Go!Baby!Go! Nebraska mobility project, job training with the OpPourtunity Brews coffee cart, and pioneering work in the use of virtual reality in therapies for children with cerebral palsy. “These opportunities not only improve lives in our community, but allow us to compete for federal funding to advance our initiatives even further.”
The funded projects are:
AACtive Learning Hub, principal investigator Jessica Gormley, Ph.D., of the MMI Department of Speech-Language Pathology
In this project, training will utilize research-based instructional methods to teach parents to promote child communication development using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies. Training will be brief, teach a single skill, be freely accessed via the internet and incorporate video-modeling so parents can quickly learn the skills necessary to apply AAC strategies into interactions with their child.
Embracing Victim Care, principal investigator Annie Woodruff-Jameson, D.P.T., UNMC Department of Physical Therapy
On a single day in 2015, Nebraska domestic violence programs served 472 victims and their children, and 105 were turned away due to lack of resources. In the same year, the rate of violent victimization against persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) was at least three times higher than the rate for persons without disabilities. Dr. Woodruff Jameson’s initiative will pilot placement of a MMI Parent Resource Coordinator in the Women’s Center for Advancement for eight hours a week, providing support and follow-up care coordination to victims with disabilities served in consultation with WCA staff. Data will be collected to be able to seek funding to sustain placement of PRC services in the future.
Caring for Champions Building Healthy Futures, principal investigator Melonie Welsh, UNMC Department of Community Engagement
The project will create a curriculum to achieve healthy weight for participants with IDD. It will use a two-foot tall, humanoid robot, designed to create a novelty in exercise to motivate participants to participate not only in physical activity, but in education programming on healthy eating and activity. The project is a partnership with nutritionists and MMI Departments of Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and Recreational Therapy.
(“We’re really excited to see the robot in action at the new MMI building,” Rabe said.)
Caregiver Training for Children with Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, Leslie Van Winkle and Amanda Barton, MMI Department of Speech-Language Pathology
Families of children on the autism spectrum often face waiting lists for Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) and to begin other services. Research has shown that parent-mediated therapy following an ASD diagnosis can help fill in the gap in services while children are waiting to start services, as well as decrease family stress. The goal of this project is to establish fidelity for six MMI speech-language pathologists to become certified Project Impact providers. Project Impact is an evidence-based program that uses naturalistic developmental behavioral intervention strategies to help caregivers improve their child’s social engagement, communication, imitation and play skills. The SLP can then provide care, as well as train staff members within MMI to utilize Project Impact.