Task Force on Autism
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- October 2, 2026
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
0:10
right can I get a motion to approve the minutes from November 17th
OK all right Second sorry sorry sorry all in favor say aye right motion passes thank you all right we have a presentation
from Arkansas State University and
Speaker 9
0:45
OK have them all right can you introduce yourself to the
Kristen Johnson
Unverified
0:52
meeting or to the committee Fancy OK,
Speaker 13
1:02
my name is doctorctor Kristen Johnson I'm associate professor of
Madison Lewis
Unverified
1:06
psychology but I'm also the executive director of Restoreubb.
I have the two programs that I'm going to be talking about today are the howl and the atlas transition programs are
Speaker 13
1:22
the two programs that I began back in 2018. our first class started in 2020. ' m
Speaker 16
1:29
Shane Broadway. I'm the vice president for university relations for the Arkansas State University system I her shoulder to cry on just kidding she doesn't need a she she she needs no help but I'm always here to assist her and
Speaker 13
1:45
very proud of the program that she has developed.
Madison Lewis
Unverified
1:54
OK ready? OK thank you for having me I wanted to talk a little bit about both of the programs that we have they're called inclusive postsecondary education programs there are over400 around the nation currently and it has grown rapidly over the past 20 to25 years and it is for students
that have intellectual developmental disabilities to go to college and so in our program because we are a comprehensive transition program you have to have the diagnosis of Idd which includes autism we also cover all of our students live on campus and they live anywhere that they want to live on campus so anybody that is a red wolf they might live in Case Hall or they live in an apartment or wherever
they want to live that they get to choose we also help with some independence and they also have to have some independence as as far as taking medication, not needing an attendant however we can do class buddies but not an attendant so there is a difference you're admitted to the university unlike some other programs nationally our students are actually admitted to the university so they are a full fledged red wolf all the way and
so we're very excited about that particular aspect the application begins like no like any other student you apply to a state and then because they select how or atlas they have to then give us additional information so that we can verify that they've met the requirements we have between 18 and between 10 and 18 students at any given time atlas is just has just opened up we're actually just graduating our first class that's why our
numbers are a little bit lower. how is our comprehensive transition programme atlas is not a comprehensive transition program H started in 2020. We actually opened up in COVID and we were live in person doing our thing in the middle ofOVID. it was fun. it it initially started as a two year program how we are moving all the way through to having options of a
two year three year and a four year program all of our students because they are CTp are eligible for financial aid but because they it is a CTp they cannot earn a degree therein lies Atlas because we do have students who can earn a degree but need additional supports on campus and so it opened up and we have years3 and4 however that will probably change in the next coming years because most of our students
that are in that program are degrees seeking and so that opens up a whole bunch of other opportunities for students to be able to earn a degree but also get additional supports it is not a comprehensive program but because they are degrees seeking they can get financial aid so we take away the whole idea that they can't earn a degree and they're still eligible for financial aid both programs live on campus bothth have to have
the diagnosis and then both require some AdLs of independence that's required. we slim down our classes for how across the semesters we used to have all of our students they used to graduate with um51 credit hours and we slimmed it down because we wanted to have them have more autonomy in
what classes and so it was almost like they were earning a certificate to something and then also taking all of our classes as well so we slimmed down the courses so that we could then partner with aun or other certificates that we have on campus and so these are some gist of the classes that they currently take theho classes that they have we teach cooking we teach all about relationships and all the things that
are needed in relationships whether that's friendships whether that's romantic relationships whether that's relationships at work and they also partake in social skills they also partake in social skills for the work environment they also have internship where they learn how to build a resume. They also do mock interviews if you know anything about a state we have a place where you can actually interview and they record you and they give you feedback on your appearance and your body language and all the things
and that was brand new so my students were totally amazed after the fall semester of all the feedback that they were given about eye contact and about how they were sitting and about how they dressed to the interview so they also take oral com everybodydy that's gone to college loves oral comm. yes we love getting up and publicly speaking and then they also take making connections which is a
universityide course. most of our students actually take the classes for credit. they don't take them for audit and if they do take it for audit the things that they might be missing are the tests but all the other assignments and group work they are required to do as well because we're expanding to year3 and year4 they are going into self exploration and leadership and we have one of our students going to city
council in I think the beginning of February because they have been fearless about wanting different things for transportation and so they've already presented once and then they're presenting again
for other ideas to make transportation better at Jonesboro and then we have the capstone course of putting everything together. So at any time a student can exit because we don't believe that a student needs to stay4 years if they have met what they need to meet to have a fully autonomous independent life at two years they exited two years if they need the third year they go to3 years if they need the4 years they go to4 years we've had and all of our data that I'm going to be showing you is on our twoear students so that you'll get an idea of how successful unsuccessful we have been hopefully you'll think the first and instead of the second. Here's some other areas that we actually support our students we do financial literacy and we also so they have bucks that they can earn but they have to pay rent and they also have to
pay food and they also have to do all sorts of things and then once a month they do a spinner for things that come up in life you got a flat tire or you need a new hot water heater or something and so we also talk about savings our students go grocery shopping so our older students go grocery shopping once a week and they also do meal prep. We also have a full fledged kitchen that we also teach in we do social
