tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46745221014245017082024-02-19T22:13:43.450-08:00Autism Help PhilsThis blog will be all about Autism.This will be a source of information of parents as well as professional on issues,trends,schools that these CWA can go to,methods and approaches as well as style of teaching,new researches and upcoming events about Autism.I will also be suggetsing books to read as well as publish articles that are important in the field.Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-23813669430105912962010-05-24T22:49:00.000-07:002010-05-24T22:50:40.706-07:00Britain bans doctor who linked autism to vaccineBy MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng, Ap Medical Writer – Mon May 24, 9:30 pm ET<br /><br />LONDON – The doctor whose research linking autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella influenced millions of parents to refuse the shot for their children was banned Monday from practicing medicine in his native Britain.<br /><br />Dr. Andrew Wakefield's 1998 study was discredited — but vaccination rates have never fully recovered and he continues to enjoy a vocal following, helped in the U.S. by endorsements from celebrities like Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy<br /><br />Wakefield was the first researcher to publish a peer-reviewed study suggesting a connection between autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. Legions of parents abandoned the vaccine, leading to a resurgence of measles in Western countries where it had been mostly stamped out. There are outbreaks across Europe every year and sporadic outbreaks in the U.S.<br /><br />"That is Andrew Wakefield's legacy," said Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "The hospitalizations and deaths of children from measles who could have easily avoided the disease."<br /><br />Wakefield's discredited theories had a tremendous impact in the U.S., Offit said, adding: "He gave heft to the notion that vaccines in general cause autism."<br /><br />In Britain, Wakefield's research led to a huge decline in the number of children receiving the MMR vaccine: from 95 percent in 1995 — enough to prevent measles outbreaks — to 50 percent in parts of London in the early 2000s. Rates have begun to recover, though not enough to prevent outbreaks. In 2006, a 13-year-old boy became the first person to die from measles in Britain in 14 years.<br /><br />"The false suggestion of a link between autism and the MMR vaccine has done untold damage to the UK vaccination program," said Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. "Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that it is safe."<br /><br />On Monday, Britain's General Medical Council, which licenses and oversees doctors, found Wakefield guilty of serious professional misconduct and stripped him of the right to practice medicine in the U.K. Wakefield said he plans to appeal the ruling, which takes effect within 28 days.<br /><br />The council was acting on a finding in January that Wakefield and two other doctors showed a "callous disregard" for the children in their study, published in 1998 in the medical journal Lancet. The medical body said Wakefield took blood samples from children at his son's birthday party, paying them 5 pounds (about $7.20) each and later joked about the incident.<br /><br />The study has since been widely rejected. From 1998-2004, studies in journals including the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, Pediatrics and BMJ published papers showing no link between autism and the measles vaccine.<br /><br />Wakefield moved to the U.S. in 2004 and set up an autism research center in Austin, Texas, where he gained a wide following despite being unlicensed as a doctor there and facing skepticism from the medical community. He quit earlier this year.<br /><br />Offit said he doubted Britain's decision to strip the 53-year-old Wakefield of his medical license would convince many parents that vaccines are safe.<br /><br />"He's become almost like a Christ-like figure and it doesn't matter that science has proven him wrong," Offit said. "He is a hero for parents who think no one else is listening to them."<br /><br />Wakefield told The Associated Press Monday's decision was a sad day for British medicine. "None of this alters the fact that vaccines can cause autism," he said.<br /><br />"These parents are not going away; the children are not going to go away and I most certainly am not going away," he said on NBC's "Today Show."<br /><br />Wakefield claimed the U.S. government has been settling cases of vaccine-induced autism since 1991.<br /><br />However, two rulings by a special branch of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in March and last year found no link between vaccines and autism. More than 5,500 claims have been filed by families seeking compensation for children they claim were hurt by the vaccine.<br /><br />Wakefield has won support from parents suspicious of vaccines, including Hollywood celebrities.<br /><br />McCarthy, who has an autistic son, issued a statement in February with then boyfriend Carrey asserting Wakefield was "being vilified through a well-orchestrated smear campaign."<br /><br />"It is our most sincere belief that Dr. Wakefield and parents of children with autism around the world are being subjected to a remarkable media campaign engineered by vaccine manufacturers," the actors said.<br /><br />McCarthy, whose best-seller "Louder Than Words" details her search for treatments for her son Evan, wrote the foreword for a new book by Wakefield about autism and vaccines.<br /><br />In Monday's ruling, the medical council said Wakefield abused his position as a doctor and "brought the medical profession into disrepute."<br /><br />At the time of his study, Wakefield was working as a gastroenterologist at London's Royal Free Hospital and did not have approval for the research. The study suggested autistic children had a bowel disease and raised the possibility of a link between autism and vaccines. He had also been paid to advise lawyers representing parents who believed their children had been hurt by the MMR vaccine.<br /><br />Ten of the study's authors later renounced its conclusions and it was retracted by the Lancet in February.<br /><br />At least a dozen British medical associations, including the Royal College of Physicians, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust have issued statements verifying the safety of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.<br /><br />This verdict is not about (the measles) vaccine," said Adam Finn, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Bristol Medical School. "We all now know that the vaccine is remarkably safe and enormously effective... We badly need to put this right for the sake of our own children and children worldwide."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-16612796374534420072010-04-02T17:49:00.000-07:002010-04-02T18:03:28.601-07:00Autistic Kids At The Movies :Where Shhhh Is'nt AllowedOn April 10, thousands of children with autism will be able to do something that for many of them was impossible until recently: go to the movies. They'll see How to Train Your Dragon at one of 93 "sensory-friendly" screenings in 47 cities across 30 states. The lights will dim but remain on, the volume will be lowered, the movie will start promptly at 10 a.m. with no previews, families with special dietary needs will be allowed to bring snacks from home, and if the kids yell or even stroll around the theater, no one will complain.<br /><br />April Autism Awareness Month marks the first anniversary of the Sensory Friendly Films program, a joint venture of AMC Entertainment and the Autism Society. Screenings of the G- or PG-rated movies, all newly released, are held once a month on a Saturday morning. Expansion to other cities is planned. <br /><br /><br />A regular at the screenings is Marianna Pollock of Virginia Beach, Va., and her 6-year-old son Xander. "We attempted a regular movie a few times," says Pollock. "We always ended up having to leave within the first 15 minutes because Xander gets so excited that he flaps and makes noise. It was very stressful."<br /><br />Xander's behavior at the movies is typical for many people with autism, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates affects 1 in 110 children. "One of the challenges for people with an autism spectrum disorder is coping with strong sensory stimulation," says psychologist Sandra Harris, who runs the Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. "They may be overwhelmed by loud sounds, bright lights, crowds of people. A person of any age with an ASD may flap his or her hands, twist her fingers, call out or rock when she is excited by an event such as a movie." <br /><br />Silvia Townsend of San Diego took her 12-year-old son Bailey to a regular movie. Once. "It was horrible," says Townsend. "He was terrified when the lights turned off. And when the loud music started, he was covering his ears and started screaming in obvious pain." Now Bailey loves attending sensory-friendly films.