ALISON SINGER: Thank you. Jon, it's our pleasure to be here and we are honored and grateful to be this year's beneficiary of the American Century Championship.
I just also want to thank specifically Bill Lyons and Mark Killen and Brian Spano from American Century; Jon Miller and Gary Quinn from NBC Sports, and of course Dan Marino from the Marino Foundation.
Autism Speaks was launched in February of this year when Bob Wright, the CEO and chairman of NBC Universal, and his wife, Suzanne, received the devastating news that their grandson had been diagnosed with autism. Autism now strikes 1 in 166 children; 12 years ago that number was 1 in 10,000. So autism has really reached epidemic proportions. And we are not sure what is causing what is fueling the increase is autism, but one thing we do know is that every 20 minutes another set of parents receives the devastating diagnosis that their child is autistic. I am one of those parents; Dan is one of those parents, and I can tell you it was one of the worst moments of my life.
But, I also want to say that this really is a time for hope. Because one of the things we do know about autism is that if you can detect autism early and get a child into early intervention, you can ward off many of the most serious consequences of the disorder.
So we are very grateful to American Century for the opportunity to talk this weekend about the importance of being aware of the developmental milestones for children and of helping parents understand what those milestones are, so that if there's a problem, they can get their child into an early intervention program.
It's also a time of hope in the autism community because ten years ago, there were only 12 scientists studying autism, and now there are over 400. The only thing that is slowing down our search for a cure is money to fund researchers. And so again, we're very grateful to American Century, NBC Sports and to the Marino Foundation for the opportunity to raise money to fund the scientists who are seeking a cure.
And with that I'll pass it onto Mark Killen who again, thank you, Mark and to American Century.
MARK KILLEN: Thank you, Alison. I want to take a minute and explain our connection to this wonderful charity and also tell you a little bit about what we do. Our mission in life at American Century Investments is to create fantastic investment performance for investors. But 47 years ago when we were founded, our founder set forth the idea of, you know, if we help others be successful, they will in turn make us very successful. That's truly happened at our firm, and over 47 years we have grown to $100 billion in assets serving more than two million investors.
Now, our founder, during this period has amassed quite a fortune, and it's amazing to me to know that what he did with that was just something spectacular. He took $2 billion of his personal fortune and founded the Stowers Institute For Medical Research. This medical research institute is built to unlock the mysteries of gene based disease. So we are very, very happy and proud to sponsor Autism Speaks this year.
Now, I want to tell you how we are going to raise funds for this great charity. Last night we kicked off fund raising with a $25,000 donation to Autism Speaks. We also made the donation or matching funds for any of our clients that choose to bid on auction items, we will match any bids. The players here that choose to remain in amateur status can donate their winnings to Autism Speaks.
But probably one of the most important thing things that we are going to do here is raise awareness, and to that end we have donated seven of our commercial spots during the tournament to Autism Speaks to help raise awareness on a national level. So we're hopeful that the combination of funds raising efforts on site and our efforts to raise awareness nationally will really benefit this great cause.
So with that, I'll pass it to Dan.
DAN MARINO: Thank you. Well, for me, I guess this kind of started six months ago. I got to know Bob Wright a little bit. He called me on the phone. He said he'd like me to come over to his office and talk to him. Him and his wife were there and he told me the news about his grandson. He knew that I had had a son that is autistic and that he wanted me to just sit down with him and talk about some of the things we were doing with our foundation and what I thought about some of the treatments and different things.
Bob said he was going to start something for autism and awareness nationally and he wanted to help in any way he could, and that's where Autism Speaks basically started, Alison, right? He's a terrific man and he's very dedicated to this, and for me any time I can be involved with anyone that wants to help children or families with autism, I'm going to be involved. And I will say, Alison was absolutely right. You know, the awareness is the most important thing, and also, early intervention. We mentioned that, and we don't take that lightly because in my case, my son, Michael, was diagnosed when he was two years old and we started treatment immediately. We were fortunate enough and financially I was fortunate enough to get all of the treatment I needed for him and put him in a great environment in a situation where he could develop quickly.