skills we do community integration we also have intensive interventions academically in all areas the data are remarkable on students because I think we potentially don't necessarily focus in on that it's much more functional when they get to high school but they rapidly increase on their reading or their math scores and I'm not saying that they're collegele but the more that you can read the better off
you are of contracts that you're going to have to sign because the things that you're going to have to promise because of all those things. we also doctor's visits and vaccinations and annual visits and dennis they make their own appointments they go they pay their copays they have to follow up they do all those things and then they also have to meet requirements either in their dorms or their apartment for hygiene and safety and cleanliness and we actually
monitor that on a weekly basis and if they're consistently at 90% or better then we go to a monthly basis and then we do all the things career related because one of the things I think people often think because they don't have a direct career plan like you're going to school to go to culinary. well most everybody that comes to college tries figures out what they want to go into right? you don't necessarily always know I think I was the only freshman that knew that what I wanted to do when I grew up and
I'm sitting and I'm doing it right now but I'm the oddball not the not the norm and so our students are working they're actually working sometimes the first semester that they walk on campus if not that they're working into their second year and actually all of our Atlas students are working some of them were working a little bit less because they are taking 15 hours semester hours. so full time would be inappropriate for them it would be inappropriate for a lot of people
Speaker 13
11:49
community integration our students are literally everywhere so we have students
Madison Lewis
Unverified
11:53
that are in the womenness business leadership we have we have sororities but we also are I'm very excited about this particular one so I'm going to tell you we had two of our students actually entered the divvineine into a fraternity which was national breaking because no one had ever earn entered any fraternity nationally from an ISI program
and nobody had actually entered into a divineneine. so we were all the glows about it intramuralpecial Olymp ic s work study positions internships clubs my students are everywhere. I have learned so much about things that I had no really desire to learn about but I now know about theater and I now know about musicals and I now know about agriculture and because this is what they want to
Speaker 13
12:45
do then we have to figure out what that actually looks like it goes on and on and on of the
Madison Lewis
Unverified
12:52
number of clubs that they actually are involved in on campus and also off campus. our students actually volunteer slightly higher than the average rate and so they give back to their communities even if they aren't working necessarily full time but I don't know a ton of college students that are also working full time. National outcomes supported employment proved to be the most cost beneficial communitybased services as a whole led to a higher cost effectiveness
especially for individuals with autism Several studies reported findings specifically to individuals with autism who are employed at the third highest rate of any disability category in 2010. so autism that whole area is growing and wanting to work and I don't know all the students that
Speaker 13
13:43
come to us want to be in the community want to work, want to have a job want to be in clubs want to figure it out and want to
give in the ways that all of us do in the community they're not they're just like anybody else. I don't want to sit here and say oh they're these people that are so awesome they are awesome by the
Madison Lewis
Unverified
14:11
way but they just want to live lives like we've just taken for granted and the data are very convincing as far as cost effectiveness also outcomes also business communities need to recognize that this is a sector that can really be beneficial
and I didn't even go on that site about that your revenue goes up and that your employees stick around and I mean the the evidence is clear on that side for businesses which is going to be one of my areas that I is a little bit of a barrier for us as far as the businesses. Some other national outcomes employment service models that integrate into the community provide greater cost benefit than those that which do not so our students are all employed either on campus we actually if you ever watch anything on
football there's going to be a student that's on literally every video that's ever been made and he's been employed for four years with the football team and he actually has been promoted twice over. so he's literally in every video. but those that are in the community are more cost effective than other kinds of areasorker benefits from approaches to engage them directly in real jobs like supported and
customized employment compared to contrived pretraining. so if you put them in a job rather than let's try this scenario in the classroom if you actually put them into say an actual kitchenettemcdonald's or hospitality or go let's work with the football team instead of us trying to practice in a contrived training there's no comparison we have to allow these individuals to get
out there and to actually have jobs and real job training instead of contrived. integrated services aimed directly at achieving employment are more cost efficient in terms of public investment from a taxpayer perspective. So I it's not as though I don't see both sides of the coin, right? I understand that these programs on the upfront can look very expensive but are they in the end more cost neutral because of the support that you're having
to provide them5 years or 10 years later and the answer to all of the national data would indicate that that is a resounding yes. it's not as though I don't understand the economics of it our outcomes in 20232024 we had 916 goals and 81 over exceeded them and I'm not talking about like they went to class. that's not a goal of ours we're talking about hard hitting you can actually observe it
they're going towards their goals that they want to and in 2024 and2025 we had 1,937 and they met 92% of them so you can have high expectations for your students and they meet those goals and actually exceed those goals. our core beliefs are inclusivity, habilitation and community. that is completely wrapped in personcented.
we don't write a goal that isn't for me that should have been for Shane. right that's not how we do that. after graduations our students live with families, roommates or on their own. this is completely up to the student this isn't like something that we necessarily push but they're all actively living in or working towards I have one student that is actually saving up for their first house
Speaker 13
18:05
and so what's a little bungalow two bedroom, one bath cause anything else would be a little bit too much to I don't want to clean that much. I'll keep it tidy um75% of our students who have graduated are working full time? that's
Madison Lewis
Unverified
18:22
huge we did not count those that are going for degrees our students also end up earning more than minimum wage and that is a common common finding across not just us
but nationally that our students can actually earn more and therefore what they pay in taxes they end up giving back to what they have taken out either invr or some other type of service so they ended up paying that back in taxes.
