NSU Horizons Spring 2014

7 HORIZONS Left, top: The Mailman Segal Center offers a lot of interaction with the children, as Timothy Collins, Jr., a student in the Center for Psychological Studies, demonstrates. Left, bottom: Kelsey Shiben, a second-year occupational therapy student, learns how working with children will be a part of her future career. Right: Marilyn Mailman Segal is shown working with a child in the 1970s. doctor, psychologist, and speech or occupational therapist could work together as a team, so that the child had the chance to meet his or her highest potential,” said Segal. Today, the Mailman Segal Center for Human Develop- ment is located in the Jim & Jan Moran Family Center Village, a state-of-the-art training and demonstration facil- ity. Programs at the center include the Parenting Place™, the Family Center Infant & Toddler Program, and the Family Center Preschool. The Baudhuin Preschool and Starting Right programs offer classes for children and families deal- ing with autism and related disorders. The Autism Consor- tium, the Interdisciplinary Council for the Study of Autism, and The Early Childhood Initiative also are housed there. When it comes to external funding, Mailman Segal received many multiyear funding projects, according to Nurit Sheinberg, Ed.D., director of research and evaluation at MSC. Some of the grants are from private foundations (A.D. Henderson), organizations (Autism Speaks, the Organization of Autism Research, KaBOOM), South Florida agencies (Early Learning Coalition of Broward County), NSU-sponsored competitions (Quality of Life and President’s Faculty Research Development Grants), state contracts (Florida Department of Children and Fami- lies), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Mailman Segal is a teaching and professional develop- ment model for promoting evidence-based practices. This is achieved through collaborative interdisciplinary activi- ties via hands-on research. It affords Nova Southeastern University students and faculty members the chance to apply what they learn in the classroom through experi- ences with children and families. The center serves as an observation/training/practicum site for many NSU colleges. These include the Health Professions Division (Occupational Therapy, Nursing, Dentistry, and Pediatric Medicine); Center for Psychologi- cal Studies; Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences; Institute for the Study of Human Service, Health, and Justice; Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences; and Abraham S. Fischler School of Education (including Speech-Language Pathology). “We are able to provide unique opportunities—where undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students participate in hands-on experiences working directly with children and families,” said Roni Cohen Leiderman, Ph.D., dean of the Mailman Segal Center for Human Develop- ment. Because of this training, NSU students are sought after in their professions. “Our students have the important aspect of the didactic plus the experiential, and it makes them highly desirable in their fields,” added Leiderman. HANDS-ON TRAINING At Mailman Segal’s Baudhuin Preschool, students from the Center for Psychological Studies and the College of Health Care Sciences Occupational Therapy Program are supervised by their professors and the center’s staffmembers as they work with children with autism spectrum disorder. Leticia Perez, a second-year, doctoral student at the Center for Psychological Studies, is doing her first practicum at Mailman Segal and has been working at the center since August 2013. “We have great classes and teachers, but being here allows us to apply everything we learn,” said Perez. “We can experience in real life what we read. I knew I wanted to work with children and families, but this has really solidi- fied my dedication. It is so important when you are going into a profession where you have to work with people. Not only is it challenging for you, but you realize how