Angela Day, President

I am married with two teenagers, one daughter with ADD and one son with PDD/NOS. I have participated in and managed my son's successful in-home ABA program using college students for the past ten years. When we started out he was nonverbal and considered unteachable by the school district. For 2.5 years we home-schooled him using college students 7 days a week, 40 hours a week and had my son in the Moore-Weis Children's Center in the mornings, with great success. He has been in a regular classroom since 1st grade and is now at grade level in 8th grade, with the support of our after-school ABA program, 15 to 20 hours per week.

Also from age four, we used biomedical and diet interventions that greatly help my son's health with the consultation of doctors such as Dr. Glen Luepnitz and Dr. Kendal Stewart.

My dream is that NAA Central Texas and other Autism Support groups will be obsolete in the next ten years because Autism as we currently know it will not exist. To accomplish that, we have to unite as a community and lobby our legislature for effective research and treatment for all our children, whether child or adult.

Kecia Johndrow, Vice President:

I am a mother of two active boys, ages 11 and 9. My oldest son was diagnosed at age 7 with Aspergers syndrome after many years of seeing multiple doctors for a variety of health issues. He is mainstreamed with accommodations and is doing very well. We started biomedical treatment at age 7 and wish we would have started much earlier! Through the wonderful care of Thoughtful House Center for Children he is making great progress. The most effective treatments for us so far have been Occupational Therapy, a GFCF and Feingold diet, MB12, transdermal glutathione, and decreasing his nutritional deficiencies with the use of supplements. We are also doing IVIG, and slowly starting chelation in order to continue to help him heal.

I operate my own small business offering private childbirth education classes, pregnancy belly casting, and birth doula services. For the last 10 years I have worked for local Central Texas families providing care and support during late pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period. I have worked extensively in the hospital environment helping to advocate for natural birth options and midwifery rights in the state of Texas. I attended the University of Central Oklahoma majoring in Fine Arts and have been married to my wonderful husband since 1995.

My goal is to help families find the support they need and give them hope that autism is treatable! It's important that we all work together to grow awareness, research, funding, and treatment options in order to help our children reach their fullest potential. I look forward to serving the autism community and meeting new friends and families along the way.

Committee Chairs

Lisa Hunter Ryden, Chair of Scientific Research

I am a mother to a wonderful 8 year old son with autism and a neurotypical (NT) son who is 4 years old. I have a bachelors degree in medical technology and a masters degree in business. I spent the first part of my career working in a clinical pathology laboratory of a large hospital, then moved to medical diagnostic sales, and now I work in marketing for a biotechnology company in Central Texas. I am a knowledge junkie, and tend to read everything I can find on autism research.

At age 2.5, we had my son's tonsils and adenoids removed because of recurrent infections. That seemed to halt future illnesses, but our son was clearly in his own world. He qualified for early childhood education and received an educational diagnosis of autism for the purpose of receiving appropriate therapy. We took him to a neurologist who told us to come back when he was 4 or 5, because it was too early to determine if he was autistic. I began the GFCF diet on my own, without the guidance of a doctor but used the internet to teach myself. My pediatrician told me not to worry about speech delays, because boys are late talkers. He also told me that there was no connection with the vaccines or amoxicillin (I suspected both).

In July 2004, I was eight months pregnant with our second child, and my husband suffered an unexpected grand mal seizure while he was at work. He was rushed to the emergency room, and diagnosed with a maligant brain tumor. He had his first surgery and was home from the hospital for a few days, only for me to go into labor. Caring for a sick husband, working full-time, and raising a new baby caused us to put Jake's treatment on hold. My husband had a second surgery and radiation in 2005, and was told to 'wait and see' if the brain tumor returns. It has been three years now and the tumor has not returned, thank God. However, we feel we are starting anew with Jake now that things are settled in our lives. We have started ABA, chelation, and other biomedical treatments and in many ways feel we are just beginning. My husband stays home with Jake, and an excellent father and teacher. In many ways, we feel this is exactly what was meant to happen!

I look forward to meeting the wonderful people in NAA of Central Texas, and will happily share my 'knowledge base' of autism research. My vision is that the autism community can unite and be a giant force against environmental toxins, special interests and big corporations. We have a voice, and people are starting to listen.