Speaker 13
18:55
to put these facts into perspective, many people believe that students with Idd can
Madison Lewis
Unverified
18:59
only maintain but never grow. that is not something that we are in the business of doing
when students come to us we want them to we're in the we're in the business of them getting out there right? And I'm not saying that they all can be dependent on every level because every student's different but we're gonna grow as much as we possibly can grow as much as they want to grow. however they want to grow. We have students from we're actually getting a new student from another state which is going to be very exciting to one of our other students because we can have another pin because we have an actual map
so our students come from all over
Speaker 13
19:40
the nation to come to our program. how many of you had intentional goals of around 100 that you actively met for the year. I know that a lot of times that by January2nd my resolution has been so but they actively they want to be at college. they want to have an opportunity they want to achieve goals and I'm not saying that everybody is
Madison Lewis
Unverified
20:09
there's nobody perfect. not not all of our students are perfect or always work harder because then that's glamorizing it but they do meet their goals. our students volunteer, go to work, join clubs, go to church and meet goals that like any other college student that has high aspirations, what else would you want from a college student I'm not talking about what else do you want from a person with a disability I'm saying what else would you want from a college student? that's what you'd want
So some of the roadblocks that we have seen in our and I'm specifically talking about IpSI programs but specifically mine businesses businesses are always very nervous about wanting to hire someone because they think that there's a liability and we need to continue to partner every time that we partner with a business and we generally have had a lot more success with small business owners than we've had with corporations as you all know but
we need to get out there to work with businesses that it isn't a detriment and that they understand that there are benefits to that. I understand that that isn't necessarily for here but it is a roadblock that we consistently are constantly going out and working on the other kind of roadblock is education as far as transition plans I'm happen to have a very strong background in
education and know that 13,14 years old we start working on a transition plan and you know the kind of sadness that I have felt with working with students that are 14 or or older and figuring out what services are potentially available without just signing them up and kind of hoping and praying right that they actually need to have more awareness and we did do a transition symposium this past semester that we're hoping to continue we also need a clear path and
direct payment for services mostst Ipsys across the nation are feebased you're not gonna meet anippsy that isn't fee-based because how do you provide for all these wonderful things, right? because we don't necessarily we don't necessarily meet the requirements of ummple Vr or for medicaid some of our students me may be medicaid but we're not able to bill those kind of avenues yet. and so there needs to be much
more of a career and direct sources and Vr and medicaid are options but they need to be a little bit there needs to be some clear pathways there are silos that are difficult to navigate for families you all are very aware of silos whether it's education or if it's you know whatever it is. I mean hack Arkansas State can be a silo at anything can be a silo, right? It's like how do
you get in there? And so being able to build a bridge of like decision treeing of how do you how do you pick your life, right? when you have a disability it becomes a little bit more difficult of how do I go and get the services that I need or who's going to be able to support me and some of those things. So those are very difficult for families and students to kind of navigate and sometimes staff so we need collaboration across the board with all the nonprofits and
state agencies. it's not a like a one person thing. it's a systemic roadblock However, I want to end on a beautiful video about our students and I'm gonna minimize because I think I'm preaching to the choir when I talk about the roadblocks right this is not anything new that you have heard. and I'm sorry the cold weather's got in my nose.
Speaker 22
24:23
am can you hear it OK cause I'm hard of hearing so I didn't know if y'all
Speaker 32
24:32
could hear that atlas do it os up my favorite part of the hydration programme is that I can spend time with my friends and I do some homework and some all all those things all love it it's really fun because it's like a welcoming environment and
Speaker 33
24:51
everybody's all just nice and ready to help us when we need help. they helped me get out
Speaker 35
24:59
of my comfort zone. so yeah thing is actually the connections I built in the long term friendships I build like with Katrina Abbby, Doctorjohnson shout shout out to them though. I build a long term relationship with them so that's my
Speaker 36
25:14
favorite part. Yeah I would probably say that it, um, helps like meeting the new students and getting to know where they're from
it has helped me find a job. yeah so every week we on Tuesdays we meal prep and then we go to the stores. I've been doing this class called self inspiration with Katrina. and they helped me like whenever I was stressed out they would calm me down like I would count back from 10 it would help me. It has helped me grow through getting to
Speaker 33
25:49
know everyone and the teachers being from Dallas,
Speaker 40
25:55
Texas, it was kind of hard being in arkansas for the first couple of times and then I just got used to it as time goes on I'm like ok yeah this is like home it's like at home now for
Speaker 33
26:07
me probably that it was like my second family like away from home whenever I got homesick I would go over there and hang out with my friends. I've interned at Polish Pa which is like a dog grooming facility and then I did I did the childhood development ent
Speaker 40
26:21
across the street too. I did a public speaking class over Zoom with my buddy Kelby and it
helped us like be more open and be prepared to give like big public speeches and I gave my last presentation we had to do like a PowerPoint of like a hard time for us and I did that and it was
Speaker 33
26:38
fun and it's very good to like practice and be like open as public speaking cause it can be nerve wracking at sometimes but now I'm just like it's second
Speaker 40
26:45
nature. When I was first here I just like stayed in my room cause that was like the most comforting that's like just most comfortable but now I've been going to like offcampus dinners with my friends. been going to football games and go into games
Speaker 32
26:59
and stuff with her I aminna Eams from Cabot agatha. The how tradition program helped me with my life goals of getting a job and living in the pip of me I am some important laugh skills riing cooking, cleaning monty management and using public transportation. goes through shopping and does theence. my vivid thanks about the how tradition program or that
it allowed me to attend college, living on campus making rods in the fans be in the aaa florriri moily it taught me about inclusion. Inclusion gives everyone a seat at the table. they have to the super help me learn how to set ghost get to my indication today I am a full time dirty pfe for the carrico district at the Cha
pyramidenter and north side intimately was like really scared mean I I get not something to college it it makes me scared I got accepted I was like fixing to cry and I be happy that can do a colos life and soonvi sort live and every day it helped me make the connections along
Speaker 35
28:20
the way and it helps me to also you know help me learn a way around my cul learn college life and stuff
like that cuz with kids with autism like me though it's kind of difficult but as a joined the how transition program it helped me a lot. Well they just gave me that pathway to guidance to success to get what I want like for example they gave me the pathway to join the football team. I'm an equipment manager by the way and they gave me the path with the joy the alphi alphaternity corporated so this is the pathway they gave me well my goals right now is just one graduate college in four years.
