Layden's Lineup

By Jessica Wray

At the ripe age of 3, the only things greater than the smell of fresh cut grass and the freedom of the great outdoors is a good movie – Monster’s Inc. – and the vibrant color orange.

Layden Vaughn loves his trampoline. The small, one-person contraption rests in the living room, and his mom says he can’t get enough of it.

On Facebook, there’s a video of Layden – small snapshots of his personality shown in bouncy, chaotic energy that only toddlers know how to harness, and a cute, cheeky smile. He does this little dance, with his hands on his hips, his upper body waving back and forth to an unheard beat playing in his head.

In one part of the video, Layden cradles two handfuls of toys carefully, like every child does in the ever-frustrating process of having to move your toys to the perfect play spot. He hugs them close to his chest, the Monster’s Inc. action figures sticking out in all sorts of angles from his small hands.

He sets them down on the table, his perfect play spot.

But Layden doesn’t make any noises. He doesn’t bang them together in an unseen battle between Mike, the one-eyed monster, and the big, blue and purple-spotted Monster’s Inc. character.

Instead, they’re lined up carefully. In a perfect, neat little row.

Because, his mom says, Layden doesn’t play with toys. He never has.

At 12 months, she said, he was on track with other children his age physically, but wouldn’t talk, nor would he try too. High anxiety in social situations – even with family – gave her another reason to suspect something might be off about her little boy.

At 18 months, Layden’s line of toys began in earnest.

When Layden was almost 2-years-old, his mother, Rachelle Vaughn, 26, took him to a pediatrician, where the doctor put her in touch with First Steps, an Indiana program that works with very young children. They told Vaughn Layden had a sensory processing disorder – a disorder that effects how the nervous system takes in and decodes messages through the senses, and transmits to motor skills and appropriate behavior.

“They said that he qualified to have them work with him until he was 3,” Vaughn said. “They worked with him for a whole year. He had speech, occupational therapy, and developmental therapy.”

Each therapy session, she said, was once a week for an hour. She noticed improvement, but had always wondered if there was a different explanation for Layden’s problems.

“When he turned three, it was actually almost a year ago, it was at his big meeting,” Vaughn said. “(His therapists said) that he, without a doubt, had autism.”

One in every 88 American children are on the autism spectrum, autismspeaks.org says. Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, is a general term for various complex developmental brain disorders. And on the Autism Society of Indiana webpage, they say the numbers are higher – “according to a new government report that found that 1 out of every 50 school-age children – roughly one on every school bus – has the condition,” the website says.

  According to autismspeaks.org, a website dedicated to the national advocacy and awareness for autism, says “these disorders are characterized, in varying degrees, by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors. They include autistic disorder, Rett syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified , known as PDD-NOS, and Asperger syndrome.”  

Since Layden received a straightforward diagnosis from his therapists saying he has autism, it’s been an uphill battle for the Vaughn and her husband, who also have a 2-year-old son, Cooper.

The problem, she said, isn’t that there aren’t any programs for autistic children in her area, or that there isn’t anyone willing to help – it’s about finding ways to pay for treatment.

“He just recently got into ABA therapy. Before that, as soon as he turned 3 last fall, he started in developmental preschool, because we couldn’t get him into ABA therapy with our state insurance,” Vaughn said.

ABA therapy, or Applied Behavior Analysis, is a treatment commonly used for children with autism. Behavior analysis works with how learning takes place. A common tool used in ABA is positive reinforcement.

One exercise his therapist uses with Layden, Vaughn said, includes giving Layden a snack or a toy, and telling him he has to wait to pick it up or go to it.

“He’s up to 10 seconds,” Rachelle said.

And she was proud. For Layden, who is energetic and always moving, 10 seconds is a huge accomplishment.

But paying for this kind of treatment is pricey.

Vaughn said she called everyone. No one was willing to help her, she said. Their insurance company would tell them to call someone else, and then someone else again. It was a never ending circle of run-around phone calls.

So, she said, they had to get off state insurance, and they went with a private company instead.

Now they pay for insurance out-of-pocket. It’s what they need for Layden’s therapy, and to keep seeing him progress, she said.

And progress he has.

Franklin College student Morgan McClellan, a junior journalism major and Layden’s aunt, said Layden has made strides since starting his therapy.

When he eats, she said, he’ll take one bite of a chicken nugget, run around for a minute, and then come back to the table to take another bite.

But now, she said, “He’ll be able to sit at lunch for 25 minutes.”

And that’s not all.

