Tami Lawrence

"LAF"-ing out Loud

 Tami Lawrence, co-founder of the Lowcountry Autism Foundation (LAF), does not have anyone in her family who suffers from autism. As the mother of a healthy, four-year-old named Ian, Tami didn't have to worry about diagnosing her son, getting him treatment or making sure his illness wouldn't create a permanent setback for him throughout life. But while working as a pediatric occupational therapist in Beaufort County and visiting small children in their homes, she realized that not everyone was as fortunate as she.

"I saw that a lot of families were having difficulties figuring out how to get services for their children, especially if there was a problem" said Tami, who now has her own practice, the Hilton Head Pediatric Therapy Center. "I thought, we really need something to help these families get early identification and decide where to go from there."

Around that same time, Tami joined a gym where she met Tripp Ritchie, the man who would eventually become the other co-founder of LAF. While jogging and working out together, they discussed ways to address the need Tami had identified in the community. As it happened, she was also taking a grant writing class as part of the coursework for her PhD; it seemed that forces were aligning. With Ritchie's support, Tami plowed full-steam ahead and, in August of 2007, LAF was incorporated as a volunteer-based non-profit with the mission to provide direct financial, service and advocacy support to individuals and families who face the challenges of living with autism.

"We know that early intervention works," said Tami, who sought funding from the Children's Relief Fund so that LAF could provide "assessments," or medical diagnoses, that otherwise would have only been available in Charleston after a 6-8 month wait. "The younger we can diagnose kids and get them treatment, the better their long-term outcomes. It could mean the difference between being fairly independent as an adult and contributing to society, or somebody who's going to need continued support for the rest of their life."

As an occupational therapist, Tami specializes in what is called sensory processing. As human beings, our nervous system is responsible for taking in everything that's going on around us, processing this information and helping us create an appropriate response. This is often where autistic people run into trouble; they may be oversensitive to touch, sound, or other stimuli. But therapy can help "rewire" their nervous systems-resetting and reprogramming neural connections-and it is in this capacity that Tami feels she has the most to offer.

"I guess I just feel like I'm where I need to be right now, doing what I need to do," she said. "It's frightening how quickly autism is on the rise, but I think that's partly because we've improved our methods of diagnosis. I want to help as many people as I can, so I feel extremely lucky and blessed to be doing this."