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Welcome to the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (IDDRC) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

The IDDRC Program at UMass Medical School provides core support and facilities for cohesive, interdisciplinary research and research training to advance efforts to understand, ameliorate, and prevent intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Core Services

Featured Investigator

 
Richard Fleming

Dr. Richard Fleming, Associate Professor in Psychiatry, is passionate about providing training for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) and their families. He serves as Principal Investigator on NIH grants to develop distance learning courses for parents of children on the autism spectrum and to conduct research designed to help people with I/DD to adopt good health habits.

Distance learning appeals to Dr. Fleming because it directly reaches people who are consumers of behavioral services. Dr. Fleming's online courses teach parents, paraprofessionals, early intervention professionals and others who live or work with children and adults with I/DD practical tools for effecting behavior change. In 2008, Dr. Fleming and his colleagues earned the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) Award for the Most Outstanding Online Learning and Teaching Program for the Online Graduate Behavioral Intervention in Autism Program, offered in partnership with the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.

Dr. Fleming also works closely with a multidisciplinary research team at the Shriver Center to address the critical problems of obesity and poor physical fitness in people I/DD. Lifestyle interventions to promote sustainable weight loss and increase regular physical activity in people with I/DD promise to have a positive public health impact in a segment of the U.S. population that is often at increased risk for health-related problems. See Dr. Fleming's faculty webpage for more information about his research and publications.

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The Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities Research Center (IDDRC) and the University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School are both members of the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD).