The Campus Autism Program at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire will be expanding thanks to a grant of over $260,000 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The grant will allow the program to move to a larger location and create additional observation and therapy rooms, as well as obtain furniture and other technical equipment enabling them to serve even more children, according to Campus Autism Director Kevin Klatt.

The program provides early behavior intervention for young children diagnosed with autism. With faculty supervision, undergraduate students work to improve several skills including behavioral, social and language with children ages 1 to 4, according to the program’s website.

The program usually works with six to seven children at a time, but with the grant they will be able to add three more children to the program. This is important because getting children started early can have a big impact on their development, according to a statement from UW-Eau Claire.

“The earlier you get kids started and the more hours they get, the better the applied behavior therapy works,” Klatt said.

According to Klatt, there have been some really positive results for children who have gone through the therapy in the past. The first child the program worked with is currently enrolled in elementary school, he added.

“The school is not aware that he was diagnosed with autism,” Klatt said, ” He has been getting straight A’s and you wouldn’t be able to pick him out from his peers.”

UW-Eau Claire is the only UW System school in the state to have an undergraduate program in behavior analysis, and there are usually around 15 to 20 students in the program, Klatt said.

Students who complete this program can take an exam to be a board certified assistant behavior analyst. If they choose to go on to graduate school, they can acquire the highest level of certification, a board certified behavior analyst, Klatt said.

There are currently no graduate programs in state for behavior analysis, so a lot of students are going out of state to find programs, Klatt said. UW-Eau Claire has proposed adding a graduate program.

With only 20 to 25 people in the state who have a BCBA and thousands of people in the state have autism and other disorders, Wisconsin is facing a shortage of qualified people, according to Matt Andrzejewski, president of the Wisconsin Association for Behavior Analysis.

At UW-Madison, there currently are no programs in behavior analysis. This partially has to do with UW not having a good tradition of behavior analysis, Andrzejewski said.

He also predicts there will be an increase in demand for people who are trained and certified in this field because of a bill going through the state Legislature that will require insurance companies to cover behavioral therapy.

“Pretty soon a lot of high-paying jobs are going to be available, and we need more training programs to help fill these gaps,” Andrzejewski said.