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Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008
4 p.m.
The Carolina Club, George Watts Hill Alumni Center
Stadium Drive, UNC-Chapel Hill campus
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Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008
4 p.m.
The Carolina Club, George Watts Hill Alumni Center
Stadium Drive, UNC-Chapel Hill campus

Media representatives are invited to attend the reception on Thursday (Oct. 30) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill marking the opening of a new world-class center for developmental disabilities treatment, training and research.

The Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities will provide cutting-edge resources for children and adults in North Carolina with developmental disabilities and their families. Along with on-site clinical services, the institute will provide treatment and training for patients and service providers in the state’s 100 counties. It will also carry out research on the causes, development, effects and treatment of these conditions, and the research arm will work side-by-side with the clinical arm to translate such studies into practice.

The institute brings together four existing programs within the UNC School of Medicine: the TEACCH Program (Treatment and Education for Autistic and Related Communication Handicapped Children); the Center for Development and Learning; the Family Support Network of North Carolina; and the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center.

The institute’s founding director is Dr. Joseph Piven, Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics in the School of Medicine and in the psychology department of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Speakers at the reception will include University of North Carolina system President Erskine Bowles, and UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp, former U.S. senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole and Piven. Members of the developmentally disabled community and their families will also attend.

Developmental disabilities include many conditions, such as fetal alcohol syndrome, dyslexia, fragile X syndrome, Down syndrome and autism, and their impact is widespread. For example, 15 percent of children in the U.S. have some form of developmental disability and one in 150 school age children have an autism spectrum disorder. The lifetime cost to the community of treating and supporting a person with autism is estimated to be $3.2 million.

Institute Web site: http://www.cidd.unc.edu
News release announcing the institute’s establishment: http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/
health-and-medicine/unc-school-of-medicine-establishes-
carolina-institute-for-developmental-disabilities.html

School of Medicine contact: Stephanie Crayton, (919) 966-2860, scrayton@unch.unc.edu 
News Services contact: Patric Lane, (919) 962-8596, patric_lane@unc.edu

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