A treatment ‘village’ opens in White Plains

The Center for Autism and the Developing Brain has opened to patients this spring in a renovated 11,000-square-foot building on the White Plains campus of New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Designed as a “treatment village,” the approximately $11 million facility on the hospital”™s 214-acre Westchester Division campus on Bloomingdale Road is a joint initiative of New York-Presbyterian and its medical school affiliates Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in partnership with New York Collaborates for Autism.

The center provides comprehensive state-of-the-art psychological, medical and allied professional services for persons at all life stages who live with autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disorders of the brain along with their families.

The center also serves as a resource for community-based providers, hospital officials said in a press release announcing the opening. As a referral hub, the facility will build on resources and programs already available, linking patients and families with the services they need and forging connections among families, schools and community organizations, while also providing longer-term on-site treatment.

The project architect, daSILVA Architects in Manhattan, worked with the hospital”™s facilities design and construction team to convert a historic former gymnasium into a treatment center.

Hospital officials said its layout, 30-foot-high ceilings, natural lighting and other design elements communicate openness and flexibility. The space is organized using a village theme, with a small healing garden and a clock tower-style structure in the central area. Assessment and treatment areas resemble houses along the village street. Each house can be identified by its bright color, an autism-friendly approach to design.

To help minimize noise reverberations that distract persons with autism, soft carpeting, cork flooring. and other soundproofing features have been installed throughout the center.

Existing historic elements such as wood roof trusses have been refurbished and left exposed in the center”™s Great Room, now used as a reception area and family resources space.

Hospital officials said the treatment village concept will help children to think in pictures, enabling them to create familiar images in their brains of where they are and how to navigate, making their entire experience more comfortable.

The center was first envisioned by former Wall Street executive Laura Slatkin, a director of the nonprofit New York Collaborates for Autism (NYCA), and Ilene Lainer, a former New York City employment lawyer and executive director of NYCA. Both are parents of children with autism. They helped raised more than $11 million for the center.

Additional contributions came from the Simons Foundation in New York City, where Jim and Marilyn Simons were credited by hospital officials with giving essential guidance for the center”™s establishment, the Mortimer D. Sackler Foundation and Autism Speaks, the largest autism research and advocacy organization in North America.

The center is directed by clinical psychologist Catherine Lord, a leading authority on the diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorders. She joined New York-Presbyterian two years ago after heading the University of Michigan Autism and Communication Disorders Center in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The White Plains facility opens at a time when autism spectrum disorders affect one in 110 children and one in 70 boys, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An estimated 1 million to 1.5 million American adults and children live with an autism spectrum disorder.