For a child who wouldn’t speak, and didn’t seem to want to try a year and a half ago, Layden now says short, fragmented sentences, that he enunciates pretty well, Vaughn said.

“He has started talking. He communicates what he wants with words now,” Vaughn said.

And the shining moment for her, she said, was something many other parents take for granted.

“Love you, mom mom,” he said, in a clear voice, not disjointed or higher pitched like his broken speech had been previously.

It was his “I love you,” in the clear voice of Layden, something Vaughn had never heard before.

“I cried, and I held him for like an hour. I knew it was in there.””

The therapy has been working, she said, and she hopes more people come to understand what autism looks like, and know that it’s different for everybody.

“I don’t want to change who Layden is,” Vaughn said.

And McClellan agrees.

Him lining up his toys, she said, she thinks is his way to cope. It’s something that he’s figured out how to do on his own.

It’s not just autism awareness any more, it’s autism acceptance, and autism appreciation. You shouldn’t just be aware of it and try to fix it. Autism isn’t something that I believe anymore should be cured,” she said.

At the recent lecture given by Elaine Hall, “Parenting a child with special needs: A spiritual journey,” junior Natalie Miller asked Hall a question and addressed the crowd. Her insight into autism comes from a special relationship with the topic. Miller has autism.

“I feel that what’s between our ears and what’s inside our ribcage is more important than a doctor’s diagnosis,” she said.

She asked Hall, “How do you get neuro-typical people to try and enter your world?”

“I know my entire life I’ve had to look at the real world and I’m glad that I do have the insights that I have, but it’s my world and how I perceive things. And it’s like people treat it as if it doesn’t matter. No one takes the time to really try to see where I’m coming from. I can tell from how they’re talking, they’re wanting to get it over with. I feel this almost every single day, with even people I know care, and it hurts me. How do you get people to understand you when they’re not interested to begin with?”

In response, after a moment of silence, Hall said it’s time to “stop looking at the deficits, and start looking at the assets.”

It’s the things Layden does that people consider is autism that makes McClellan see his special gifts.

“You slowly figure out that all the things that they do that are autism, are the cute things they do. Things that you don’t want them to ever change. I think the most important thing to know is that for people who have autism, they shouldn’t be any different than who they are.”

Vaughn, McClellan, and their family have started a fundraiser as part of Autism Speak’s awareness campaign, a walk in Indianapolis June 15.

Those interested in donating, or learning a little bit about Layden and his family, can check out their Facebook page.

Their team is named Layden’s Lineup.

At 15

At 15, I found myself mostly alone.

High school was supposed to be the time my best friend and I would strike it big. We’d promised each other we’d grow old together, with houses next door and identical front porch swings. We’d make crude jokes back and forth from across our lawns, and be Godmothers to each of our children.

But after the first month of our freshman year, my best friend fell into a world that I would never follow her to.

Self-harm and alcohol use was something she did semi-frequently in junior high. But those were things I could overlook. I told myself I could help her get through that – or that she’d grow out of it by the time we hit high school. She went hit highs and lows I never got as a pre-teen, and became even more confusing later.

But at 14, she had started going to parties where cute guys would offer her pills, to make her feel bright and shiny and good about herself. She’d told me numerous times she’d woken up on a Friday with bruises she never remembered getting.

And no matter what I did, or who I told, nothing helped her.

Ever hang-out night became a lecture, or a conversation about how her actions were hurting herself. She didn’t want to hear it.

So that’s how I became isolated during one of the roughest parts of a person’s teenage years.

Dropping the ball

It was a 50/50 chance I ended up in J-1, the introduction to journalism class all students were required to take before they could join newspaper or yearbook. I had to choose an elective, and it was either J-1 or the introduction to broadcast.

I had always loved writing, so I threw my hands up in the air, and put it down as my elective choice.

But about four weeks into the class, I despised journalism and hated every single part of the course.

AP style was my worst nightmare. I didn’t understand any of the rules, and I couldn’t get why it was important at all. We would do worksheets upon worksheets with confusing questions, with multiple-choice answers that all looked the same.

I was so frustrated by the class that I would come home once or twice a week and cry.  I’m still up tight about my grades and GPA in college, but back then my grades were my life.

My mom told me if I was that upset by the class, then maybe it was time to drop it. She wasn’t happy that I was quitting, but she also understood the tears weren’t going to stop any time soon if I didn’t jump ship.

So I went to my guidance counselor and got an add/drop form. I had it filled out and signed. It was ready to go.

I just needed my teacher, Carmen Mann, to sign off on the sheet.