Speaker 50
29:02
that's my goal. or the legislators in the room you may recognize Lena Evans as the most popular member of
Speaker 16
29:18
the Evans family that is uhpeaker Bryan Evans's daughter and so we're very proud of her and I
Speaker 51
29:23
was honored to be on stage to be able to give her diploma and when she walked across
Speaker 28
29:34
that's it. I want to thank you and open it up if there's
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
29:54
any don't know if you have any questions but if you do right and I'd like to thank everybody that's in the our guests here I've got to thank everybody for coming looks likepresentative garner has a
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
30:04
question I'm sorry I was like who is talking the chair is tall I'm sorry about that yeah so I'm back here. I I'm extremely excited about this program obviously and have worked with other organizations lifestyles and and empower you ofA I see UCA in the in the room are there you talked about roadblocks about the statewide campaign and
education and and getting employers on on board are is there a coalition that's working together to try to do that together I understand that the a lot of the employment needs to be close at home maybe but I think there are lots of opportunities that we could collaborate with each other to make some of these some of these roadblocks go away for all of us and so I'm just wondering if there is a coalition already are these programs new enough that that hasn't happened yet or
what can we do to help make that happen I think collaboration and having more people you know at at the table always always helps make better decisions for for for students and for the businesses as well so anyway that's my question basically are there coalitions already? what can we do to help make that happen if they're not and I'm willing to help however for that however that can happen
Speaker 58
31:35
that's very dangerous of you so no there are some collaborations
Madison Lewis
Unverified
31:42
but I think they're in some ways a bit fragmented or that not everybody in the room actually knows about them. one of the things that is coming along for us is that we're actually building a state
alliance for programs and we can formally announce because it has been launched that ASsumountain homeme and University of Arkansas pine bluff will be opening up to new programs and so we are because we'd like to see this happen more often but again a challenge of you know trying to make the program sustainable and employers are gonna consistently be a challenge that I think that
we are networking hard we feel like the board that we're establishing for our agency I think will be helpful and people will be asked to help with that I'm looking at Jennifer because she has so many good contacts but I would love to hear more because we've we're members of the chamber of commerce we are members of several other organizations
I'm now a rotarian. I'm I'm literally everywhere trying to make connections within the business community and I think we've had the most success this year but I need to we need to build some institutional knowledge so that those things aren't we're not having to rebuild them and that's part of something that we're going to be doing in our state statewide is building institutional knowledge because if I leave then everything that I've ever
done goes out the door with me and you know that with any nonprofit or any literally state agency if somebody left who was a director or something the institutional knowledge walks out the door oftentimes and so it it some of them have closed down or whatever it is and I want to build a stronger coalition across the state. so be careful what you
Speaker 58
34:03
wish for because I would love to have some help
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
34:14
All rightpresentativepresentative Nasarenko? you have a question? Oh yayy yes
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
34:28
madam chair thank you very much for recognizing me and thank you very much Doctor Johnson for this. I'm over here too but I really appreciate this and and very excited and with the kind of on the lines with Representative Ggarner's question on the
business side I'm wondering you know have we looked at you know initiatives and ways to just get the word out. I've got some some constituents in my area good friends of mine that were really excited and they they knew nothing about an autism task forcece and so when I told them that they were really excited. they've been trying to watch these these proceedings you know any time they can and and I know you know we can help by just spreading the word but is there a kind of an initiative set up right now to to help get the word out there of these programs that are available really excited to hear that
mountain homeme is is on board right now because we've got the workforceent right there so great connection with a lot of employers but also like on mine is how can we get the word out better to just on the
Speaker 13
35:31
user end the userle. I think that there's going to have to be not only from a marketing but also a knowledge base but language that businesses can get around which I am not the person to be
I'm a psychologist and that doesn't always read well and so just because of the language I use andhane is laughing because he knows exactly what I'm talking about but working with some other people that I think is are going to be helpful that businesses can hear that language and businesses can get behind that and that there be a statewide push for that I think that there has to be somebody besides me that or the people that I'm
associating with as far as like the otherippsy programs they're so afraid of liability. they're so afraid to hire somebody because of liability and I'm like what are you what are you worried about we'll go in and oftentimes they won't let a job coach in because they're afraid of the job coach liability issue there so there are some legal issues that I think we needed
Madison Lewis
Unverified
36:48
get over the hurdle on so that businesses can be better informed about how they're making their decisions right now our
Speaker 13
36:56
what we've experienced is they're making their decisions based on fear. Well anything I can
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
37:03
do I know Mr. Broadway mentioned I'm over there in that area and I know my the other representativepresentative painter he'd be more than happy to to help out so let us know any way that we can definitely in north central area helping get the word out because I
really would love to see this in in the folks that really could use this and benefit from this so I appreciate all your hard work thank you thank you madam chair
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
37:44
right Do Scott you have a question thank you madam chair Doctor Johnson thank you so much for this presentation and for all the work you're doing I'm so excited to take this back to
clinic and tell all of my colleagues about it just a couple of more concrete practical questions was thinking about you know when we're interacting with families and we're trying to spread the word perhaps on his on a smaller scale than some of the folks in the room can do but you mentioned that your students are admitted to the university and of all the benefits. I'm wondering are there eligibility admission eligibility requirements that families ought to be aware of specifically high school diploma Gedd no
Speaker 13
38:23
