CABOT — Joy Hobbs anxiously looked on as Mark Munholland hunched over her walker. Using black zip ties, he attached a basket to her walker. The basket was yellow, but she wanted a purple one.
“How about a purple bow?” asked Gina Quattlebaum, public relations representative at the Lonoke Exceptional Development Center in Cabot, a nonprofit organization licensed by Arkansas Developmental Disability Services.
Hobbs smiled and vigorously nodded her head in agreement.
Despite the color, the basket will give Hobbs a place to carry her purse or anything else she would like to cart around.
Munholland and Hobbs are adult clients at the Lonoke Exceptional Development Center in Cabot.
The Cabot facility is an extension of the Lonoke Exceptional School Inc., which opened in Lonoke on Sept. 5, 1974, and serves Lonoke, Prairie, Pulaski and White counties. It opened to fill a need for services to developmentally disadvantaged children that was not met by the public school system. Children from 6 months to 5 years old are accepted, but they usually transition into the public school system when they are ready for kindergarten. The center also has a section for adults that teaches them independent-living skills that could be as simple as brushing their teeth or as extensive as making a budget.
“We provide a lot of services that are not covered by Medicaid, so we have fundraisers,” Quattlebaum said. “We have individual plans for each client. We offer occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech therapy.”
The Cabot center, which opened in February 2001, now serves 84 children in its new 15,000-square-foot building. Since moving into the new building, the center can accommodate 30 adults with developmental disabilities.
“We have clients who are 18-plus, all the way to 75,” said Patti Spradley, director of adult services at the center. “We work on independent-living skills and community integration. We go on little outings into the community. We also offer wellness classes, and a literacy council tutor comes once a week.”
The adult clients come to the center Monday through Friday, and currently, Spradley said, it serves 23 adults.
“It’s a stepping stone for some, but for others, this is where they’ll be,” she said.
One of the newest programs at the center is the Medicaid Waiver Program, which provides an alternative to institutionalization so adults with developmental disabilities can live within the community as independently as possible.
“It’s a program designed to help with the independence of our clients, including work,” said Charles Barnes, director of the Medicaid Waiver Program. “We have a [Medicaid] Waiver staff member who works with them on skills.”
Staff writer Jeanni Brosius can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or jbrosius@arkansasonline.com.