ISA students’ DDTrac sheds new light onto autism
April 24, 2008
When students from the Information Systems Association student club wanted to start a business, their advisor, Dawn Gregg had the perfect idea. They could use a software program she had developed years earlier. She always knew she could start a business with her idea, and this was the perfect opportunity.
Gregg, Assistant Professor of Information Systems, has a son who is autistic. Over the years she became an expert on his development. Gregg kept notebooks full of all kinds of information, everything from his diet to reactionary behaviors.
With the notebooks piling up, Gregg realized she was spending valuable time tracking information with pencil and paper - time she could have spent working with her son.
She decided to write a software program that could hold the information and make it easier to analyze the data. This program could be used at home and by the professionals working with her son.
The program saved time and was beneficial for her son’s development. It allowed them to input data and get reports back that had a positive impact on her son’s therapy.
In 2004 Gregg put the the application on the web. It was then that she realized that the software was something sellable, and be very beneficial for anyone working with developmentally disabled kids.
By 2007 Gregg was the faculty sponsor of the Information Systems Association student club at UC Denver. The students wanted to start a business. Gregg proposed to that they modify the program and market it to parents and professionals working with developmentally disabled kids.
Three students took her up on her offer and are co-owners of DDTrac with Gregg and her husband.
DDTrac is currently growing their customer base. One of their clients, a school in Pennsylvania, is using the program to track 270 students.
Gregg says there will be an increase in demand for DDTrac. More and more schools are requiring that there be a clear response to intervention with developmentally disabled students. DDTrac is a solution to this problem.
Going into it this project Gregg says she was only thinking about the welfare of her child. What she didn’t expect was an experience that would help her become a better teacher. Starting a business with students has given her hands-on skills that translate to the classroom. She has written two research papers on the company’s development, and is planning to make it a focus of her upcoming sabbatical.
Gregg wasn’t the only one with a surprising outcome. She says that, “The students learned more in this project than they learned in most other classrooms.” This is experiential learning at its best.
Learn more about DDTrac please visit their web site www.developingmindssoftware.com.
