Table of Contents
Duncan Family Gives $10 Million
to Children’s Learning Institute
Dan L. Duncan Children’s Neurodevelopmental Clinic will research and develop interventions
to assist children with developmental and learning disorders
On a recent trip to a local fast food restaurant, Randa Duncan Williams’ 8-year-old son read the menu to her. This seemingly mundane task was a proud landmark for both mother and son, demonstrating that weeks of tutoring have helped the first-grader cope with his dyslexia and improve his reading skills.
The Duncan family, including, from left, Milane Duncan Frantz, Randa Duncan
Williams, Dan L. Duncan and Jan Duncan, recently committed
$10 million to the
Children’s Learning Institute at the UT Health Science Center at Houston. The gift
will establish The Dan L. Duncan Children’s
Neurodevelopmental Clinic to research,
assess and treat preschool and school-aged children with learning difficulties or
developmental disorders. Photo by Agapito Sanchez
“It doesn’t sound like a big deal to be able to read the McDonald’s menu, but it was a big deal for us. He’s excited and we’re excited,” Williams said. “It’s not fun to see your 8-year-old upset and depressed because he’s having trouble reading. He’s a lot more confident now. He’s succeeding in something that he does the majority of his day.”
Williams found help for her son through the Children’s Learning Institute (CLI) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She and her family have since chosen to give $10 million to the CLI to fund a clinic designed to research and address a wide range of learning disorders in children.
“We are profoundly grateful to the Duncan family for this generous donation to establish a neurodevelopmental clinic devoted to the important work of finding better ways to help children with learning disorders excel in school,” said James T. Willerson, M.D., UT Health Science Center president. “The Children’s Learning Institute’s education, research and clinical programs truly embody the university’s mission of ‘excellence above all,’ and we welcome the opportunity to further these efforts through the Dan L. Duncan Children’s Neurodevelopmental Clinic.”
Susan Landry, Ph.D.
Williams recently accepted an invitation to chair the CLI campaign to raise $40 million over the next five years. The Duncan family’s $10 million donation serves as the lead gift to launch this fund-raising effort.
Williams said the decision to help establish the clinic was “an easy choice because we’re dealing with our children, our future. My family has been very blessed in a lot of ways, and we want to help other families get the resources they need without going through what we did to find them,” she said.
When Williams’ son was first diagnosed with an attention disorder, then dyslexia, she began reading everything she could find on the subjects.
“I started researching learning disorders, and there isn’t a really easy way to go through all the information on the Internet,” Williams recalled.
It was then that she understood the need for more easily accessible professional help, as well as the lack of assistance programs within area schools. Fortunately, Williams met Jack M. Fletcher, Ph.D., professor of pediatrics at the UT Medical School at Houston, through her work as a member of the university’s Development Board. Fletcher helped her find helpful resources, including a private tutor her son sees four times weekly, a luxury Williams knows not every parent can afford.
Governor Visits TEEM
Gov. Rick Perry, joined by Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, toured the Bock Early Childhood Development Center in Dallas Feb. 6 and said that the Texas Early Education Model (TEEM) pilot program has been a dramatic success. TEEM is directed by Susan Landry, Ph.D., as part of the Children’s Learning Institute at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
“Over the past two years, the Texas Early Education Model (TEEM) program has proven to be a dramatic success,” Perry said. “Children who participate in the TEEM program show marked improvement in pre-literacy skills; they demonstrate a better understanding of sounds, letters, and vocabulary; and by the time they reach the school classroom, TEEM children are prepared to succeed in reading, writing and verbal communication.”
TEEM initially funded early start centers in 13 Texas communities in 2003, and recently was expanded to 20 Texas communities based on the early success of the program.
“There’s not much out there for people who don’t have the time and money to take their children to a private tutor several times a week,” Williams said. “The schools train teachers on how to teach children with dyslexia, but they don’t have the time and resources to spend three hours of one-on-one time with one student.”
Named for Williams’ father, the Dan L. Duncan Children’s Neurodevelopmental Clinic will be housed within the CLI facilities in the Texas Medical Center, but also will offer outreach programs through area school districts and “provide cutting-edge research about techniques that work with certain types of developmental learning problems,” said Susan Landry, Ph.D., director of CLI. She said a priority will be to make resources as accessible as possible.
“It’s overwhelming for some families to come into the medical center, so we want to be where families can make good use of the clinic,” Landry said. “There are lots of ways that we could do that; for instance, we might partner with the Memorial Hermann System, as well as the school districts in the area.”
Landry, who is the Michael Matthew Knight Memorial Professor in Pediatrics, noted that the clinic will become part of CLI’s reciprocal network. For example, the Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education (CIRCLE) has a strong body of research and state funding to study young children and what is needed to enhance their home and learning environments. The focus of the Center for Academic and Reading Skills (CARS), also part of CLI, is the learning needs of school-aged children.
Work in the Dan L. Duncan Children’s Neurodevelopmental Clinic will assist preschool and school-aged children identified with learning difficulties or developmental disorders, by using the researchproven techniques developed through CIRCLE, Landry said.
The broad age range and scope of research, which will cover infants to young adults and address everything from behavior issues to autism, makes the Dan L. Duncan Children’s Neurodevelopmental Clinic the first of its kind in the city of Houston and believed to be the first in the nation.
“It’s very unusual to have the opportunity that this gift provides–to have a research effort that specifically continued from page 1 targets the advancement of interventions for children who are either at risk for learning disabilities or actually have specific learning problems like dyslexia or math disabilities,” Landry said. “I really think that this gift allows us to build on the strong expertise that’s here but expand in ways that will really put this clinic on the map. We sincerely thank Randa and her family for their generosity and belief in our programs.”
Landry has named pediatrics professor Linda Ewing-Cobbs, Ph.D., director of the Dan L. Duncan Children’s Neurodevelopmental Clinic. While the clinic will not officially open until the summer of 2007, research projects are already under way. A search will begin immediately to recruit a developmental pediatrician for the clinic and to fill research positions focused on reading, math, behavior and social skills of young children.
By Wendy K. Mohon, Development