31 Dec 2024 Five-Oh-Ones to Watch 2025: Elizabeth Cleveland

Posted at 6:22 PMh in Five-Oh-Ones to Watch by

By Donna Lampkin Stephens

The Conway resident, 37, a former University of Central Arkansas professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, is branching out with two colleagues into private practice this month with the new Fusion Center Network, a telehealth diagnostic clinic that will eventually serve clients nationwide.

Photo by Mike Kemp

“Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) are highly prevalent, one in 20 people, but less than 1 percent ever receive an accurate diagnosis,” said Cleveland, who grew up in Alabama but moved to the 501 in 2014 and earned her doctoral degree at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 2020. “There are huge populations of people who are very misunderstood because their symptoms haven’t been diagnosed as a brain-based disorder.”

Very little alcohol is needed to cause FASD, she said.

“More than two drinks at any time during a pregnancy can cause an FASD, including before pregnancy symptoms start,” Cleveland said. “People don’t realize how easy it is to cause one, and also that it is not willful behavior. I’ve never met a pregnant person who was trying to harm their child.”

She has a sibling who has a disability, so she has always been interested in the helping professions. That was a major reason why she became a speech/language pathologist who now specializes in neurodevelopmental disorders.

“I had a mentor in my PhD program who introduced me to FASD my first semester, and as soon as I found out about it, I realized how many people I knew who [the symptoms] described them so well, and that helped me immediately shift my thinking,” she said.

One of the classic presentations of FASD is executive dysfunction, which can be perceived as disorganization, emotional dysregulation, or difficulty attending or transitioning between tasks. Many of those conditions are similar to those associated with ADHD. Cleveland said 65 percent of FASD patients have an existing ADHD diagnosis, which may or may not be accurate.

“A lot of times the fetal alcohol spectrum disorders [diagnosis] better explains the combination of symptoms,” she said. “For example, if somebody came in with an ADHD diagnosis paired with oppositional defiant disorder paired with anxiety or depression, those separate disorders may be better explained as symptoms of just one disorder.”

One of Cleveland’s goals is to decrease the stigma around FASD. “[FASD symptoms are] perceived as willful behavior, but truly, it’s because of a brain-based condition,” she said. “We need to help the community around these people better understand them so that the expectations they have of them are achievable. Otherwise, we’re setting them up for failure.”

Cleveland is transitioning into private practice from Partners for Inclusive Communities, where she was associate director and led an outreach initiative for FASD that is funded by more than $10 million in grants from the Department of Human Services and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Arkansas. Her previous success there, she said, had given her the confidence to move into private practice.

“Appropriate services can be put in place with an accurate diagnosis,” she said. “What we need is a shift in the environment to support the person, and that happens through understanding. We’re melding into Fusion Center Network because we’re looking for a 50-state solution.”

Donna Stephens
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