Project to Probe Preschool Programs for Autistic Children

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received an $8 million grant to conduct research on preschool education programs for children with autism spectrum disorders, and to create a professional-development center that will produce more teachers prepared to teach students with the communication disorder.

The Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute received $3 million for the preschool education research project. Two specific, well-known educational methods for students with such disorders will be compared for effectiveness against each other, according to Samuel L. Odom, the executive director of the center. The four-year research project will evaluate 350 to 400 children in several states, he said.

Autism is described as a “spectrum disorder” because it varies in severity from person to person. The disorder is marked by impairments in communication and social interaction and the presence of unusual, repetitive activity, and has been growing in prevalence over the past decade. According to a report released this year by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, about 1 out of every 150 children studied in 14 sites had...