The fate of Jackson's autistic children will be in the hands of the public schools this fall, raising concerns for parents, according to a report from WLBT. Last week, parents of autistic children attending the Mississippi Child Development Institute at the Jackson Medical Mall received letters saying the school will close at the end of the summer.

"The building had what was needed to keep them there and keep them safe and they were learning on top of it. It offered a lot of hope. They did a lot for our kids," Toby Price, father of two autistic children, told WLBT.

The institute was run by the University Medical Center and funded by the Department of Education. UMC says it is "reopening" an autism treatment and research clinic at the Batson Children's Hospital, but it will not fully replace the functions of the institute.

"We want to take the info we have now with the current research and to build on it as quickly as possible. We just think we can reach the same goals in a shorter period of time and if we can do that we can serve more children," Doctor Phyllis Bishop, the Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs for the Department of Pediatrics at UMC, told WLBT.

Previous Comments

ID

148641

Comment

Anyone got any dirt on the politics behind this?

Author

Pilgrim

Date

2009-06-11T10:12:32-06:00