<br /><br />So does 18-year-old Matthew Kay, who has severe autism and attends the films with other young adults and the staff of the group home he lives in near San Diego. The last time Matthew was able to attend a regular movie, he was 4. <br /><br /><br />The idea for the films first came about in 2007 when Marianne Ross, of Elkridge, Md., took her then 7-year-old daughter Meaghan, who has autism, to see Hairspray. Ross purposely picked an early matinee, when there would be fewer people. "Meaghan loves Zac Efron, so when he came onscreen, she just danced, twirled, flapped her hands and jumped up and down." Several patrons complained, and the manager asked the Rosses to leave. "I was so frustrated, angry and upset," recalls Ross, "because Meaghan had been so happy. I thought, There's got to be a lot of children in the same situation."<br /><br />The next day, Ross called her local AMC movie theater in Columbia, Md., and spoke to manager Dan Harris. She asked if he'd be willing to set up a special screening. Harris, who had never known anyone with autism, met with Ross, heard her suggestions and came up with some adaptations to make the screening more sensory-friendly to kids with the disorder. <br /><br /><br />Ross put the word out about the upcoming screening through her local Autism Society chapter. "We didn't know if we'd have an empty auditorium," says Harris. "We had 300 seats, and we had to turn people away. I knew we were on to something."<br /><br />Harris held three more monthly screenings, then contacted AMC's national headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., where he spoke with community-relations manager Cindy Huffstickler. She thought it was a great idea and was surprised no one had thought of it before. Huffstickler then contacted the Autism Society's national headquarters, which got its chapters behind a few national test screenings that proved just as successful. <br /><br /><br />"Attending a film where you know everyone in the theater is either in the same situation as you or is at least informed that the 'Silence is golden' policy doesn't apply today takes the tension away," says Angela Vandersteen of Greenwood, Ind., who takes her 5-year-old son Ray to the screenings. When Marianne Ross takes Meaghan to the movies, she also takes along her 8-year-old son Gavin, who does not have autism; he has developed a network of friends who are siblings of autistic kids at the screenings. <br /><br /><br />Even families of children without autism but with other special needs, like those with physical disabilities, have started attending the screenings, citing the sense of acceptance they feel there.<br /><br />"Our children are constantly under scrutiny," says Xander's mother Marianna. "They look normal, so people often think they're just misbehaving. It becomes exhausting trying to validate their right to be themselves. At a sensory-friendly movie, we as a family finally get to go to a movie and relax. Boy, does that feel wonderful."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-52856153542968247562010-02-03T16:16:00.000-08:002010-02-03T16:24:24.746-08:00Medical journal retracts study linking autism to vaccine(CNN) -- The medical journal The Lancet on Tuesday retracted a controversial 1998 paper that linked the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism.<br /><br />The study subsequently had been discredited, and last week, the lead author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, was found to have acted unethically in conducting the research.<br /><br />The General Medical Council, which oversees doctors in Britain, said that "there was a biased selection of patients in The Lancet paper" and that his "conduct in this regard was dishonest and irresponsible."<br /><br />The panel found that Wakefield subjected some children in the study to various invasive medical procedures such as colonoscopies and MRI scans. He also paid children at his son's birthday party to have blood drawn for research purposes, an act that "showed a callous disregard" for the "distress and pain" of the children, the panel said. <br /><br />After the council's findings last week, The Lancet retracted the study and released this statement.<br /><br />"It has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al. are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation. In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were 'consecutively referred' and that investigations were 'approved' by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record."<br /><br />Dr. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, said he reviewed the General Medical Council report regarding Wakefield's conduct.<br /><br />"It's the most appalling catalog and litany of some the most terrible behavior in any research and is therefore very clear that it has to be retracted," he said.<br /><br />CNN was unable to speak to Wakefield, but in a statement he denied wrongdoing.<br /><br />"The allegations against me and against my colleagues are both unfounded and unjust and I invite anyone to examine the contents of these proceedings and come to their own conclusion. In fact, the Lancet paper does not claim to confirm a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Research into that possible connection is still going on."<br /><br />The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention praised The Lancet's retraction, saying, "It builds on the overwhelming body of research by the world's leading scientists that concludes there is no link between MMR vaccine and autism. We want to remind parents that vaccines are very safe and effective and they save lives. Parents who have questions about the safety of vaccines should talk to their pediatrician or their child's health care provider."<br /><br />Since its publication, Wakefield's study has attracted many critics who argued that the work had been so flawed, it should not be regarded as scientific.<br /><br />Wakefield theorized that the measles vaccine caused gastrointestinal problems and that those GI problems led to autism. In his view, the virus used in the vaccine grew in the intestinal tract, leading the bowel to become porous because of inflammation. Then material seeped from the bowel into the blood, Wakefield's theory said, affecting the nervous system and causing autism.<br /><br />But subsequent research has been unable to duplicate Wakefield's findings. <br /><br />A September 2008 study replicated key parts of Wakefield's original paper and found no evidence that the vaccine had a connection to either autism or GI disorders. The study, conducted at Columbia University, Massachusetts General Hospital and the CDC, also found no relationship between the timing of the vaccine and children getting GI disorders or autism.<br /><br />The Wakefield study has been a key piece of evidence cited by many parents who do not vaccinate their children because of autism fears.<br /><br />"The story became credible because it was published in The Lancet," Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, said Tuesday. "It was in The Lancet, and we really rely on these medical journals."<br /><br />Singer, the mother of a child with autism, added, "That study did a lot of harm. People became afraid of vaccinations. This is the Wakefield legacy: this unscientifically grounded fear of vaccinations that result in children dying from vaccine-preventable diseases."<br /><br />Retractions are rare in medical journals and usually occur as a result of fraud or plagiarism, said Marcia Angell, a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.<br /><br />"It is a major event when there is a retraction like this," she said. "It sounds like there was a misleading design of the study ... patients not randomly chosen. There were ethical violations."<br /><br />William Schaffner, professor and chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, described the journal's level of action as "unprecedented."<br /><br />"Since Wakefield's study came out, some 20 other studies have come out, and each one of these studies, done by different researchers, in different populations and in different countries, has denied the associations between vaccines and autism," he said. "Scientifically, this story is over."<br /><br />Schaffner added, "This series of events is damning and should refocus all of us in the field to find better methods of diagnosis and treatments."<br /><br />The Lancet came under criticism for the initial publication of the paper 12 years ago.<br /><br />"The mere publishing of this paper created something that will never fully go way: the false notion that MMR caused autism," said Dr. Paul Offit, author of "Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure," and the chief of division of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.<br /><br />The retraction did little to change the opinion of Rebecca Estepp, a spokeswoman for Talk About Curing Autism.