Maria Parmenter, Chair for Community
                                and Spanish Outreach:

My husband Ryan and I have two children. Our five year old son Kaleb has autism, and my neurotypical daughter is 20 months old. Kaleb is in a mainstream Kindergarten class with inclusion support and is doing very well. I take him to a social skills class once a week, speech therapy twice a week and ABA therapy twice a month. He has recently started anti-viral treatment, nutritional supplements, and methylated B12 shots. We have already seen great improvement and are finally starting to catch a hint of that light at the end of the tunnel.

I am a Texas RDA, Veteran, and full time student. I have played both roles in the military, as a soldier and a military spouse. I am well aware of the hardships that military families must endure, especially those with special needs children.

As a Hispanic mother in the autism community, it is my goal to help those who are unaware of the support that is available due to language and cultural barriers.

Trina Sherman, Vice-Chair of Community Outreach

I have run an in home ABA program for 8 years after school. I switched it to include RPM as the main mode of teaching and communicating. I have been an active member of ASA and Texas Autism Advocacy for over 10 years and Matt was diagnosed at age 3 with PDD/NOS at the Kennedy Kreiger Institute in Baltimore. I have three children. The oldest is Zach who is 15 and in high school. Matt is 14. The youngest is Amy who is 11. Matt is the only one diagnosed with Autism although my other children do struggle with ADD and Dyslexia.

I work from home advocating for children with Autism and have recently become a Generation Rescue Angel after experiencing great success with bio medical approaches combined with RPM. My professional background included being one of the first 1000 people hired at Dell Computers and I had many different jobs there dealing most often with Customer Service and Sales. I also am a member of several community theater groups and when time permits I enjoy singing and performing. My passion has always been with children and making people laugh, sometimes at me, sometimes with me. But I still feel, even now, that laughter can cure any heartache even if only for a moment.

Ryan Parmenter, Chair for Fundraising:

My wife Maria and I have two children. Our five year old son Kaleb has autism, and my neurotypical daughter is 20 months old. Kaleb is in a mainstream Kindergarten class with inclusion support and is doing very well. He attends a social skills class once a week, speech therapy twice a week and ABA therapy twice a month. He has recently started anti-viral treatment, nutritional supplements, and methylated B12 shots. We have already seen great improvement and are finally starting to catch a hint of that light at the end of the tunnel.

I served eight years in the military, five of which were spent in Germany and two years deployed to Iraq. After Kaleb was diagnosed with autism, we soon learned there was a severe lack of support and services for autistic children living overseas. After moving back to the U.S., I decided against continuing my military career. When my contract expired, I resigned so could focus my time on my family and my son's health.

I currently work full time and I am a full time student pursuing a degree in special education. It is my goal to become a BCBA, and together with my wife open our own autism family therapy center.

Carla Scruggs, Vice-Chair of Effective Treatments (RDI):

My name is Carla Scruggs. I will have been married to Jeff for 25 years in August of 2009. I love to take pictures, and I like to scrapbook, quilt, embroider, and plant things.
We have two boys. The oldest is 17 and has Asperger's with a few other things thrown in the mix like sensory integration disorder, probably auditory processing disorder, and visual processing issues. He also has some speech delay.
Our other son is 13, and is almost nt. He was born with a PDA (the heart defect, not an electronic device), and that was surgically repaired. Subsequently we found out he has developmental coordination disorder, learning disabilities, and sensory integration disorder, Irlens Syndrome, visual processing/tracking issues, and possibly ADD.
We are learning about reflex integration as both our boys have retained reflexes.
It may sound like a cliche but being the mother to two children who aren't quite typical has made me a better person. I treasure my children, even though there are days I think I'm going to go to the beach for a month, all by myself, and not tell anyone where I'm going.
We've been doing RDI for a while now, and even though we've had a lot of problems (illness, deaths in the family, etc.), we can tell RDI has helped us tremendously. We also do HANDLE with both of our boys, and we homeschool.
I'm excited to be part of this group, and I'm hoping my experience with RDI and HANDLE will help someone else.