ok ok perfect so they bypass they do the application the requirements are for our program so they have to meet eligibility but not a high school unless
Madison Lewis
Unverified
38:31
they are going for a degree
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
38:33
understand OK perfect and then I don't want to pin you down but is there a way you could give us a ballpark about what kind I I can't imagine how much all that wonderful support costs and it doesn't come from nowhere do you have a ballpark about like what kind of financial cost families are looking at to participate
Speaker 13
38:57
so it is on our web now I can't specifically talk about tuition because that doesn't and ruin board but it is on our website and I I only brought five binders but I'll leave them at the table and I can give
Madison Lewis
Unverified
39:11
you one but then our fees are5,000 per semester and so what we're working on is working with Nothing set
Speaker 13
39:21
in stone so I want to be careful about what I'm saying but making sure that
you know if we have a job coach because we're providing a job coach. so our staff are going out and you know there are ways to get that reimbursed and there are different ways and also making sure that the college is being paid for and also making sure that there are other services that we can tap into that we are in communication with some other agencies to be able to do that so because my dream is that the fees reduce
or go away so that it's accessible to many people and it has been done in other states and anybody wants to know how it's been done in other states. I'm more than happy to send you that language, those laws and
Madison Lewis
Unverified
40:15
whether it's on vo rehab or whether it's medicaid or any of those other things there are states that are currently doing this and not that we're not doing certain things and of course each state is very different. so
Speaker 13
40:33
let me caveat that but there are ways per and I'm I think I'm speaking more aboutvr gotcha
Representative John P. Carr
Unverified
40:49
ok thank you so much you're welcome OKpresentative carr thank you madam chairir just a question to what degree of communication have y'all gone into public schools just
to make sure that that those schools are aware of of the how program that Arkansas state so
Speaker 13
41:04
so much it's actually been it's been a lot over since 2019 we've actually gone to almost every opportunity that we've been asked to go to for recruitment and for just people to understand we have done massive recruiting efforts in other areas we've also gone to IEP meetings we've also done the transition symposium we've also done a monthly email blasts
to the directory that's on the department of Education website. Now sometimes that bounces or because the security is so high we're not sure that it always goes through. although our analytics look positive the insights look positive that somebody's opened it and so we have we've done a lot. I don't think we've done enough. so I say yes and I say we still have more to do. follow up
Representative John P. Carr
Unverified
42:03
madam chair thank you and even to the co
ops even to because I was gonna say you're your your co op LEA directors and stuff they can help get the word out through that as well right good deal thank you thank you madam
Speaker 90
42:29
chair thank you Thank you I just wanted to say thank you for what you've done creating something like this from scratch in the middle of COVID no less. certainly a challenge I think perhaps the
time that may be a little bit why exposure wasn't what what it might have been if it had been a different time when you when you first started the program but just on behalf of my family and and many clients I work with you know this this need for something beyond high school is just so is so important and has led so many people out of the state so I just thank you thank you for for doing that and that's I just I just wanted to take that opportunity while I'm here for appreciating you and and everything you do in a really challenging environment
Speaker 13
43:11
I appreciate it and we were recognized that's why ASU and UAPB because we just I think some of you know that we've received a US Department
Madison Lewis
Unverified
43:22
of Education grant to establish that consortium for the next five years so we're trying to build that institutional knowledge. so you'll start to see some things really growing instead of just a state that everybody like you of a an
Speaker 13
43:42
empower and the3d program at Pulaski and all the others that there's a place for people to
Speaker 16
43:51
go so and they the legislature also I was just reminded back a couple of years ago set up there was some monies set up for scholarships for these programs as well so thank you to the to the general assembly as well for that
Speaker 93
44:15
thank you very much really appreciate you being here and all the work you've you've put towards this program. it sounds amazing. going back to kind of practical questions like if I'm back home and I'm trying to explain this program to families and friends that may have interest. When I look at the hours like for the how curriculum and I see6 you know3 and whatnot. what constitutes really a full semester? how many hours? Is it like a typical college semester where it's like tel hours is what they do like can you take
me through what constitutes a semester, what's the investment as far as time goes and what is the extra makeup of classes potentially that they may be
Speaker 21
44:55
taking. It depends on whether you're going to go by the federal definition if you're going to
Speaker 13
45:01
go by the housing definition or if you're going to go by the as far as the full time student so typically it's either 9 or 12.
Madison Lewis
Unverified
45:09
hours and the reason why we reduced it is so that they could start earlier on their
vocational areas. so if they wanted to earn a certificate or if they wanted to go more towards taking classes that are more amenable to the area that they want to go into vocation that they could instead of having51 hours and then go after something that you're interested in it seemed a little bit overwhelming and so as your as you go into apartments it's6 hours and so often our students that are3rd and fourth year because they are
working more hours they're working more like 20 to25 they may be taking6 or 9 hours. but typical I mean a lot of our students I would say half and half half take around 9 to12
Speaker 28
46:01
and then we have another half that are taking between 12 and 18. any other college student can have
Speaker 93
46:12
a follow up to that to get through the entire program is there a set number of
hours they need to achieve or is it more or less just whatever classes are in the goal plan
Madison Lewis
Unverified
46:24
that they want to achieve whatever classes are in the gold plan and that's why we have a little bit more flexibility of it being a two year or a three year or four year because the certificate may take you a little bit longer or you might be able to achieve it sooner. most of the Ipsy programs around the nation are either a two or they are4 and look, some college students are a six
to to get a degree. So I we wanted to get away from the rigidness of, you know, that you had to be there if you've met all your goals at two years then you can then you're going and we start transitioning you through that process and through our coordinator who is a a licensed social worker and if it's your3,
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
47:19
our last question from doctor Jeff Adams.