<br /><br />Estepp said her son has autism and bowel problems. She said she remains convinced that he had a vaccine reaction and that Wakefield's research helped doctors identify how to help her son.<br /><br />"I guess the GMC can say whatever they want to say for the rest of their existence, but I know that my son got better because of Dr. Wakefield," she said.<br /><br />Generation Rescue, an advocacy and support group founded by actress Jenny McCarthy, whose son has autism, expressed support for Wakefield. A co-founder of the group, JB Handley, called him "a courageous honest doctor who told an inconvenient truth." McCarthy is a high-profile proponent of the belief that childhood vaccinations may play a part in the condition.<br /><br />Generation Rescue criticized the General Medical Council's judgment on Wakefield with this statement: "The sole purpose of the GMC's ruling this week is to try and quell the growing concern of parents that the expanding vaccine schedule and the remarkable rise in autism are correlated."<br /><br />It also advised parents to do their own research before deciding to give their child the MMR vaccine.<br /><br />Cases in which U.S. families have sued alleging a vaccine-autism link have had mixed outcomes. <br /><br />In 2007, a U.S. federal program intended to compensate victims of injuries caused by vaccines concluded that a 9-year-old girl's underlying illness had predisposed her to symptoms of autism and was "significantly aggravated" by the vaccinations.<br /><br />Two years later, three American families sought compensation from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, but the panel ruled that they had not presented sufficient evidence to prove that the vaccines caused autism in their children.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-53679325267582300632010-01-26T15:21:00.000-08:002010-01-26T15:22:45.813-08:00Special, giftedBy Michael Tan<br />Philippine Daily Inquirer<br />First Posted 21:41:00 01/14/2010<br /><br />Filed Under: Children, Health, Air Transport<br /><br />LAST Wednesday I began to write about the wide spectrum of conditions we are dealing with when we talk about special children. I discussed global development delay (GDD), mental retardation (MR) and autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), and how there might be overlaps with these conditions.<br /><br />To make things even more complicated, there are many other medical conditions that are not just associated with, but might actually be the causes, of GDD and MR. For example, a child’s speech delay might be due to a hearing disability. Lead poisoning, which can come from house paint and vehicular emissions, can likewise affect mental development.<br /><br />The term “special child” is a good one, but carries over the strong stigma associated with older terms, for example, “retarded” or even “mentally ill,” which is the way society stereotypes and judges people. I have heard conversations where someone used the term, and got a response like, “Ah, abnormal child” or “Ah, retarded.”<br /><br />Hidden labels<br /><br />The hidden labels of “abnormal” and “retarded” are dangerous, often blocking parents from going to seek professional help and diagnosis, or marginalizing the stigmatized child in school and in the community.<br /><br />Who knows how many children were forced to drop out of schools because they seemed “retarded” when the slower mental development might have been caused by easily reversible iron deficiency anemia, or malnutrition?<br /><br />Some years back in my work in an urban poor community in Quezon City, I encountered someone who had dropped out of school at the age of 14, ashamed because he had only reached fourth grade. I suspected he had a learning disability called dyslexia, where the letters in words keep getting interchanged, which makes reading difficult. My suspicions came from the way he would text messages, as well as read signs. We never got to confirm if he had dyslexia because his family could not afford the diagnostic tests. He is now 20 and has a family, but can only find occasional work.<br /><br />The term “special child” does include those with learning disabilities, and there’s another wide range of conditions here, many of which many families still don’t recognize. Even near-sightedness can create learning difficulties, yet in developing countries like the Philippines, many families do not have their children’s vision checked, partly because of economics and partly because there is still the idea that children don’t generally need glasses.<br /><br />It might help then if we shift our mind-sets away from “special child” (and its continuing negative connotations) to “children with special needs.” This is especially important for teachers, who tend to only recognize the more extreme and visible “outliers” from the norm: the very “bright” ones, who are then labeled “gifted” and the ones who seem “slow.”<br /><br />I am sorry about all those quotation marks but as I pointed out on Wednesday, intelligence is a controversial concept. You may have children labeled mentally retarded who have awesome skills in some fields, for example, math or music.<br /><br />The old term used for them was “idiot savant” but objections have been raised with the term “idiot” so today there are alternative terms like “autistic savant” and even “mega savant,” emphasizing the aspect of genius.<br /><br />My point is that we may have many savants out there whose potentials will never be developed because our biases about what is normal block us from seeing less apparent forms of genius.<br /><br />Interchanged terms<br /><br />Let’s get back now to the Cebu Pacific controversy. Some media reports said that the airline had a rule against boarding more than one passenger with “mental illnesses” on each flight. Other reports said it was more than one “special child.” The way the two terms are interchanged shows that our fears of the “special child” stem from a notion that they are mentally ill.<br /><br />In the Internet exchanges about the Cebu Pacific incidents, people have argued that special children should not be allowed to fly because they become unruly or violent and could endanger other passengers. Others paint a scenario where there is a flight emergency and that flight attendants would have a hard time evacuating the “retarded.”<br /><br />But if we use such criteria we would then have to set passenger quotas on people who tend to binge on alcohol. We would also need quotas for infants and toddlers, on the elderly, and on people who are physically handicapped, even someone having a cast for a fractured arm or foot.<br /><br />The Cebu Pacific controversy reminded me of a case in the United States. In October last year, a woman from New Mexico filed a lawsuit against three airlines that were operating a flight from which she had been asked to disembark. The incident dated back to 2006 and what had happened was that she was breastfeeding her one-year-old daughter while waiting for the plane to take off. The flight attendant asked her to cover herself with a blanket and when she refused, she was made to get off the plane.<br /><br />The passenger’s complaint led to women launching protest actions in 19 airports where they breastfed in public.<br /><br />My point is that airline policies often only reflect public notions of morality and what is “normal” or “abnormal.” Cebu Pacific’s policy only reflected public discomfort with and fears of “special children,” and unfortunately, the ones who are most visible with their conditions – children with Down syndrome and global developmental delays, for example – end up the most stigmatized.<br /><br />Diversity<br /><br />Rather than training our sights on Cebu Pacific alone, we need to look at how we respond to special children in general in our own homes and schools.<br /><br />Let me give a concrete example here. Right now, special children usually end up in special schools, which can be very much more expensive than regular schools. Now, what would happen if regular schools began to accept special children? It is actually happening, with a handful of schools, but with quotas and with a screening process that assesses whether the special children can handle life in the regular school.<br /><br />It’s a good policy, expanding the options for the special children, while allowing “regular” children to become part of the worlds of special children. I visited one such school the other day and realized this is possible only when the schools’ parents and teachers value diversity.<br /><br />Unfortunately, many of our schools and social institutions, fear anyone who’s different. They will not even allow adopted children, for example, or children of single mothers and separated couples simply because they don’t fit into definitions of a “normal” family. The underlying message of such discriminatory policies is that the “abnormal” children – adopted, “special,” whatever – might “contaminate” the “normal” ones.<br /><br />Ultimately, we have to recognize that while special children need more time and attention, we also need to be sensitive to how children can be so different from each other, so that siblings in a family or children in one class, will need individualized attention. With that kind of thinking, we would value all children as special, and as gifted.