Instead of driving to different locations for different appointments, children and adults with autism now have a comprehensive care clinic in Hamden where they can get all the services they need.
"Awareness needs to be brought to autism and to be able to have this clinic it opens so many doors for so many people," Chery D’Argento said.
D’Argento’s 13-year-old son Michael is already enjoying the sensory room at the Marne Street Clinic operated by the Clifford Beers Clinic.
"The bubbles, the speakers," Michael said. "It just makes this whole room beautiful."
"Michael can have a meltdown at any moment usually week now the triggers sometimes," his mom said. "To have anything with sensory will calm them."
D’Argento’s son was diagnosed with autism when he was six-years-old. She said the treatment he had received through the Clifford Beers Clinic the past four years has made a big difference.
"Most people who have children that are not on the spectrum they go to dance they go to boy scouts cub scouts," she said. "We go to therapy."
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The new clinic in Hamden will offer physical, mental and social health services under the same roof.
"What we wanted to do is create one center where a family could get both pediatric consultation or neurological consultation as well as behavioral health and some care coordination or social work they may need," Clifford Beers CEO Dr. Alice Forrester said. "So it is really one-stop-shopping we’re looking at."
The center has been almost three years in the works leading up to Thursday’s ribbon-cutting and grand opening, Forrester told NBC Connecticut.
"It is for both children, young children and adolescents and adults, so we’re really holding folks through the lifespan," she said.
D’Argento looks forward to coming back to the Marne Street Clinic with her son.
"For a parent," she said, "it's incredible, the services that they’re going to offer, you can’t get in one spot. Now you can."
Forrester said she expects families from across the state to utilize this one of a kind center for individuals on the spectrum.
