Winnipeg family with autistic son donates $300K to research, in late daughter's name

One Winnipeg family impacted by autism hopes that by making a $300,000 donation they can help shed light on the many different types of the disorder.

The donation comes from the Kali Dyck Foundation, which was started by Lloyd and Jackie Dyck, whose family owns the Winnipeg-based agribusiness BrettYoung seeds. The foundation is named for their daughter, who died in a traffic accident in 2011 at the age of 26.

Foundation director Erik Dyck says his sister was a champion for their older brother, Chad, who lives with autism.

"She was a very strong supporter of people with developmental disabilities and people with mental disabilities and the rights that they should have," Dyck said.

Kali helped Chad, who is now 38, experience life to the fullest, Dyck said. Chad's particular type of autism makes it difficult for him to speak and interpret the speech of others.

"But that being said, Chad has a very strong-willed personality, and he lives a very independent life that I think is, relatively speaking, quite high-quality with the challenges that he has."

Before she died, Kali was going to school, working on a master's degree in psychology, focusing on people with developmental and mental disabilities. After she died, the family started the foundation in her honour.

Now, the family has donated $300,000 to help a joint research project between St. Boniface Hospital and Ben-Gurion University in Israel. The goal of the project is to better diagnose subtypes of autism by looking at biomarkers in blood — rather than just diagnose by behaviour.

Dyck says there is a wide range of types of conditions that fall under autism spectrum disorder, and kids with vastly different capabilities are often lumped into the same category. This made it difficult for Chad to get the help he needed growing up.

"There was really no prescription, diagnosis for Chad, or how to help Chad live the best life that he could. So we just kind of had to figure it out along the way," he said.

"We feel that this research could go a long way to helping be more targeted in terms of treatment of different autism spectrum disorders that would enable kids with some of these challenges to live the most fulfilling lives that they can."

The family presented the cheque to the hospital on Sept. 28, and Dyck says his brother Chad was there. 

"Chad was out there shaking hands just like everyone else. He does it a little bit differently than most, and maybe he'll have his head kind of down and may not look you directly in the eye, but he's there."