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-35999749888929629382010-01-26T15:19:00.000-08:002010-02-06T15:05:21.892-08:00SM, ASP celebrate National Autism WeekMANILA, Philippines - The SM Committee on Disability Affairs, under the CSR umbrella of SM Cares, together with the Autism Society Philippines (ASP), is celebrating the 14th National Autism Week with the theme “Giant Leaps...Transcending Boundaries” simultaneously in all SM malls nationwide until Jan. 24.<br /><br />Engineer Bien Mateo, chairman of the SM Committee on Disability Affairs, was made by the ASP as this year’s honorary chairman of the 14th National Autism Week Working Committee.<br /><br />The celebration took off on Jan. 17 at the SM North Edsa Skydome with a Holy Mass and Family Fun Day. It will culminate with “Angels Walk for Autism” on Jan. 24 at the SM Mall of Asia.<br /><br />The National Autism Week, which is celebrated every year, aims to raise public awareness on the need to provide a supportive environment among communities to enable children and adults with autism to live with dignity and enable them to function independently and contribute productively to society.<br /><br />Autism is a lifelong disability and getting people to understand and support ASP activities can make a real difference to the lives of those affected with autism and their families.<br /><br />SM, through its Committee on Disability Affairs, has been very supportive of the causes of the ASP. <br /><br />It has offered SM Malls as a venue for all their activities and hosted last September the first-ever sensory film showing of the Disney animated movie “Up,” which was attended by some 100 kids with autism and their families.<br /><br />Because of its success, the sensory film program will be rolled out nationwide in SM Cinemas and will be scheduled in close coordination with ASP.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-10699197522150207242010-01-22T18:46:00.000-08:002010-01-27T17:57:57.425-08:00High Rates Of Birth Defects Found In Autistic ChildrenNearly two-thirds of the children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders recorded in the National Birth Defect Registry (NBDR) also suffer from structural birth defects, according the national nonprofit, Birth Defect Research for Children (BDRC). The group reported that most of the defects affect the face, head and central nervous systems of newborns.<br /><br />Birth Defect Research for Children, a national nonprofit founded in 1982, maintains the registry to collect data from parents on all kinds of structural birth defects and functional deficits including autistic spectrum disorders. Betty Mekdeci, executive director of BDRC explains, "We designed the registry with a collaboration of prominent scientists. The registry's extensive data allows researchers to identify possible patterns underlying the incidence of birth defects as well as prenatal conditions and exposures. We are asking all parents of children with structural and functional birth defects to contact us to register for our database to continue this study."<br /><br />"Our current data suggests that genetic and environmental triggers may interact to account for the increase in ASDs. We need to collect more data to confirm the pattern we are seeing."<br /><br />The new analysis reveals that over 60% cases also had structural birth defects, primarily Central Nervous System (CNS) or Craniofacial Defects. The other 40% of the ASD cases reported associated developmental problems, but no reported structural birth defects.<br /><br />Most frequent CNS disorders reported were Microcephaly (small head), Cerebral Palsy, Chiari Malformation (a structural defect of the brain) and Absent or Thin Corpus Callosum (the band connecting the two halves of the brain), The most frequent Craniofacial Defects included Low Set Ears, Partial Hearing Loss, Abnormal Teeth and Abnormal Facial Structure.<br /><br />The registry also collects data on prenatal exposures to medications, illnesses and toxins. The most frequently reported maternal exposure was acetaminophen (AP). AP use has increased in recent years. Recent studies have reported associations between maternal AP ingestion and childhood asthma and a stomach defect called gastroschisis.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-67598078051449583952010-01-22T18:41:00.000-08:002010-01-26T15:16:38.114-08:00Scientific Learning's Fast ForWord Software Approved By Australian Government As Intervention For Children With AutismScientific Learning Corp. (NASDAQ:SCIL) today announced that the Australian Government's Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs has named the Fast ForWord ® family of products as an approved intervention for children under age six who are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs).<br /><br />Designed to accelerate learning by developing the student brain to process more efficiently, the Fast ForWord educational software consists of scientifically proven, intervention programs that apply neuroscience principles to build the fundamental cognitive skills required to read and learn. The strengthening of these skills results in a wide range of improved critical language and reading abilities, such as phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, decoding, working memory, syntax and grammar.<br /><br />In Australia, the Fast ForWord program is available to eligible children under the Helping Children with Autism funding package. Through this package, the Australian Government is working to address the need for support and services for children with ASDs. As part of the package, the government offers funding for early intervention services for children ages zero to seven who are diagnosed with an ASD. Eligible families can access the Fast ForWord program from Scientific Learning's two Value Added Representative (VAR) organizations in Australia, LearnFast Australia/Lindfield Speech Pathology & Learning Center in Sydney, New South Wales and Sonic Learning in Perth.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-79111667246816504652010-01-22T17:52:00.000-08:002010-01-25T02:40:41.141-08:00Communication Problems In The BrainMaturation disorders of nerve terminals may trigger autism; researchers in Heidelberg publish in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<br /><br />For brain cells to communicate, the contacts to each other must function. The protein molecule neuroligin-1 plays an important role in this as it stimulates the necessary maturation processes at the contact sites (synapses) of the nerves. A synaptic maturation disorder is possibly involved in the development of autism. Dr. Thomas Dresbach and his team from the Institute for Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Heidelberg, in cooperation with the study group led by Professor Dr. Thomas Kuner at the same institute and Professor Dr. Nils Brose, Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen, have published their results in the prestigious international journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).<br /><br />One hundred billion nerve cells make our brain a thinking machine. Each of these nerve fibers produces a long extension, the axon, which terminates in numerous small knobs. Transmitters are released here that transfer information to the next nerve cell. The contact site between nerve ending and adjacent nerve cell is called a synapse. The number and location of active synapses determine which areas of the brain are especially active at a given time.<br /><br />Neuroligin-1 protein necessary for maturation<br /><br />The synapses of young nerve cells must mature before they can release their neurotransmitters to the full extent. Researchers were able to show using genetically modified nerve cells from mice that the postsynaptic nerve cell, the receptor, must form a sufficient amount of a certain protein molecule, neuroligin-1, to allow this maturation process to take place. In addition, the nerve endings from where information is sent must release slight amounts of neurotransmitters to stimulate the neuroligin in the postsynaptic nerve cell.<br /><br />"A fully functioning contact can develop only if both sides, transmitter and receptor of information, are involved in the maturation process," explained Dr. Dresbach. If no neuroligin-1 is formed, the nerve endings remain at an immature stage and release fewer neurotransmitters; the flow of information is interrupted. The nerve endings can only whisper, so to speak.<br /><br />Autism caused by a malfunction at the synapses?<br />"The results are significant for actual concepts about how autism develops," says Professor Dr. Joachim Kirsch, director of the Institute for Anatomy and Cell Biology. Symptoms of autism are first noticed in early childhood as an information processing disorder. The symptoms may be more or less pronounced, but all patients display weaknesses in social contacts and communication. "There are many indications that malfunctions of synaptic molecules are involved in the development of this illness. It has thus far been unclear exactly what these malfunctions are, but we now know what to look for," says Professor Kirsch. The study was funded by the FRONTIER program of the excellence initiative at the University of Heidelberg.