Dr. Monica Ultmann Receives the

2007 Child Advocate Award!

Dr. Monica Ultmann, a board certified Developmental Pediatrician, was presented with the 2007 Child Advocate Award on Child Advocacy Day. For over twenty years, Dr. Ultmann has dedicated her professional career to working with, evaluating, treating, and advocating for infants, toddlers, school-age children, and adolescents and their families with a wide range of developmental disabilities including autism and communication disorders, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, learning disabilities, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. 

She introduced a successful early literacy program in the greater St. Louis region, Reach Out and Read. This is a national program which trains health care providers to give literacy guidance to the parents and caretakers of high risk children, ages 6 months to 5 years of age. In their first year of operation, they have reached over 27,000 children and the program is growing rapidly, reaching urban and rural families.

Dr. Ultmann received a referral for a three-year old child for evaluation of a significant language delay and inattention. As Dr. Ultmann was interviewing the parents, they both admitted to having significant learning disabilities and the father to low literacy. She asked whether they read to their child to encourage his language development. They admitted that they didn’t know how. She sat with the child on her lap, opened a “Bob the Builder” book, and began “reading”. With wide-open eyes, he stared with fascination at the pictures, helping to turn pages and pointing to each picture in the book. After a few minutes, Dr. Ultmann turned to the parents and told them that she had “read” to the child by making up a story reflecting the pictures in the book, never “reading” a single word on the page. With tears in his eyes, the father took his son on his lap, and with another book, sat with his child reading together for the first time. The child listened intently for a long period, nestling into his father’s arms.

In her positions at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center and St. Louis University School of Medicine, she has effectively spoken out and advocated both for individual families she cares for and for all children with disabilities and their families. Her current work with representatives of Missouri government to implement Reach Out and Read on a statewide-level and increase funding for the evaluation and care of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder are examples of her tireless dedication to moving forward a children's agenda for Missouri.