Speaker 99
47:24
thank you for your presentation and thank you madam chairir. jeff adams office ofpecialducation and so hello I noticed in one of your roadblocks you mentioned that transition planning K12 a particular it's a area of data that we're working on in the office of special edd, making sure that our IPs are calibrated in a way that students have meaningful outcomes postsecondary and
I am curious about if you're connecting with Arkansas Transition Services the technical assistants arm from the office ofpecial edd in the program. I know that they are constantly looking for ways to get out of those silos that you mentioned and I'm appreciative that you mentioned that because I think it's one of the biggest challenges that we face I'm also appreciative of how the program focuses on high expectations and the
people rise to high expectations when they are given opportunities and so that's what I wanted to highlight with with the transition plans I'm curious if you just speak to what you're seeing maybe you said you've gone to some IEP meetings and what you would suggest that we guide schools toward as they develop these plans for students that would lend themselves to be ready for H program or or the like
Speaker 13
49:00
that is such a loaded question because the answer just like almost all the questions today is the answer's not easy. it's a complicated and I've been in education for 30 years. and I wanted to calculate to make sure that was correct we've done a better job just overall with transition planning and I think moving towards that but I do think and I have worked with the transition arm because of the transition
Madison Lewis
Unverified
49:32
symposium that I would just put on in LittleRock they were there and so we actively wanted them to come. Bonnie was a part of that we want to continue to do that because we see that as a real barrier um, when we're talking about when I'm seeing the flip side of maybe some programs that are either an AddT or when I'm talking to vogue rehab of like the the schools don't really know
what services are potentially available and so the way I was trained back in the very early late 80s early 90s was very personcented and then it's a luxury that sometimes it's hard to find in special education because man if I had a lot of number of IEps on my caseload. but if we're either doing map or path
that we're looking forward and we're talking about where do we want to go and that those goals are very meaningful insteadad of we're just going to look to see you know have you looked to see if you're going to go to college? What colleges did you look at? and that seems to be a transition goal. I mean that can be a start of a transition goal but it needs to be more meaningful than that plus the fact that we are pushing in other universities are pushing this as well we have pack preview but nobody from special education comes to pack preview. I don't understand why students in special education aren't coming.
because they should be coming like any other student instead of having some specialized like they can come see us because we're at every pack preview so why aren't we including everybody to go to see the college because we have a gazillion pack previews. let me just tell you like once a month every Saturday I'm eating up with pack previews. So but that's a way in which we're also more than happy to go out to the schools but obviously we're we're limited. there's also a ton of videos but I do think
part of that is one making sure that you have people that are gonna because it's a cliff when you get out of high school it's just a cliff and we need to have people at the table that are going to help not have the cliff fall off and making sure that we have representatives or making sure that we're doing personalized planning. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen I'm just saying like in general, because I would never do that educators work very hard just like everybody else does. but that
Speaker 13
52:08
would be what I would hope it's a very complicated issue but that's kind of the general census of what I'm seeing across the board is that what I'm hearing for special educators is that people aren't coming to the table and yet on the reverse side people are saying we're not being asked to come to the table so there's a communication barrier somewhere there that everybody wants to be at the table but we're not getting anybody at the table so why
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
52:43
you all want them there and they want to be there all right well thank you for that wonderful presentation you're fine you're fine that's why we're here we're here to find solutions so this is this probably won't be your last time here also like to thank Do Johnson and Shane Broadway for your wonderful presentation and I would like to know more about your state alliance that you mentioned earlier I think
there's room that we can you know put our heads together and figure out how we can make these programs
Speaker 13
53:22
more so people more aware of what's going on so we will be developing a website and we will be developing institutional knowledge I've had the good fortune of working with some of the people in the room to really help me with my institutional knowledge and I'm very thankful for that so that ins that doesn't go away if somebody changes positions but once we have that because we just
Madison Lewis
Unverified
53:45
started and we actually just got one of our first new employees so UAPB has their own new program coordinator which I'm very excited fy it is the only HCB yes in the entire nation and so I'm very excited to have that here in Arkansas. and so anyway but I will send you more information on the consortium yes that's what you want. yes ma'am. OK. and then I have a few
binders now obviously this many but you can pick them
Speaker 13
54:21
up and if you want any additional materials my email christen has christen's email and I'd be more than happy to send you whatever. right
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
54:32
thank you very much thank you so much right next on the agenda we have Do Debbie Daley interim dean for collegelege of Education and University of Center Arkansas and we also have Jeremy Gillim, director of
governmental affairs if you could come up thank you
Speaker 111
55:01
Hi, I'm Do I am Debbie Daley from the University of Central Arkansas on the interim dean of the collegelege of Education and before I get started, I want to bring it up OK. Before I get started, I want to say wow to Arkansas state in
that program as a native Arkansan and a graduate of Arkansas State. I'm very impressed with what they've done. My presentation's much shorter. We are just in the infancy infancy stages of creating something for our kids that need low sensory environments and so I'm going to tell you a little bit about that oncece I find it Oh there it is
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
55:55
And I am not a pc person so excuse me Doctor Daley before you introduce yourself can I have umjeremy Gillm introduce
Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
56:04
himself please my name is Jeremy Gillam. I'm the director of government affairs and external relations at UCA and a former member of the general assembly and so it is nice to be back in uhig Mac B so I appreciate the invitation thank you madam chair
Speaker 111
56:21
thank you thank you Jeremy. Jeremy called me overri a holiday break and
said would you do something on the project atend and I said well of course I will. I'm happy to share this so a few years ago we started thinking about what we could do to help support our neuo neurodiverse learners and so I'm really I'm on on honestly this is not my baby but I'm here to tell you about it and I was involved in some of the planning process but we in at UCA we have a program called Living Learning Communities and it's every
academic college has a it's a a community basically where majors from those in that academic field can live together in certain dormitories they do activities together they're not required to live in that area in that like the education we live in Hugheshall they're not required to live there but it's for them if they want to start that community early and within the education one it's called rise. we have a sub I guess we call it a
subliving learning community and it's the project atend so and I have links if you want to go back and look at this where where it's on our website but the program overview we just launched it in 2 in the fall of 2025. it's housed in the residents and service and education in Hughes Hall and it's designed to support neurodiverse students through inclusive low sensory communitybased programming and we emphasize access connectiveness and voluntary
participation so we're very different from what ASU present ed We are more this is more focused on the community building as opposed to actual degree plans or remediation. We do have a transition plan for students that need remedial help but this is different even though one of the ladies that teaches in our transition plan is the coordinator of this program and she's the one that brought it to our attention that we needed something like this.