Rebecca M. Ryan, Chair of Legal Affairs

I am married to an all-around good guy, John, and we have fantastic boys, both of whom make us proud every day. I'm originally from Houston, but have lived in many places. We are currently calling Austin our home, and we love the weather (well, except August) and all the activities that families can enjoy here. Like my many varied homes, I have a varied career track. I began my professional life as an economist working for international agencies. After our oldest son was diagnosed ASD, I jumped into the ABA world, working first as a line therapist and eventually working my way up to a consultant. I received my M.Ed. in Autism and Early Childhood Special Ed at the University of Texas-Austin. In 2007, I received my J.D., also from UT-Austin, and began practicing law. My areas of specialty are Estate Planning/Probate and Special Education law. I love both areas, though one is certainly more contentious than the other; I find that they balance each other out! My hope is to be able to empower parents to advocate effectively for their children's education by providing them with knowledge and training.

Amanda Boutot, Ph.D., B.C.B.A
Director of Amanda Boutot Consulting

Dr. Boutot is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) with advanced training in autism, verbal behavior, TEACCH, FloorTime, assessment procedures, and program development. Dr. Boutot has been a special educator and is currently a faculty member in special education at Texas State University and coordinates the graduate concentration in Autism and ABA. She has numerous professional, peer-reviewed publications, teaches courses on autism, developmental disabilities, and ABA, and speaks nationally and internationally on issues related to educating children and youth with autism and other disabilities. She has consulted with school districts across the country on behavior and autism and has provided numerous trainings for professional organizations. She graduated with her Ph.D. in Special Education from University of Texas at Central Texas in August 1999.

Barbara Booth, Ph. D., BCBA
Executive Direction of Instructional Support with Pflugerville ISD

Barbara Booth received her Bachelor's degree from Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Her Master's degree was completed at the State University of New York at Buffalo and her doctoral studies were at the State University of New York at Albany. Dr. Booth's dissertation studied the implementation of social skills/anger management with adolescents demonstrating severe disruptive behavior in a junior high setting. Dr. Booth began her work with special needs students in 1978 by planning and implementing their integration into the public school setting from isolated campuses. She has worked on curriculum to teach both life skills and social skills for students with moderate and severe cognitive handicaps.
Dr. Booth relocated to Texas to complete a post-doctoral internship at Baylor Medical College in Houston.
She began her career at Pflugerville ISD as a behavior specialist and initiated the development of a specialized program for students with autism. In 2002 Dr. Booth obtained her BCBA and has continued with PISD as Director of Special Education and most recently as Executive Direction of Instructional Support which encompasses all programs that support students through direct, target interventions.

Monique Erickson, M.A., B.C.B.A.
Director of Autism Center for Education (ACE)

Monique graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a BA in psychology in 1996. She went on to earn her Master’s degree in special education from San Diego State University in 2002. She became a certified behavior analyst upon completing additional coursework in applied behavior analysis through the University of Nevada, Reno. In 1995 Monique started her experiences with autism as an undergraduate research assistant in UCSD’s Pivotal Response Training (PRT) lab. She then went on to gain over 10 years of extensive training & experience working with the Center for Autism & Related Disorders (CARD) across various locations in southern California, New York, and Central Texas. In 2008 she founded the Autism Center for Education (ACE).

Jesse Franco, M.Ed., CCC-SLP, BCBA
Horizon Program

Jesse Franco is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) and a licensed Speech Language Pathologist (CCC-SLP). She received her Bachelors degree from the University of Kansas and Masters degree from the University of Texas at Central Texas.
She has been working at Capitol School for 8 years, both in the Traditional and Horizon programs and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Special Education at U.T.
She will be returning as an on-site speech-language pathologist consultant for approximately 15 hours in the classrooms. Her goal is to provide guidance on implementing techniques in lesson plans that are therapeutically more from a speech-language pathologist view.