When I approached her after class, a bit distraught and uneasy about asking her to drop the class, she looked at me a bit astonished.

You want to drop? But why?

I just couldn’t get the material, I told her. I asked so many questions in class. Everything felt ambiguous and vague, and I always needed clarification. There wasn’t a class without me raising my hand five and six times with questions. My classmates were starting to get irritated and I was starting to feel like this just wasn’t for me. I kept running into a brick wall that wasn’t coming down any time soon.

Is it the fact that you ask so many questions that bothers you? She asked me, trying not to smile. At the time I didn’t know what she was getting at, but looking back now I know she was going somewhere with this line of questioning.

It was. I hated that I was the only one in class that seemed to not get anything. We hadn’t started writing yet either, and I could just imagine myself falling behind even more when we started that unit.

That is, until Ms. Mann gave me a little jolt of encouragement that up until that time, no other teacher had given me freshman year.

You ask questions, yes, but they’re good questions. You’ve got curiosity, which is what you need to be a journalist. You should really, really stick it out. I think you’re going to do great when we get to the writing part.

Coming from this teacher, I was floored. Ms. Mann was known to be hard on her students. In those few weeks of class she’d cussed in class – I’d never heard a teacher do that before. I couldn’t believe she’d said “shit” and “damn that” in front of children. She was strict and unforgiving with AP style mistakes.

She had bouncy blonde hair and a bright round face. She had a backbone of an attitude but an easy laugh. She was intimidating at the time, and I had been frightened to ask her about dropping her class.

I never thought she would or could see something special in me.

But she did, and that little bit of encouragement, to someone who had just lost her best friend, her sister in all but blood, did wonders for my soul.

So I stuck it out, and a week later, we began writing.

Writing

You could tell how much Ms. Mann loved writing by the way her face lit up, her voice got stronger and she could pound out writing notes to us like she had them memorized a decade earlier. 

She took the writing module of our class extremely seriously. We would take our notes by dictation -- she said this was the only way we'd learn to take notes quickly, and to learn what voice modulation sounds like in relation to how fast a person talks. She wouldn't repeat more than once, sometimes twice if you asked nicely, and she would never slow down.

Writing in that class was baptism by fire, and I was a newly charred believer. I loved every minute of class -- from the notes on how to ask questions and how to form a lead, to the strict, no-nonsense attitude of Ms. Mann's -- I was hooked.

I remember one exercise -- and I still have the worksheet -- that required my class to come up with questions relating to a hypothetical high school athletic team scandal. I thought, and thought, and was so excited to come up with what I would ask the mythical coach and principal.

We all took turns reading the questions out loud in class, and I was one of the last ones to go. I remember after reading mine, Ms. Mann looked at me proudly, and told the class if anyone ever needed ideas for questions, they should ask me.

It was the first time anyone had noticed me. And Ms. Mann was my new hero. She cared, and she thought I had potential. For someone pretty lost and lonely, that meant the world.

From then on, I would stay after class and talk with Ms. Mann about my work -- how to do better, what I could do for newspaper. I wanted to write, and keep writing until my fingers fell off. 

Ms. Mann was one of those teachers that knew how to take a flailing student and pick them up. She wasn't just our teacher, but she was a mentor, our psychologist. She was our friend. 

Budget agency says retiree health plan is over-funded

Franklin College Statehouse Bureau 

INDIANAPOLIS – The state has overpaid an employee benefit plan, budget agency directors told a House committee on Wednesday.

State Budget Agency Director Adam Horst and Deputy Budget Director Jon Vanator told the House Ways and Means Committee that, if things go as currently expected, the state retiree health benefits plan will a surplus of $49.8 million by the end of this fiscal year and $61 million by the end of fiscal year 2013.

The plan, started in state fiscal year 2008, is overfunded by 130 percent, according to the actuarial study. The government funded the plan 100 percent for every employee in order to prevent a liability, but the study showed that there may only be a 60 percent chance that any given employee will be eligible for the plan. Paying the full amount for every active employee has caused overfunding.

Part of the state’s recommendation is to pay the general fund part of the excess, by using the cigarette tax revenue that helps fund the plan, for fiscal years 2012 and 2013 only. The proposed percentage of the cigarette tax is 5.74 percent.

“Our method of recovering that excess would be to direct cigarette tax revenue, which is a portion of the funding that goes into the plan … to the general fund,” Vanator said. 

“Instead of transferring money from the fund balance and putting it in the general fund, we’re going to let $53.6 million of cigarette tax money go to the general fund instead of going into the plan. We’re turning off the faucet on the cigarette tax money, until we catch up.”

