Kirsten P. Kent, a Harvard Extension School student, died Jan. 4 following a car accident in Florida on New Year's Day.

Kent and her sister, Kerren, were driving home after celebrating the holidays with their family in the Florida Keys. One of the car's tires split open, causing the car to flip several times. Both Kent and her sister, who was driving, were hospitalized.

Kent died after several days in a coma. Memorial services were held in Sarasota, Fla., where her family lives, and at St. Dominic's, where she attended high school on Long Island in New York. Her sister was treated and released.

For several years, Kent's passion had been treating children with autism--work she planned to continue after her schooling.

According to her father, Erik Kent, she started by working with children whom doctors had told her could not be helped.

"Her idea was touching and talking, not just going by the book--and she had some breakthroughs," he said.

In 1997-98, when she attended Goucher College in Baltimore, Kent walked through inner city projects to visit with children afflicted by the neurological disease.

Nina L. Babcock, a friend of Kent's, said what interested Kent at first was why the children hated to be touched.