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-15538859300465000462010-01-22T17:49:00.000-08:002010-01-23T14:35:45.170-08:00Rate Of Autism Disorders Climbs To 1 Percent Among 8 Year OldsAutism and related development disorders are becoming more common, with a prevalence rate approaching 1 percent among American 8-year-olds, according to new data from researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).<br /><br />The study is a partnership between UAB, the CDC and 10 other U.S. research sites. It shows that one in 110 American 8-year-olds is classified as having an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a 57 percent increase in ASD cases compared to four years earlier.<br /><br />The new findings, published Dec. 18 in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), highlight the need for social and educational services to help those affected by the condition, said Beverly Mulvihill, Ph.D., a UAB associate professor of public health and co-author on the study.<br /><br />ASDs are a group of developmental disabilities such as autism and Asperger disorder that are characterized by delays or changes in childhood socialization, communication and behavior.<br /><br />"This is a dramatic increase in the number of kids classified as autistic or documented on the spectrum of similar disorders," Mulvihill said. "It is not entirely clear what is causing the rise, but we know major collaborative efforts are needed to improve the understanding and lives of people and families impacted."<br /><br />The MMWR study discusses possible factors that might contribute to the increase in ASD cases. They include a broader definition of autism disorders and a heightened awareness of ASD by parents, doctors, educators and other professionals. The findings do not address whether or not any of the increase is attributable to a true increase in the risk of developing ASD, more frequent and earlier diagnoses, and other factors.<br /><br />Data comes from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, a collection of 11 sites in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin. ADDM reviewers are uniformly trained to review and confirm cases; some children included in the study have documented ASD symptoms but never received a diagnosis.<br /><br />The study also found that boys are 4.5 times more likely than girls to have ASD, a finding that confirms earlier studies, says Martha Wingate, Dr.P.H., a UAB assistant professor of public health and study co-author.<br /><br />"It still is not clear why males more frequently are affected," Wingate said. "One thing we know for sure is that more research is needed to quantify the effects of single or multiple factors such as diagnosis patterns, inclusion of milder cases and other components."<br /><br />The ADDM sites are not selected based on any statistical pattern, but the 300,000-plus children included in the study represent 8 percent of the nation's 8-year-olds.<br /><br />The Alabama Autism Surveillance Project, located within the UAB Department of Health Care Organization and Policy, is a member of the ADDM network. Funding for the project is from the CDC's National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities Division.<br /><br />About the UAB School of Public Health<br /><br />The School of Public Health is a community of scholars and professionals working and teaching in varied arenas of public health with the goal of fostering research and best practices crucial to the health of our nation and its peoples. The school offers more than 20 areas of study and manages dozens of research and community-service centers.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-22468251321354775952010-01-22T17:40:00.000-08:002010-01-22T17:41:52.312-08:00Landmark Consensus Articles Published In Pediatrics Acknowledge The Need To Improve Treatment Of Gastrointestinal Disorders In Individuals With AutismA causal relationship between gastrointestinal disorders and the behavioral features of children with autism spectrum disorder has been acknowledged for years by parents caring for those affected, yet dismissed by mainstream medicine. A landmark paper, Recommendations for Evaluation and Treatment of Common Gastrointestinal Problems in Children with ASDs, a consensus report published this week in Pediatrics, is an important step forward in closing this gap. Acknowledging that certain behavioral manifestations of patients with ASD such as self-injury and poor sleep might have a GI basis is the first step toward achieving substantive therapies.<br /><br />Because it was felt that many individuals with ASD might have undiagnosed medical conditions, often involving the gastrointestinal tract, representatives from the Autism Research Institute (ARI) and other autism advocacy groups worked to convene a gut consensus meeting from which the articles were derived. On May 29-30, 2008, a multidisciplinary panel of 27 clinical and research experts met in Boston, Massachusetts to develop recommendations for the evaluation and treatment of GI disorders in individuals with ASD.<br /><br />ARI's Director Dr. Stephen Edelson commented, "This is truly a human rights issue; every child deserves proper medical attention--whether or not they have autism. This published report brings much-needed focus to gastrointestinal problems that are commonly associated with the autism spectrum. The conclusions of the report are clear: physicians need to be alert and responsive to such problems when treating these patients; additional research on prevalence, cause, and appropriate treatment is imperative."<br /><br />Parents and physicians should be on the lookout for the most common GI symptoms reported in people with ASD: chronic constipation, abdominal pain with or without diarrhea, reflux, and abdominal bloating. Problem behaviors such as self-injury and aggression, as well as overall changes such as sleep disturbance or irritability, might be indicators of stomach pain. The authors concluded that "The approach to evaluation and diagnosis of possible underlying medical conditions, in particular GI disorders, should be no different from the standard of care for persons without ASD."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-40214366457153058062010-01-22T16:33:00.000-08:002010-01-22T17:39:34.960-08:00First Step Toward Needed Guidelines For Children With Autism Provided By Pediatrics Gastrointestinal Consensus Statement And RecommendationsAutism Speaks applauds the consensus statement and recommendations for the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of gastrointestinal (GI) disorders in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) released online in Pediatrics as one step in advancing physician awareness of unique challenges in the medical management of children with autism. "We are pleased to see the publication of these consensus recommendations. Autism Speaks' current efforts will take this further by creating evidence-based guidelines for physicians. The goal is to develop a comprehensive care model that will guide physicians in addressing a wide range of medical issues, including GI problems, that many individuals with autism suffer from," commented Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., Autism Speaks chief science officer.<br /><br /><br />The two reports published today present outcomes of a meeting held in May 2008, sponsored by the Autism Forum, in which working groups participating in the meeting reviewed current evidence on the evaluation and treatment of GI disorders specifically for children with autism. The 2008 meeting from which these consensus recommendations were derived recognized that health care practitioners severely lack solid information to guide care of children with autism and GI problems and there is a need for more research data, including genetic research, as a prerequisite to develop evidence-based guidelines specific to autism.<br /><br /><br />"The Pediatrics paper represents long-sought recognition by the mainstream medical community that treatment of GI problems in children with autism requires specific and specialized approaches," reacted Dr. Dawson. "Autism Speaks has been actively engaged in the study of GI problems associated with children with autism, working toward enhanced medical community awareness for over five years through its research agenda and the Autism Speaks' Autism Treatment Network (ATN)."