The Budget Agency’s proposal would fund the plan, actuarially, at 103 percent. Horst said that there still would be some cushion to the benefits plan.

Originally published on www.thefranklinonline.com

Union workers file into Statehouse to oppose bill

Franklin College Statehouse Bureau

INDIANAPOLIS – As union workers flooded the Statehouse on Wednesday, the line for the entrance spilled down the front steps.

Workers were there to attend the Senate committee meeting hearing on Senate Bill 333, which would eliminate project labor agreements.

Project labor agreements are collective bargaining agreements that require all employees and workers on government-funded projects, whether union or non-union, to establish set terms and conditions.

Tom O’Donnell, executive director of Quality Connection, an electrical union cooperative group, said that a project labor agreement “makes one big agreement for a job, which standardizes your starting times, overtime” and other job specifics.

“It makes no sense at all to pass this bill, when that’s … the standard way they’ve done business for the past 25 years, on the major projects in the city of Indianapolis, and the state for that matter,” O’Donnell said.

“And it’s like, when they do this kind of thing, all that does is invite inferior labor to come in and do jobs. You know what I’m talking about there – pay somebody little or nothing to come in without being highly skilled.”

Union worker Jim Crabb was one of many waiting to enter the Statehouse to oppose the bill.

“It would raise the cost of projects,” Crabb said. “PLA guarantees that it will be done on time, usually under budget. We just want them to know that we are concerned, and that we’ll come out in forces. This early in the year, it’s not going to stop here.”

Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, sponsored the bill and said that he feels research is inconclusive to whether or not project labor agreements guarantees quality and efficiencies. He also said that he believes there are skilled and trained workers outside of unions.

“The research is indeterminate,” Walker said. “I have read a great deal that does not have me convinced that the taxpayer is going to get the lowest cost projects with a PLA in place, but I also recognize the economic reality that you get what you pay for. Price is not the only decision and is not the only factor.”


Originally published on www.thefranklinonline.com

Franklin Grads Make Their Mark

Franklin grads make their mark

Jessica Wray

October 1, 2010

Franklin College may be a small liberal arts school, but history shows there is nothing small about its graduates or their achievements.

Take the early 1920s for example. “Hoosier Hysteria” swept across Indiana and captured the attention of the nation. Basketball was the game to play, and Franklin was at the center of it.  


The Franklin Wonder Five basketball team originated at what is now known as Franklin Community High School, lead by coach Ernest “Griz” Wagner. Although the name alludes to there being only five players, in reality, each year the team had new members added.

One of the most well-known players, Robert “Fuzzy” Vandivier, played forward and helped lead the college team to the state championship. Vandivier graduated from Franklin College in 1926 and later became Franklin High School’s basketball coach and took a position as a history teacher.

As coach, he won three regional titles and took his team in 1939 to the state championship game.  The gymnasium at what used to be the old high school, and is now Franklin Community Middle School, was named Vandivier Gymnasium, after Vandivier.

The legend of the Wonder Five team and its graduates left an even more significant mark on both the high school and college athletic programs. The high school Grizzly Cubs and the college Grizzlies were named in honor of “Griz” Wagner and the success of his Wonder Five team.

Also, during college a friend of Vandivier’s and 1923 graduate was Roger Branigin. He was also a graduate of Franklin High School and was a cheerleader for the Wonder Five team during the season of their first state win. Branigin majored in French, Spanish and history at Franklin College, and was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. After graduation, he went to Harvard Law School. Branigin became a lawyer and later served in World War II. He ran for governor of Indiana, won in 1964 and served from 1965 to 1969. He ran for President in 1968 in the Democratic primary, but lost the nomination to Robert Kennedy.

Franklin College has a history of successful graduates, including Doritos inventor Arch West, class of 1936, but the graduates who work in the Franklin community today or have graduated recently haven’t dropped the ball on achievement.

College trustee John Auld, Jr. graduated from Franklin College in 1976 with degrees in journalism and history. While in college, some of the organizations Auld participated in included the newspaper, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and the Inter-fraternity Council.

He is now president of Franklin Insurance Agency, which is a local independent agency in Franklin. He is chairman for the Partnership for a Healthier Johnson County and president of the Johnson County Health Foundation.  

Auld said that it was in part the liberal arts education that contributed to the skills that he uses today in his career and the opportunities he had during college.

“I think it’s the fact that you get a strong liberal arts education, regardless of what your major is and it can apply in many, many different ways for all kinds of practical applications,” Auld said.

