Dr. Pamela Rollins

Dr. Pamela Rollins

Gov. Rick Perry has selected Dr. Pamela Rollins of UT Dallas’ School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences to serve another two-year term on the Texas Council on Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders.

The council recommends public policy changes and allocations to the Texas Legislature and state agencies regarding the needs of people with autism and other developmental disorders and their families.

Rollins was first appointed to the panel in 2008. She was previously co-chairwoman of the Texas Act Early strategic planning committee and the Texas Council on Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders strategic planning committee. That group’s efforts resulted in the 2010-2014 Texas State Plan for individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

She is now working on a grant between the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services and UT Dallas on behalf of the council.

“It is a pilot project to determine the impact of CHADIS on pediatricians doing developmental and autism screening in Texas. CHADIS is a management system that administers and analyzes pre-visit, online questionnaires completed by parents, teens or teachers, and it provides clinicians with instant access to clinical data and resources,” Rollins said.  

The project seeks to confirm other results that indicate that the management system improves diagnosis and management of developmental and autism screening.

Rollins, an associate professor of communication sciences and a licensed speech-language pathologist, teaches and conducts research primarily at the Callier Center for Communications Disorders. Her current research focuses on early indicators of autism and social communication skills in individuals with autism.

Rollins is a member of the American and Texas Speech Language associations, International Society on Infant Studies and International Congress in Child Language. She received a bachelor’s degree from Boston University, a master’s degree in communication disorders from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a doctorate in communication disorders from Harvard University.