So our goals are to increase increase student participation we are we're not very popular this first year and we're hoping we can grow support retention for these at atrisk student populations because we know they do need sometimes they need remedial help but sometimes they just need environments that are supportive of their needs. we want to strengthen their sense of belonging and community and we want to expand their academic and transition reports one faculty member that I
mentioned is Lisa Chrismann and she serves as the A academic coordinator and she has expertise in neurodiversity and student support the coordinators responsible for program development partnerships and student programming. so in throughout the university we have some sensory friendly spaces but within Hughe's hall we have a designated block of rooms that are conducive to
learner's neurodiverse learners. they have an option to live there we did not have any this year that chose to live in that environment but it was brand new just launching in fall 2025. so we hope we can grow that. how do we know again this is self identification we do not require them to submit a diagnosis or anything like this this is focused on community building and they fill out an interest form if they're want to do this and with the self
identify interest in ascend and it's housed on the living learning communities website we allow students to receive information and support without any formal disclosure and we support connection to other programs such as we have a autism and neurodiversity alliance called ANA within the transition department. Activities and participations again focused
Speaker 121
1:00:27
on low pressure community building so we've our intentions were to do something
Speaker 111
1:00:35
every month and we did something in August, September and October and if when we do back to school at UCA we have lunch on the lawn it's a big event we have dancing partying, you know it's a lot of fun and that can be overwhelming for our neurodiverse students so we have developed a we have a created a little lounge for them to go into so that they can have lunch with their peers and it's open to anybody but it's for
those students that really need that distraction ffree environment where they can feel comfortable and they
Speaker 123
1:01:11
can build their community but they may not be want they may not want to be on the lawn with all the
Speaker 111
1:01:19
noise in September they did a just a it's terracotta pot painting so a7 students came and they ident half of them identified as neurodiverse it's open to everybody but we're hoping there are newer diverse students come in so they painted some pots and
then inoctober they planted a root clippings in those pots and so I'll show you a picture. so this is what they did and that was the flower flyer that was sent out. So again this is in its infancy we're just starting we're open to ideas of how we can better build these communities for our students what are we doing? we we advertise the events through the flyers and Hughes hall and old Mainhall which was where our transition classes are and we also have the targeted email
communications for those who have expressed interest and again a continued emphasis on opt in participation. we have similar low sensory social events planned for this year the the people planning them did not have specifics at this time hopefully we'll have monthly gatherings and online collaboration with our campus partners so some things that we look to for the future that we think are important. we want structured brake opportunities during study
day and finals week at UCA we have one day that's designated for there's not supposed to have classes or anything else it's their study day and so we want to create something for our neurodiverse students there that can support them. we want to continue our refining housing options maybe not just focus on Hughes hall but maybe other areas because not all not all ne ur o di ver se students are going to be in education or service oriented professions they may be in the college ofusiness they may be in the collegelege of languagenguage
and so forth. we also think it's important we're proposing to have them come earlier have an earlier arrival and and so they can get settled before all the students come for move in day and we're using the participation data to guide continuous improvement. So I've got a last slide are the people that are actually in charge of this I'm happy to answer any questions but doctorctor Nadia Eslinger, she's the director of the Living Learning communities and
Doctortricia Smith who is the dean of the honors collegele also is part of the this learn the learning communities and specifically Project ascend. but I'm happy to take any questions or ideas that you have for us again we're in our empacy stage we're wanting to do more anything that we can do to support our students thank
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:04:05
you for the presentation. I have a question for you if you were to recruit students to your program how would you do that?
Is it so from what what what I get from the presentations that people self they don't they self identify so you don't have a structured program per se that's
what it sounds like that's correct so if have neuro if i'm neurodivergent I choose to come and sit
in the dorm or the space that's dedicated
Speaker 111
1:04:42
for that so it's advertised these low sensory environments and with
the interest form they if they fill out the interest form we can email them more information or we can we talk to them in our the transition courses those are in the transition courses but we try not to do anything that would place a stigma on anyone but to know that it's open to everybody and if we advertise it as low sensory then we hope we
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:05:11
get more students involved. so that's my second question how many students participated this
Speaker 121
1:05:16
past year think believe it said
it on one occasion I'm gonna
Speaker 130
1:05:24
go backwards if I can Sorry Well there
Speaker 111
1:05:37
it is on the august on the lunch and learnar or excuse me the lunch on the lawn there were4 students and that was august and then we had7 students
in September and3 returning participants in October. so we we've got to do better about
Speaker 122
1:05:55
getting the word out so that they can take part in
Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
1:06:01
these activities. and madam chairir one thing that's that's will occur as time moves on since we've only just started this in the fall. Our admissions team are going to be able to integrate this into more of the campus tours and more of just their awareness and
then the orientation days that we have throughout the summer and even in the spring when you have the junior class special day which all of we invite all the juniors in the state to come. those kind of events now that we've had this up and rolling those team members that are going to be involved in those events events are going to be able to have discussions and they're going to be able to work it into their normal tours not in a way
that as as the dean said places any kind of stigma on anybody but we'll be able to create awareness and so they're embedding that in and it's going to be a part of things moving forward. So I I do believe that if we were to fast forward a year from now the participation rates will have increased exponentially just due to awareness and our ability on campus to do a better job of getting that information
Speaker 59
1:07:18
righty I have several questions let's see Jd you ready?
Speaker 93
1:07:29
thank you very much just took like I'm trying to understand a little bit more of the activities and participation when you mention just the number of students that have participated is the the goal and the idea to get to like a weekly calendar of like maybe repetitive events indoor and outdoors to where it's things that people just start getting used to and it's like I'm gonna go do that on Thursdays community gardens things like that like what's what are the possibilities that are think that would
Speaker 111
1:07:55
be an excellent goal to do something weekly. I don't know if that's possible
yet. we're starting monthly and then hopefully we can the more participation we maybe we can do biweekly and eventually weekly our living learning communities do activities if I take them as as a whole like rise they do something every month so we're trying to pattern it on that but we're also hoping we're we're we're doing these activities so that they can create these communities but we're hoping that they will also
Speaker 123
1:08:30
find friends and so that they can smaller group activities so they can find somebody we want them to feel like they belong and they can find you know, I always say something like, I used to be a high school teacher for 20 years and I was like every kid needs some some group and so you may have the band kids, you may have the athletes and long as they have somebody then then like it helps them be more sus successful thank you
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:09:03
have a question how do you measure or how do you measure
Speaker 123
1:09:10
the success of the program well we can go quantitatively and look at the number of participants we can also look at their
Speaker 111
1:09:25
do they stay at UCA because I know if they go for one year and I don't I don't have the statistics on it but if
they go from one year and they do not have that community, they do not find their place and this is all students then the retention's not as good and that's what brought us to do the living learning communities was to increase retention. We focus a lot on retention at UCA so retention would be the number one thing. are they continuing?
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:09:55
and I have one more question so a state they mentioned some of the roadblocks what are some of the roadblocks you see in this
Speaker 141
1:10:05
program? Well I think getting the word out we've got to do a better job
Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
1:10:09
of getting the word out and you know I
Speaker 111
1:10:13
think of this even as an adult sometimes don't want to go out and do this go to this party or dont want to stay home? dot want to stay in my room and and students face that as well and especially our neurodivergent they're comfortable in their rooms sometime and they don't want to get out so getting getting them involved is not as easy as just advertising it to them is getting it's showing
that they need this and how how can you convince those students to get out I know I was an introvert when I was in college. I wouldn't even go into the cafeteria and I never went to the cafeteriacau unless I had someone I never went because I know I didn't have anybody to go with me. So having them overcome that first step, that fear and how we get there I'm not for sure all right we
Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
1:11:08
madam chair if I'm might add just add one thing to that too one thing that I've been extremely impressed with UCA and my time there is the interaction from a student's success point of view with our advisors and their team and support staff. I think that's one other way that we'll be able to measure this too is through those communications it's not necessarily quantitative or even qualitative. I mean but it but it's it's a way that we can gauge
their engagement and feelings is just through those conversations and being able to send that information back into the ascend program and so I think that that's one nuance that I think we'll be able to to help in the measurement of of whether or not the program is a successor as as
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:11:59
as well looks like we have one last question and that's frompresentative Joeyarr.
Representative John P. Carr
Unverified
1:12:06
thank you madam chairir. Well I commend both institutions of
course it makes me proud because I got my bachelor's degree from UCA my master's from ASU and another thing ironically you might be able to tap in both cities you have the human developmententer Jonesboro and Conway so there may be some resources there that can assist you my question is have you had a chance to visit with ASU and to prevent reinventing the wheel kind of seeing what they've gone through and then you can use that to maybe streamline your process of getting this
initiated but I would say Archford co op they will help you get word out because a lot of schools depend on that co op in Plumberville and that'll help you spread the word. Yes, I'm glad you gave
Speaker 111
1:12:51
a shout out to Archford. they're the best we work with them closely in the college ofducation and I'm not for sure if they've reached out to ASU but I think they should and I'm going to take that information back to my colleagues and say hey, they're doing great stuff at Arkansas state and I don't know that we can go to that
extent right now but we can take some of their ideas. I
Representative John P. Carr
Unverified
1:13:16
hope they don't mind. if they do you can come talk to me we'll get it straightened out thank you for your work and I commend you for for another version of of education. thank you madam
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:13:28
chair right so if we don't have any more questions I'm might ask my co-chair Senator Boyd if he has anything to say or add or thank you madam chairir.
Speaker 150
1:13:37
Just I appreciate both universities for being here. I appreciate what
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
1:13:41
you're doing to help the citizens of Arkansas and other
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:13:47
states too so thank you and one last thing I want to thank everybody this has been a very robust conversation again I have a son who's 17 so this is really timely for me to kind of figure out these things and I'll see you back there and this is not going to be our last conversation one of the reasons why we have this
task force is to make these systems more accessible for people with autism so please come back I'm sure we'll have you back again should there be some more discussion and I want to thank all the guests in the audience for being here. I have somebody from Fortsmith with spindle she's here thank you for coming and we'll see you at the next meeting and the task forcece is adjourned thank you.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration of a Motion to Approve November 17, 2025, Meeting Minutes [Exhibit B]
C. Presentation on Arkansas State University’s HOWL and ATLAS Transition Programs [Exhibit C]
D. Presentation on University of Central Arkansas’s ASCEND Program [Exhibit D]
E. Other Business
F. Adjournment
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — TASK FORCE ON AUTISM, Jan 13, 2026 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit B - November 17 2025 Meeting Minutes_ | Exhibit | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit C - HOWL and ATLAS Programs | Exhibit | 14 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit D - ASCEND presentation | Exhibit | 12 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
Speaker 9
Kristen Johnson
Unverified
Speaker 13
Madison Lewis
Unverified
Speaker 16
Maa Louis
Unverified
Speaker 22
Speaker 32
Speaker 33
Speaker 35
Speaker 36
Speaker 40
Speaker 50
Speaker 51
Speaker 28
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Speaker 58
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
Representative John P. Carr
Unverified
Speaker 90
Speaker 93
Speaker 21
Speaker 26
Speaker 99
Speaker 111
Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
Speaker 121
Speaker 123
Speaker 130
Speaker 122
Speaker 59
Speaker 126
Speaker 141
Speaker 150
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified