Families in difficult times get a helping hand

By Nancy Bartley
Seattle Times staff reporter

	STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Bubbles are a therapy tool for 2-year-old Christopher Ulm, working with speech therapist Katrine Sanderson, left, and occupational therapist Jannel Rynd at Kindering Center in Bellevue. The 40-year-old nonprofit center relies on donations to allow it to provide services at affordable rates.
	E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Related stories Last year's gifts helped thousands Some numbers behind the need Facts about autism

Mary Ann Ulm was eight months pregnant with Christopher when her firstborn, Madeline, then 3, was diagnosed with the perplexing neurological disability. Ulm wondered if her daughter would ever be able to go to college or marry.

A year later, she was facing those same questions about Christopher.

But thanks to Bellevue's Kindering Center, where Christopher began therapy even before he was officially diagnosed, he has a chance of overcoming some of the disabilities that come with his condition.

Now at 2, he's making steady progress, learning to eat a variety of foods and making appropriate gestures that most children naturally develop.

Although Christopher's family is solidly middle class — his dad, David Ulm, is a mechanical engineer at Boeing — Christopher's therapy might not have been affordable, had it not been for charitable donations that enable the 40-year-old nonprofit center to provide programs for disabled children at rates far cheaper than in the private sector. Families like the Ulms are charged on a sliding scale.

The center is one of 12 agencies that will benefit from the 25th Seattle Times Fund for the Needy drive, which begins today. As in past years, the money goes entirely to the charities, providing a variety of services — from therapy at the Kindering Center for children like Christopher, to shelters for the homeless operated by the Salvation Army, to programs run by other agencies that provide homework help and mentors for teenagers.

This year all the programs aided by the Fund for the Needy will in some way help "Families in Crisis," the fund's theme.

"Families are the building blocks of our society," said fund director and Times treasurer Will Blethen. "Healthy families are vital to our community. The more we can do to support them, the better."

But with the Seattle-area economy continuing to be down — the area's unemployment rate of between 6.2 and 7.2 percent is the highest since the early 1990s — the need for social services is increasing. And donations have not kept up with the demand, agencies say.

Corporate giving — often a source of sizable grants — is down, and individual donors haven't made up for the decline, though they continue to be the primary source of charitable funding.

During the last 24 years, Times readers contributed well over $9 million — including $543,139 last year, when the donations were split among 14 agencies, two more than usual.

This year's goal is $525,000, to be divided among 12 agencies, with the largest grants to go to the Salvation Army, $180,000, and Senior Services, $120,000.

The remainder will be divided among programs at 10 agencies: the Treehouse programs for children in foster care; Family Services' domestic-violence prevention and day care for homeless children; Hopelink's family emergency services; Deaconess' family support and teen-parent advocacy programs; Childhaven's drug-affected-infant and respite-care programs, and the Atlantic Street Center's adolescent services and families program.

Other Fund recipients are the Asian Counseling & Referral Service's senior nutrition and children and families programs; Youth Eastside Services' array of programs; Big Brothers Big Sisters school-mentoring program; and Kindering Center's early-intervention programs for disabled infants and toddlers.

Blethen hopes the community will accept the challenge and give generously. "Children are the most vulnerable," he said, "but they are who we are going to look to for our future leaders."

For agencies across the board, the need is great.

"Our primary focus is on children and helping them to grow into self-sufficient adults," said Executive Director Edith Chambers of Atlantic Street Center. Created in 1910 to help immigrant Italians struggling with unemployment, language skills and poverty, the center now primarily serves immigrants from Asia and East Africa.

"The population has changed, but the needs are the same," Chambers said. A key focus is to nurture children into self-sufficient adults who give back to the community.

	STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Christopher Ulm eats applesauce with chunks of apple during occupational therapy at Kindering Center. Christopher, who has autism, had developed a preference for eating only crunchy foods.

"This last year, for all nonprofits, was a challenging year," said Lt. Col. Terry Griffin of the Salvation Army. "People were conservative in their donations."

Some people who were donors themselves in previous years became unemployed this past year and ended up in the Salvation Army food-bank line, he said.

At Kindering Center, an inexplicable increase in autism worldwide has increased the number of children the center treats by about 10 a month over last year, and funding hasn't kept pace.

The center has a special program for children like Christopher, but it's labor intensive, with each child requiring two therapists for many sessions.

Christopher's day at the center begins with feeding. He sits in a small highchair across from Sue McKain, an occupational therapist who holds a spoon and dips it into applesauce as another therapist takes notes.

"Sccooooooooppp," McKain says, smiling as she pushes the spoon toward him. Christopher dodges the unfamiliar food because he has developed a preference for only crunchy food — chicken nuggets in particular — rejecting any other texture. But after many tries, and mixing some cracker into the applesauce, Christopher eats the new food.

Ritualistic behaviors, inappropriate gestures, poor social skills and lack of language can all be part of autism. The symptoms can be so severe that a child is mentally retarded, or so mild that the disorder is not noticeable.

Just why it's on the increase, no one knows. Autism does have a tendency to be genetically linked — Christopher's uncle is autistic — but some researchers have suspected it could also be linked to vaccinations or environmental pollution.

After his feeding therapy, a speech and language pathologist and another occupational therapist work with Christopher, helping him pick out pictures that correspond to objects in the room and to sounds.

The speech therapist, Katrine Sanderson, blows bubbles, and Christopher squeals and claps. When the morning is over, his mother returns to pick up Christopher.

The Ulms have a third child now, 9-month-old Nicholas, who is strapped in his car seat as Christopher gets in next to him. So far Nicholas does not show signs of autism, his mother says, and unlike his siblings waves and seems to make age-appropriate gestures.

While Madeline at his age was delayed, her parents initially thought she had a speech deficit — not autism — because she had some verbal skills, though they were less than what was normal for her age.

She attends a public-school kindergarten where disabled children are mixed with others. She can communicate at about the level of a 3-year-old, her mother says.

When that initial diagnosis came in, "I was very emotional and devastated," Mary Ann Ulm said. "I didn't know what to expect."

Even though she's facing the challenges of raising a second autistic child, "I feel more at peace now," she said.

"Christopher loves going there (to Kindering Center). He just runs in. I have a more hopeful feeling now."

Sanderson asks Mary Ann if she heard the good news: Christopher not only ate applesauce but also apple chips and eventually tiny pieces of fresh apple — little victories.

And that, say those who work there, is what the Kindering Center is all about.

Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company