Rich Center for Autism at YSU poised for growth in research

By HAROLD GWIN

gwin@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Being designated a “Center of Excellence” by both Youngstown State University and the state will bring major changes to the Paula and Anthony Rich Center for the Study and Treatment of Autism.

The university wants it to be a center of research, said Ikram Khawaja, YSU provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Getting the designation will require more emphasis on research, agreed J. Georgia Backus, center director. There will be a focus on establishing a research component, she said.

This is a very exciting time,” she said, explaining, “We’re just going into a whole different experience, a whole different growth pattern.”

The center was created as a nonprofit organization in 1995 after the deaths of local residents Paula and Anthony Rich in an airplane crash. It’s located in Fedor Hall at YSU and provides educational and treatment services to 70 children between the ages of 2 and one-half and 16, most of them dealing with autism.

The center also runs an intensive summer program for young people with autism between the ages of 15 and 18 with the ultimate goal of having them enroll as students at YSU, Backus said.

Getting the Center of Excellence designation compelled the university to better define its relationship with the Rich Center, Khawaja said, and the center’s board of trustees and the Academic and Student Affairs Committee of the YSU Board of Trustees recently penned a new agreement that does that.

Khawaja said the university will hire a director of research to oversee center operations.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and Vindy.com.