World Reach - Croatia

Center for Autism touches lives in Croatia
excerpt from March 2005 Dialogue

As Heartspring continues to provide services to children with disabilities around the world, it has consistently made a difference in the lives of educators who work with special needs children as well. For 31 years, Gay Harris has worked as a speech-language pathologist in the Northeastern Local School District in Springﬁeld, Ohio, helping children with oral disabilities such as articulation and communication skills. Heartspring has played an important role in how she provides successful therapy to her students. Over 25 years ago, a professional staff member from Heartspring (then known as the Institute of Logopedics) conducted an in-service in Dayton, OH, that focused on multi-phonemic disorders. Since that day, Gay has used the knowledge she obtained from Heartspring to help hundreds of children over the years. “Heartspring has touched the lives of so many children by getting information out to others. It has reached beyond its borders and I am a result of that,”
she said. Gay has also been an incredible supporter of Heartspring through Sigma Alpha, a philanthropic sorority that has selected Heartspring as it’s national charity. Gay serves as its vice president. Over the years, Sigma Alpha has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to beneﬁt Heartspring as it continues to touch lives around the world.

GAY & VLADIMIR

Helping children with disabilities is an international language. This was evident as Vladimir Benkovic, director of the Center for Autism in Rijeka, Croatia, visited the Heartspring campus in January. He successfully petitioned the Croatia Ministry of Education for funding to come to Wichita and see how Heartspring works with special needs children.

Although the Center for Autism works speciﬁcally with autistic children in Croatia, during his visit to Heartspring, Benkovic was able to observe Heartspring experts working with children with multiple disabilities.

The goal of his visit was to see the application of a variety of teaching techniques such as visual schedules, independent work tasks and behavioral interventions. Benkovic was also able to attend two days of autism speciﬁc training by Heartspring experts. He is sharing the information with the Ministry of Education, the Center for Autism and the teachers in Rijeka. Benkovic’s ultimate goal is to have the Heartspring experts come train in Croatia and continue to touch lives.