Alvin V. Baird Attention and Learning Disability Center

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Our Mission

Our mission is to develop and promote research based interventions for children and adolescents with attention and learning disabilities while educating families, students, and professionals about these disabilities and best practices for their treatment.

Vision Statement

We envision a future when all children with attention and learning disabilities have access to evidence-based services provided by well-trained and passionate professionals.

Letter from the Director

Alvin V. Baird Attention & Learning Disabilities Center to Close

I am writing to let you know that the Alvin V. Baird Attention and Learning Disabilities Center at James Madison University will close this summer as I have accepted an offer to join the faculty at Ohio University this fall. Faculty in the Psychological Sciences program in the Graduate Psychology department are advertising for someone to fill my position and we are expecting the Baird Center to re-open in the near future.

The decision to leave was a difficult one as it is difficult to leave such a wonderful community. All of us in the Baird Center have thoroughly enjoyed working with the exceptional educators, mental health providers, administrators, health care providers, and families in the Shenandoah Valley. I am particularly grateful for the wonderful collaborative partnerships that we had with outstanding professionals in the Rockingham County Schools, Staunton City Schools, Augusta County Schools, and at Harrisonburg Pediatrics. I have learned a great deal from our work together as have our students and my colleagues in the center and I hope that the experience has been mutually beneficial.

The research projects that we are conducting in area high schools (Spotswood High School, Turner Ashby High School and Lee High School) will continue through the end of the academic year. Other projects that we are conducting with colleagues at JMU will continue under their leadership and I will continue to be involved and support their work. We have or soon will discontinue our service projects. There will not be a Raising the Bar Conference this year and there will be no summer camps for children and adolescents with ADHD (Summer Treatment Program and JumpStart). Our clinical services will continue to operate through May and we will continue our partnership with the local CHADD organization until we leave. I anticipate that the CHADD group will find another JMU organization to be their partner and continue to operate in Blue Ridge Hall. If you have questions about the status of a specific activity or event, please feel free to call our center at (540) 568-6484.

Although our activities during the remaining months at JMU have been curtailed to accommodate our pending move, we will still be here and I encourage you to contact us if we can be of assistance. Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to Alvin and Nancy Baird who gave so much to the center to make a difference in the lives of those with attention and learning problems. I wish everyone could have known their passion, humor, and personal dedication to this mission. In addition to their legacy at JMU and the center, we will certainly take their memories, vision and commitment to this work with us when we go.

Sincerely,

Steven W. Evans, Ph.D.
Director, Alvin V. Baird Attention & Learning Disabilities Center

Contact Us:

Alvin V. Baird Attention and Learning Disabilities Center
James Madison University
Blue Ridge Hall
MSC 9013
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
540-568-6484 phone
540-568-7988 fax

Learn about our journal “Report on Emotional & Behavioral Disorders in Youth” published by Civic Research Institute and sponsored by the Alvin V. Baird Attention & Learning Disabilities Center.

Discover more about the latest research, practical programming ideas and intervention strategies for school programs in Advances in School-Based Mental Health Interventions: Best Practices and Program Models, Volume II. Editors include Steven W. Evans, Ph.D, Mark D. Weist, Ph.D.and Zewelanji N. Serpell, Ph.D.