“The opportunities that I had, in leadership roles at the fraternity house are probably the most important, as far as life-long experiences and so forth and how to lead and accomplish things. At a social standpoint on campus, I had a number of very close relationships with professors that I think were important, and they taught you the value of a liberal arts education and the relationship issues you have at a small campus.”

Franklin College Time Study Project

Each day, about 110 Franklin College students open Angel, fill out their detailed time log for the day, and submit it to the drop box by 5 p.m.  For 14 days students followed this routine. 

Junior Hilary Hauguel, a math major, created a study to analyze student’s time management and behavior.  It all started with a question about which majors spent the most time on homework and studying.

According to Hauguel, she knew she spent a large amount of time doing homework as a math major and wondered how other areas of study compared.  In a conversation with assistant professor of mathematics Dr. Justin Gash, the idea to do a research study formulated.

At the beginning of the year, Hauguel sent a mass campus announcement for students who would be willing to participate in the survey.  Participants would receive $50, and would be required to fill out a time log each day.

Gash and associate professor and chair of English Dedaimia Whitney are co-advisers to Hauguel’s research project.  They helped Hauguel create and shape the template for the study.

“I made a template,” Hauguel said.  “I did it myself, so I would know what I was doing and what I was expecting them to do.  So I gave them an example of a couple days that I did, and gave them the template.”

Hauguel created an Angel page with drop boxes open from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the participants to log their hours.  There are multiple statistics that Hauguel plans to extrapolate from the data, but she is focused on two categories.

“Basically there are 10 categories that I asked them to do,” Hauguel said.  “The most important is I wanted to know how much time they spend in class and how much time they do homework.”

The categories range from logging how much time they spend eating, participating in athletics, sleeping, being in class, doing homework, working, etc.  Hauguel also hopes to learn more about students’ sleeping habits and it’s possible affects, once she computes all of the data.

“We think that there’s going to be great interest in this,” Whitney said.  “And that we’ll find out some interesting things.”

Gash believes that the project will spark an interest on campus as well, and hopes other student’s can see by this project that undergraduates are capable of authentic research. 

“She has done something that people will care about,” Gash said.  “It’s going to matter to people.  She doesn’t have a Ph.D., she just had a really interesting question and a drive to investigate. “

Junior sociology major Heather Myers enjoyed participating in the study and taking the time to think about her daily schedule.

“I saw that I usually slept about the same amount of time, which I didn’t really think that I did that, or that I had a sleeping pattern,” Myers said.

Sophomore math major Matt Brems felt the study helped him to analyze how much time he spends involved in activities correlating to each category. 

“I can better manage my time and say, ‘should it really take me six hours to work on this assignment’ or something like that,” Brems said.  “So it’s useful for managing time and just learning for myself.  It’s a good way for us to quantify our priorities.”

The project is ongoing and according to Hauguel, will probably continue into next semester. 

Profile On: Zach Cruse - First Interview

Zachariah Cruse, 19-year-old sculpture major at Herron Art School, is a tall curly blond that has an absolute love for any kind of plain chicken dishes, and a deep-seated hatred for any vegetables or leafy greens.  He has a dry sense of humor and a laugh that makes his eyes squint.  He loves “The Office” and is a fan of Michael Scott.

When asked who or what he would have to have with him on a deserted island, Cruse smiled and mulled over his answer.  It took him a few minutes but he finally said, “Taylor, I’d have to bring Taylor.  He would probably help me survive.”

He jokingly talked about what he and his brother, Taylor Cruse, would do on the island to survive, like building a shelter and watching each other’s backs around the island natives.

“Wait!” Cruse said.  “Can I change my answer to a helicopter? What about a lifeboat?  Do those count?”

He thought over his response for a few more moments, clearly not satisfied with his answer.  He smiled, and I knew this answer should be a good one.

“I would bring wireless Internet and my laptop,” Cruse said.  “I could Google the Bible, talk to everyone I could not bring with me on the island, I could Google plans on how to build a raft and I could watch episodes of ‘The Office’ when I got bored.”

After a second of reveling in his newly thought out plan, Cruse hesitated, and then slapped his palm onto his forehead.

“Oh crap, I didn’t even think about the laptop dying.  I’m an idiot.”

That’s when he looked at me, face completely serious with a hopeful expression.

“Can I include a solar powered charger for my laptop?”

His family, when asked what they think we would need to take with him to survive on an island alone, his mom and brother said the same thing.

“He’d probably take his laptop.”