<br /><br /><br />Dan Coury, M.D., ATN medical director, commented, "We are delighted to see the publication of important information that can support clinicians and caregivers in providing better care for children with autism, particularly with GI concerns, as parents unfortunately very often find it difficult to identify physicians who have an understanding of these issues and are able to provide appropriate medical care for their children. GI and pediatric specialists from six of the ATN sites participated in the forum and in the development of these recommendations, which shows the power of interaction among the communities and individuals dedicated to this problem. Autism Speaks is already engaged in the crucial next step which is to move beyond these consensus-based recommendations to develop evidence-based clinical guidelines." In addition to development of evidence-based clinical guidelines for GI issues, the ATN is also currently working on evidence based clinical guidelines for medical management of sleep, and neurologic disorders associated with autism. "Delivery of evidence-based clinical guidelines will serve as excellent opportunities for future training and education of physicians," added Dr. Dawson.<br /><br /><br />The consensus statement highlights several important themes, the first emphasizing that GI problems are a genuine concern in the ASD population and that these disorders exacerbate or contribute to problem behaviors. The need for awareness of how GI problems manifest in children with autism and the potential for accompanying nutritional complications and impaired quality of life were also emphasized.<br /><br /><br />In the second paper, the authors make consensus recommendations providing guidance on how current general pediatric standards of care that can and should be applied for children with ASD. George Fuchs, M.D., a co-author on the two papers and chair of the ATN GI Committee remarked, "The recommendations provide important guidance for the clinician to adapt the current practices of care (for abdominal pain, chronic constipation and gastroesophageal reflux) for the child with autism. The recommendations from the Autism Forum meeting complement the ATN's on-going work to develop evidence-based, ASD-specific guidelines. The ATN is currently piloting newly created guidelines and monitoring their effectiveness. We anticipate this data will contribute to an evidence-based foundation to support best practices for GI problems in ASD."<br /><br /><br />Autism Speaks is committed to the sustained support of efforts that address co-morbid medical conditions in the ASD population. In recognizing that there's not enough evidence in any GI area and more research is needed, the Pediatric papers reaffirm the importance of the recent November 2009, Autism Speaks sponsored symposium and workshop on Gastrointestinal Disorders in Autism Spectrum Disorders. The symposium and workshop represented an important partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (NASPGHAN) - the largest professional society for GI and nutritional specialists, and a professional authority for the development and implementation of pediatric GI guidelines. The symposium raised awareness and provided the latest scientific information to an audience of 168 researchers, clinicians, and pediatric GI and nutrition specialists, most of whom had limited expertise in autism. The symposium was followed by a workshop that brought together a diverse group of experts in GI, nutrition, pediatrics, pain, ASD, and biological research. Recommendations were developed for an expanded and targeted research agenda for the field that will address current gaps in the knowledge base and aim to advance evaluation and treatment of ASD-GI disorders. Proceedings from the meeting are scheduled to be published in 2010. A unique and important element in both the Symposium and Workshop was the inclusion of parents of children with ASD.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-34892245386840278442009-12-01T18:34:00.000-08:002009-12-01T18:37:26.038-08:00Early intervention aids children with autism: studyA new therapeutical treatment for autism that can be used to treat children as young as 18 months improves their IQ, language ability and social interaction, according to a study published Monday.<br /><br />"This is the first controlled study of an intensive early intervention that is appropriate for children with autism who are less than two-and-a-half years of age," said Geraldine Dawson, lead author of the study.<br /><br />"It is crucial that we can offer parents effective therapies for children in this age range," added Dawson, currently chief science officer of Autism Speaks.<br /><br />"By starting as soon as the toddler is diagnosed, we hope to maximize the positive impact of the intervention."<br /><br />The research used an approach known as the "Early Start Denver Model," (ESDM) which combines use of applied behavioral analysis and development "relationship-based" techniques, according to the study published in the journal Pediatrics.<br /><br />The approach is the first to be used on children younger than pre-school age and yielded impressive results in treating autism, a neurodevelopmental disorder believed to affect one in 100 children in the United States.<br /><br />The study was carried out over five years, and involved 48 children between the ages of 18 and 30 months who suffered from autism but had no other health issues.<br /><br />The group was divided into two sections, the first of which underwent therapy using the Denver Model, while the second was referred to community-based therapy programs.<br /><br />University of Washington at Seattle specialists treated the first group for 20 hours a week, in two sessions of two hours each, five days a week.<br /><br />The children in the first group also received five hours of parent-delivered therapy a week.<br /><br />At the end of the study, the children in the first group had improved their IQ scores by approximately 18 points, compared to an improvement of approximately 10 points in the second group, the researchers said.<br /><br />Seven of the children receiving the Denver Model therapy showed enough improvement in their overall skills that their diagnosis was downgraded from autism to a milder condition, while only one child in the second group improved as significantly.<br /><br />"We believe that the ESDM group made much more progress because it involved carefully structured teaching and a relationship-based approach to learning with many, many learning opportunities embedded in play," said Sally Rogers, a co-author of the study and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, Davis.<br /><br />She also stressed the benefits of beginning the therapy at the earliest possible age.<br /><br />"Infant brains are quite malleable so with this therapy we're trying to capitalize on the potential of learning than an infant's brain has in order to limit autism's deleterious effects, to help children lead better lives."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-87124811340505434282009-11-12T23:16:00.000-08:002009-11-13T03:59:26.516-08:00Children With Autism More Likely To Have Handwriting ProblemsChildren with autism may have lower quality handwriting and trouble forming letters compared to children without autism, according to a study published in the November 10, 2009, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.<br /><br />The study included 28 children between the ages of eight and 13. Half of the children had autism spectrum disorder. The other half had no developmental, psychiatric or brain disorders. All of the children scored within the normal range for perceptual reasoning on an IQ test.<br /><br />The children were given the Minnesota Handwriting Assessment Test, which uses a scrambled sentence to eliminate any speed advantage for more fluent readers. The sentence used on the test was "the brown jumped lazy fox quick dogs over." Participants were asked to copy the words in the sentence, making the letters the same size and shape as the sample using their best handwriting. The handwriting was scored based on five categories: legibility, form, alignment, size and spacing. The children's motor skills, including balance and timed movements, were also examined and given a rating.<br /><br />The research found that half of the children with autism earned less than 80 percent of the total possible points on the handwriting assessment, compared to only one child in the group without autism. In addition, nine of the 14 children with autism scored below 80 percent on the form category of the handwriting assessment, compared to only two of the 14 children without autism.<br /><br />"Our results suggest that therapies targeting motor skills may help improve handwriting in children with autism, which is important for success in school and building self-esteem," said study author Amy Bastian, PhD, of the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD. "Such therapies could include training of letter formation and general training of fine motor control to help improve the quality of their writing."<br /><br />While overall quality of handwriting was worse in children with autism spectrum disorders, they were still able to align, space and size their letters just as well as children without autism.