About Us
After surveying medical students in 2004, we discovered the curriculum devoted to treating patients with IDD was sparse and ill-informed.
We’re changing that.
Project Background
What is Developmental Medicine?
As a medical specialty, Developmental Medicine focuses on patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) across the lifespan. Examples of IDD include autism, down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and many more. For most of human history, the average life expectancy for people with IDD was less than 20 years. Today, the life expectancy of a person with IDD is more than 60 years. The medical field, however, has not kept pace with this significant demographic shift. As an offshoot of the NICHE initiative, the American Board of Developmental Medicine (ABDM) and the American Board of Developmental Dentistry (ABDD) has formed in order to recognize physicians and dentists who have significant expertise in this field.
What is NICHE?
Founded by AADMD in 2009, NICHE Medical (NICHE-MED) originally started under the project name “National Curriculum Initiative in Developmental Medicine” (NCIDM) led by Dr. Matthew Holder, MD. Today this program defines and integrates the concepts of Developmental Medicine into the medical school curriculum of medical schools in the United States - and is led by Dr. Priya Chandan, MD, MPH, PhD.
In 2023, AADMD launched NICHE-Dental - to specifically help dental schools meet the new requirements set by the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) to train their students in managing treatment of patients with IDD. Dr. Allen Wong, DDS, EdD and Dr. David Fray, DDS enlisted 93 IDD experts and 22 dental schools to create an off-the-shelf, curriculum for dental schools.
“Healthcare for a person with IDD is 3.6 times that of somebody without IDD. We estimate that the Medicaid system alone could save $2B to $7B annually - and produce better outcomes for people with IDD - if healthcare providers received adequate training”