Mandy Rispoli, Ph.D., BCBA
Department of Special Education
University of Texas at Austin

Graduated from the University of Virginia in 2002 with a B.A. in psychology and Spanish. She earned her masters in Special Education with a concentration in Early Childhood from the University of Texas at Austin in 2003 and her doctorate in Special Education with a concentration in Autism and Developmental Disabilities in 2009. Dr. Rispoli has taught bilingual special education preschool as well as self-contained classes for students with autism spectrum disorder.

Dr. Rispoli has over 9 years of experience working with individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities and their families. Her research interests include assessment and treatment of challenging behaviors with children who have developmental disabilities. She is also a member of the Texas Association for Behavior Analysis and the International Association for Behavior Analysis.

Phyllis Sample, M.Ed., BCBA
Owner of Central Texas Autism Center

Phyllis graduated from Texas Christian University with a Bachelor of Science in Speech Pathology. She completed her Master of Education Degree in Early Childhood/Special Education from the University of Texas at Central Texas. While specializing in autism and developmental disabilities at UT, she pursued certification in behavior analysis and became a Board Certified Behavior Analyst in 2006. She has over 10 years of experience working with developmental disabilities in both the public and private sector. She has worked in public and private schools, Early Childhood Intervention as a clinician as well as her current position as a Behavior Analyst with Bluebonnet Trails MHMR. She combines her knowledge of family centered programming, child development and evidence based practices to meet the needs of the children and families she services through the MHMR Center.

Ashley Schexnayder, M.S., BCBA
BCBA for Bluebonnet Trails Autism Program

Graduated from McNeese State University with a B.S. in Psychology. She then received her M.S. in Behavior Analysis at Southern Illinois University, the first graduate program in Applied Behavior Analysis in the United States. During graduate studies she worked as a behavior analyst working in the home, school, and community. In 2001 she began working as behavior analyst for the Columbus Organization in Memphis, Tennessee. She was responsible for conducting functional behavior assessments, designing treatment programs, and implementing treatment plans for individuals with autism in the home, school, and community.
In 2004 she served as director and in 2005 founded Sloane Behavior Consultants Inc. in Naples, Florida where she directed a behavior analysis program serving individuals with autism in the home.
She has over 10 years experience working with individuals with autism. Mrs. Schexnayder is currently serving as behavior analyst for the Bluebonnet Trails Autism Program serving Guadalupe, Caldwell, and Gonzales counties in Central Texas. She is also a member of the Texas Association for Behavior Analysis and the International Association for Behavior Analysis.

Rany Thommen, M.Ed., BCBA
BCBA for Bluebonnet Trails Autism Program

Graduated from Emory University with a B.A. in Psychology and minor in Educational Studies. During her time at Emory University she worked as a lead preschool teacher at the Walden Early Childhood Program at the Emory Autism Center under the supervision of Dr. Gayle McGee. She then received her M.Ed. in Autism and Developmental Disabilities from The University of Texas at Central Texas. While attending graduate school she worked as an in-home trainer for Round Rock ISD and managed in-home ABA programs. After receiving her Masters degree, Ms. Thommen began working as an associate behavior analyst at the Behavior Treatment and Training Center in Rosenburg, Texas. Ms. Thommen has over 8 years experience working with individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. Currently, she is serving as behavior analyst at the Bluebonnet Trails Autism Program serving Williamson, Burnet, Bastrop , Lee, and Fayette counties in Central Texas. She is also a member of the Texas Association for Behavior Analysis and the International Association for Behavior Analysis.

Kelle Wood-Rich, M.Ed., BCBA
Owner/Executive Director of Central Texas Autism Center

Graduated from Texas Christian University with a B.S. in Study of Exceptional Students in 1992. She then taught Special Education in public school for 3 years. Ms. Wood received her M.Ed. in Behavior Interventions in 1996 from The University of North Texas and returned to public school as a Crisis Interventionist, Behavior Specialist and then as the Autism Specialist for the district. She has been an associate of Dr. Vince Carbone, internationally known behavior analyst, since 1997. Ms. Wood has more than 17 years of experience teaching children and adults with autism and other developmental disabilities.
She has over 10 years experience assessing and developing treatment for this population of learners and over 6 years supervising teachers, therapists and consulting with school districts. She is also a member of the Texas Association for Behavior Analysis and the International Association for Behavior Analysis.

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