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-91676208664052494542009-11-07T23:48:00.000-08:002009-11-07T23:49:26.712-08:00Aspergers:A Powerful Identity, a Vanishing DiagnosisBy CLAUDIA WALLIS<br />Published: November 2, 2009<br /><br />It is one of the most intriguing labels in psychiatry. Children with Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism, are socially awkward and often physically clumsy, but many are verbal prodigies, speaking in complex sentences at early ages, reading newspapers fluently by age 5 or 6 and acquiring expertise in some preferred topic — stegosaurs, clipper ships, Interstate highways — that will astonish adults and bore their playmates to tears. <br /><br />In recent years, this once obscure diagnosis, given to more than four times as many boys as girls, has become increasingly common.<br /><br />Much of the growing prevalence of autism, which now affects about 1 percent of American children, according to federal data, can be attributed to Asperger’s and other mild forms of the disorder. And Asperger’s has exploded into popular culture through books and films depicting it as the realm of brilliant nerds and savantlike geniuses.<br /><br />But no sooner has Asperger consciousness awakened than the disorder seems headed for psychiatric obsolescence. Though it became an official part of the medical lexicon only in 1994, the experts who are revising psychiatry’s diagnostic manual have proposed to eliminate it from the new edition, due out in 2012.<br /><br />If these experts have their way, Asperger’s syndrome and another mild form of autism, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (P.D.D.-N.O.S. for short), will be folded into a single broad diagnosis, autism spectrum disorder — a category that encompasses autism’s entire range, or spectrum, from high-functioning to profoundly disabling.<br /><br />“Nobody has been able to show consistent differences between what clinicians diagnose as Asperger’s syndrome and what they diagnose as mild autistic disorder,” said Catherine Lord, director of the Autism and Communication Disorders Centers at the University of Michigan, one of 13 members of a group evaluating autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders for the manual.<br /><br />“Asperger’s means a lot of different things to different people,” Dr. Lord said. “It’s confusing and not terribly useful.” <br /><br />Taking Asperger’s out of the manual, known as D.S.M.-V for the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, does not mean the term will disappear. “We don’t want to say that no one can ever use this word,” Dr. Lord said, adding: “It’s not an evidence-based term. It may be something people would like to use to describe how they see themselves fitting into the spectrum.”<br /><br />But the change, if approved by the manual’s editors and consultants, is likely to be controversial. The Asperger’s diagnosis is used by health insurers, researchers, state agencies and schools — not to mention people with the disorder, many of whom proudly call themselves Aspies.<br /><br />Some experts worry that the loss of the label will inhibit mildly affected people from being assessed for autism. “The general public has either a neutral or fairly positive view of the term Asperger’s syndrome,” said Tony Attwood, a psychologist based in Australia who wrote “The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome” (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2006). But if people are told they should be evaluated for autism, he went on, “they will say: ‘No, no, no. I can talk. I have a friend. What a ridiculous suggestion!’ So we will miss the opportunity to assess people.”<br /><br />The proposed changes to the autism category are part of a bigger overhaul that will largely replace the old “you have it or you don’t” model of mental illness with a more modern view — that psychiatric disorders should be seen as a continuum, with many degrees of severity. The goal is to develop “severity measures within each diagnosis,” said Dr. Darrel A. Regier, research director at the American Psychiatric Association and vice chairman of the diagnostic manual’s task force.<br /><br />Another broad change is to better recognize that psychiatric patients often have many health problems affecting mind and body and that clinicians need to evaluate and treat the whole patient.<br /><br />Historically, Dr. Regier said, the diagnostic manual was used to sort hospital patients based on what was judged to be their most serious problem. A patient with a primary diagnosis of major depression would not be evaluated for anxiety, for example, even though the two disorders often go hand in hand.<br /><br />Similarly, a child with the autism label could not also have a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, because attention problems are considered secondary to the autism. Thus, they might go untreated, or the treatment would not be covered by insurance.<br /><br />The new edition, by contrast, will list not only the core issues that characterize a given diagnosis but also an array of other health problems that commonly accompany the disorder. For autism, this would most likely include anxiety, attention disorders, gastrointestinal problems, seizures and sensory differences like extreme sensitivity to noise.<br /><br />Parents and advocates have been clamoring for an approach that addresses the multiple health problems that plague many children with autism. “Our kids will do much better if medical conditions like gut issues or allergies are treated,” said Lee Grossman, president of the Autism Society of America, a leading advocacy group.<br /><br />The new diagnostic approach addresses another source of confusion: the current labels may change over time. “A child can look like they have P.D.D.-N.O.S., then Asperger’s, then back to autism,” Dr. Lord said. The inconsistent use of these labels has been a problem for researchers recruiting subjects for studies of autism spectrum disorder.<br /><br />And it can be a problem for people seeking help. In some states, California and Texas, for example, people with traditional autistic disorder qualify for state services, while those with Asperger’s and pervasive developmental disorder do not.<br /><br />A big challenge for the diagnostic manual team working on autism is how to measure severity in a condition that often causes a very uneven profile of abilities and disabilities. Mr. Grossman gives the example of a woman who serves on an advisory panel to his organization. She is nonverbal and depends on an electronic device to communicate, is prone to self-injury and relies on a personal aide. And yet “she’s absolutely brilliant, she runs a newsletter, and she’s up on all the science,” he said, adding, “Where would somebody like that come out on the rating scale?”<br /><br />Recent books by people with Asperger’s give insights into the workings of some oddly beautiful minds. In “Embracing the Wide Sky” (Free Press, 2009), Daniel Tammet, a shy British math and linguistic savant, tells how he was able to learn enough Icelandic in a week to manage a television interview and how he could recite the value of pi to 22,514 decimal places by envisioning the digits “as a rolling numerical panorama” of colors, shapes and textures.<br /><br />In “Look Me in the Eye” (Crown, 2007), John Elder Robison describes a painfully lonely childhood and an ability to look at a circuit design and imagine how it will transform sound — a talent he used to invent audio effects and exploding guitars for the rock band Kiss.<br /><br />Not all people with Asperger’s have such extraordinary abilities, and some who do are so crippled by anxiety and social limitations that they cannot hold down a job or live on their own.<br /><br />Dr. Susan E. Swedo, a senior investigator at the National Institute of Mental Health who heads the diagnostic manual group working on autism, acknowledges the difficulty of describing such a variable disorder. Dr. Swedo said the plan was to define autism by two core elements — impaired social communication and repetitive behaviors or fixated interests — and to score each of those elements for severity.<br /><br />The trick is to “walk the tightrope of truth,” Dr. Swedo said, between providing clear, easily used diagnostic guidance to clinicians and capturing the individual variation that is relevant to treatment. “People say that in autism, everybody is a snowflake,” she said. “It’s the perfect analogy.”<br /><br />The proposed elimination of autism subtypes comes at the very moment when research suggests that the disorder may have scores of varieties. Investigators have already identified more than a dozen gene patterns associated with autism, but Dr. Lord, of Michigan, said the genetic markers “don’t seem to map at all into what people currently call Asperger’s or P.D.D.”