The grant will be used to establish a contemporary sensory motor room.

The Earthly Angels Autism Fund of the Luzerne Foundation was established by Ron and Brenda D’Eliseo in honor of their son, Robert, who is autistic. The nonprofit organization is dedicated to helping children afflicted with autism. Its mission is to educate the public about autism, provide funding to qualified nonprofit organizations for autistic services, support programs and education, and find ways to improve the lives of autistic children and their families.

An advisory committee oversees all activities of the fund. The committee includes Rev. Paul McDonnell, Joseph F. Saporito Jr., Esq.; Michael O’Donovan, Ron D’Eliseo, Jr., chairman and co-founder; Brenda D’Eliseo, co-founder; Salvatore Infantino, D.M.D., Tom Blaskiewicz, Rudy Forlenza, Tom Kelly, Anthony D’Eliseo, Anthony Grabosky and Ed Ackerman.

The state-of-the-art sensory motor room will be located in the new Sandy and Marlene Insalaco Hall, which Misericordia broke ground on in June. The facility will create additional clinical space and opportunities for clients, students and faculty through its four clinc rooms, adult group room, and child group room and gym, which will house the sensory-motor equipment.

Graduate students under the direct supervision of licensed faculty members have been providing regional clients low-cost diagnostic and therapeutic speech, language and hearing services in the Speech-Language and Hearing Center at Misericordia University since it was established in 2003.

Appointments are offered to children and adults who may not be able to afford or obtain services elsewhere. The predominant population served by the clinic is children with multiple types of developmental speech and language disorders, including autism, Down syndrome, apraxia of speech and stuttering.

Those same clinical services are available for adults who may also receive treatment for strokes, traumatic brain injuries, dysphagia and other related conditions.

The Speech-Language Pathology Program at Misericordia University is a five-year master’s degree program, one of only three five-year programs in the country. For more information about the program, please call 570-674-6724 or log on to www.misericordia.edu/slp.

For more information about the Earthly Angels Autism Fund or its Aug. 4 fundraiser, “Reggae for Robert II”, visit www.earthlyangels.org or call (570) 655-8515.

Caption:

The Earthly Angels Autism Fund of the Luzerne Foundation recently provided a grant to Misericordia University that will be used to establish a sensory motor room for the Speech-Language and Hearing Center. Participating in the announcement, from left, are Sue Helwig, vice president of Institutional Advancement at Misericordia University; Larry Pellegrini, director of Corporate, Government and Foundation Relations at Misericordia University; Brenda D’Eliseo, Robert D’Eliseo, and Lori Cimino, clinical director of the Speech-Language and Hearing Center.