Today he's 17 and he's doing terrific. He's doing well in school, he's quarterback of a high school football team and plays basketball. If he walked in this room, you would not think there was a problem.
I'm not allowed to say that there's a cure or there's a kid that's cured for autism, but if it was up to me, I would say that my son, Michael, is cured. He's an incredible kid and he's a perfect example for any families or anybody; and hope, I would say, it would be hope for any young family that has a child with autism that it can be that they can be Michael, with early intervention and the right treatments. Now sometimes that's the problem and that's why we're here raising money. Our foundation was created, since 1992 we've had it, we've been raising a lot of money, mostly for a developmental center we have in Fort Lauderdale. We see, I think it's 48,000 kids last year, and it's a developmental center dealing with all sorts of neurological problems, speech therapies, different things. It's been very successful and that's where we do most of our fund raising there. We have outreach programs.
And if it's okay if I can announce something now that we're doing, an affiliation we are going to have an Autism Research Institute and my foundation just committed to give $1 million over the next two years to the University of Miami and also University of Vanderbilt to have an Autism Research Institute, and it's something that we are all very proud of.
In the community of autism and the families, I think it's everybody working together that it's going to make, you know, a cure some day, and we definitely need the money for the research and that's where we're headed as far as the foundation is concerned. We do a lot of outreach programs which is important.
With that said, I'd just like to say, Jon, thank you so much for having me back and NBC and American Century for letting me be involved. And Allison, as a parent, too, thank you for being involved. And I'm here for whatever you need.
PHIL WEIDINGER: Alison, do you have a Web site or number you would like to include so people and spectators can could get more information?
ALISON SINGER: The best way to get more information is on our Web site, www.autismspeaks.org.
Q. Just for clarity sake, could you just describe what autism is and why it's grown to be such an epidemic?
ALISON SINGER: Well, right now, it's a mystery. We don't know why it's grown to be an epidemic.
What we do know about autism is that it has a strong genetic component. Those of you sitting in the audience today, if you had a child, the chances of that child being diagnosed would be 1 in 166. My chances as a parent of a child with autism already are 1 in 15. So autism is one of the most highly inheritable genetic disorders.
There are really three areas that encompass the disorder. Children with autism have difficulty with communication, with social skills and with their behavior. About 50 percent of children with autism are not able to speak and have a difficulty with other forms of non verbal communication. Children with autism across the spectrum, and it is a spectrum of disorders, have a tremendously difficult time learning associate skills and interacting in a associate environment. Most children with autism, my daughter included, are not able to tell their parents that they love them. And as a parent, that's the hard thing to deal with every day. I know she's in there somewhere and wants to tell me, but unfortunately, she can't communicate that.
And then the third area is really restricted patterns of behaviors. Children with autism, a large number of them need to follow a very tight schedule every day. They cannot deviate from that schedule. A lot of them have very severe temper tantrums, can't deal with change of any kind, have difficulty in any type of new environment. I can't take my daughter to a restaurant or a supermarket without igniting a temper tantrum.
So it's a very serious disorder. It impacts the entire family. I have another daughter who does not have the disorder who is sometimes describes as the unaffected sibling, but I say calling her the unaffected sibling is like calling me an unaffected mother. My entires household revolves around autism. It affects everyone in my entire family every day.
Q. Dan, I wanted to ask you, would it be fair to say that your son inspired you through the latter part of your football career?
DAN MARINO: Well, what inspired me I think about Michael is he had all of the typical symptoms of any young boy diagnosed with autism. From what I remember, I don't think he started to speak until he was four and a half or so. For him to be able he worked hard. I mean, he worked hard, and sometimes when you're a kid in those situations and you have to deal with all of the therapies and the time that's involved, you know, you could tell, I could tell at a young age that there was something inside of him that wanted, he wanted to get better and fortunately he has. So that inspiration alone for me is worth it.
PHIL WEIDINGER: Thank you all. Look forward to a big week.
End of FastScripts.