<br /><br />Nor have many of these genes been linked to distinct sets of symptoms. Until research can identify reliable biological markers for autism subtypes, Dr. Lord and other experts say, it is better to have no subtypes than the wrong ones. <br /><br />n interviews, people with Asperger’s and mild autism were divided on the prospect of losing the label. Temple Grandin, a Colorado State University animal scientist who is perhaps the best-known autistic American, said Asperger’s was too well established to be thrown overboard. “The Asperger community is a big vocal community,” Dr. Grandin said, “a reason in itself” to leave the diagnosis in place.<br /><br />“P.D.D.-N.O.S., I’d throw in the garbage can,” she added. “But I’d keep Asperger’s.”<br /><br />But some younger people involved in the growing autism self-advocacy movement see things differently.<br /><br />“My identity is attached to being on the autism spectrum, not some superior Asperger’s identity,” said Ari Ne’eman, 21, an activist who founded the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, a 15-chapter organization he has built while in college, adding, “I think the consolidation to one category of autism spectrum diagnosis will lead to better services.”<br /><br />All interested parties will have an opportunity to weigh in on the proposed changes. The American Psychiatric Association is expected to post the working group’s final proposal on autism diagnostic criteria on the diagnostic manual’s Web site in January and invite comment from the public. Dr. Swedo and company are bracing for an earful.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-42670612680852087992009-10-07T01:51:00.000-07:002009-10-07T01:56:04.254-07:00Autism Study Putting Prevalence at 1 in 91 American Children, Including 1 in 58 BoysAutism Speaks Responds to New Pediatrics Autism Study Putting Prevalence at 1 in 91 American Children, Including 1 in 58 Boys<br />New Findings Reinforce the Urgency of Autism as a Major Public Health Crisis, Requiring Intensified Action from the Public and Private Sectors <br /><br /><br />NEW YORK, N.Y. (October 5, 2009) – Autism Speaks, the nation's largest autism science and advocacy organization, today responded to a new study published in the American Academy of Pediatrics' journal Pediatrics that found a parent-reported autism prevalence rate of one in every 91 American children, including one in 58 boys. The most recent ASD prevalence estimate reported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 2007 was approximately one in 150 (including one in 94 boys), making autism the most prevalent childhood developmental disorder. Autism Speaks said the new findings reinforced the fact that autism is an urgent and growing public health crisis that affects most individuals across their lifespan and demands a commensurate level of action from both the public and private sectors. <br /><br /><br />“There is converging evidence that autism spectrum disorders affect about one percent of the population,” said Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., Autism Speaks Chief Science Officer. “This study further emphasized that autism affects boys at a significantly higher rate. It is imperative that more resources be given to autism research so we can understand the causes and biology of autism and develop more effective treatments.”<br /><br />“These new numbers should serve as a renewed call to action to take on what is clearly a major public health crisis not only in this country, but around the world,” said Bob Wright, co-founder of Autism Speaks. “People with autism are still not getting the therapies they need and adequate medical care for the medical conditions often associated with this disorder. And our society has yet to come to grips with the fact that this growing population of children with autism will become adults with autism who require a lifetime of services and support. We must act now to address these short and long-term challenges.” <br /><br />The Prevalence of Parent-Reported Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Children in the United States, 2007 used data gathered as part of the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH), a national survey directed and funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). More than 78,000 parents of children aged 3 to 17 years were asked whether their child currently had an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis – including autistic disorder, Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), or Asperger's Syndrome – or whether their child had been given that diagnosis in the past, but was no longer diagnosed with ASD.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-43249112236266109952009-09-07T04:33:00.000-07:002009-09-18T22:34:07.508-07:00One year later, Project Lifesaver still keeping people safeIt’s an all-too-common reality for some — a loved one with special needs wanders off.<br /><br />Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is providing reassurance for dozens of families in Dane County — like the O’Leary family of McFarland.<br /><br />Aidan O’Leary is an energetic, inquisitive 7-year-old. He also has a tendency to wander.<br /><br />“He could hide in places, go into an empty car, go in someone’s garage,” said Lisa O’Leary, mother. “He would go with a stranger. We could be walking down the street and he slips out of my arm and he’d be in the parking lot and go right in front of a car.”<br /><br />Aidan was diagnosed with autism at age 3. When his family heard about Project Lifesaver, they were one of the first to sign up. Aidan wears a one-ounce GPS tracker on his ankle, which emits a signal every second, 24 hours a day.<br /><br />“From day one, he has not tried to fidget with the device, or try to get it off at all,” Lisa said. “It was basically like wearing another sock.”<br /><br />Aidan’s parents check the gps battery battery twice a day, and enter it in a log book. They’re one of 26 families in Dane County who use Project Lifesaver — families dealing with autism, Alzheimer’s disease, and down syndrome.<br /><br />“You’re keeping track of them 24 hours, you’re eyes are always on them, but somehow you turn your head and they can be gone,” Lisa said.<br /><br />Aidan’s mother never stops worrying, she says, but if her son ever went missing, she’d know where to look.<br /><br />“It’s so reassuring to know that if he’s lost, we can find him.”<br /><br />Project Lifesaver is completely funded thru donations. Otherwise it would cost families $300 per year.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-27074427373931246732009-09-06T16:48:00.000-07:002009-09-06T16:50:29.916-07:00Autism group probes why children love Thomas the Tank EngineThe simple stories and clear facial expressions of the Thomas the Tank Engine characters have made them a favourite among children with autism, according to a study by the U.K. National Autistic Society.<br /><br />Thomas the Tank Engine, written in 1943 by Rev. Wilbert Vere Awdry, is a perennial favourite among all the under-four set, especially for boys who love trains.<br /><br />But it appears to have particular appeal to autistic children, with 58 per cent of parents in an April 2007 survey reporting that Thomas was the first children's character their child enjoyed.<br /><br />Most of the children discovered Thomas & Friends through the television show based on the characters, but then moved on to Thomas toys, videos and books.<br /><br />Among autistic children, who often have a narrow range of behaviours, Thomas-related play was often their favourite activity, with children repeatedly watching the videos and reenacting whole scenes, including dialogue, with the toys.<br /><br />"Thomas & Friends is 100 per cent responsible for getting him talking. Thomas was his life," said one parent of a nine-year-old, according to the NAS survey.<br /><br />About a third of parents reported their children were able to learn basic facial expressions from the characters, as all of Thomas's friends have easy-to-read expressions — they are either happy, sad or angry.<br /><br />Children with autism often have trouble decoding human expressions.<br /><br />"He definitely uses the train faces to distinguish between different emotions. Thomas has helped him to get into the world of not just language but also how people feel," said another parent.<br /><br />Parents also believed the characters contributed to their children's learning of colours, numbers and language.<br /><br />The gentle world of Thomas & Friends, in which characters behave predictably, helped to calm some autistic children, with 54 per cent of parents reporting the stories contributed to their child's sense of security.<br /><br />Children with autism enjoyed the Thomas stories and characters up to two years longer than siblings who didn't have the disorder.<br /><br />The survey was answered by 748 U.K. parents of children under 10 with autism, a developmental disability.<br /><br />Thomas the Tank Engine stories have been voiced by Ringo Starr and George Carlin and a new version of the TV series will feature the voice of Pierce Brosnan.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-63282405311343136082009-03-09T15:24:00.000-07:002009-09-12T17:28:37.828-07:00Virtual world teaches real-world skillsGame helps people with Asperger's practice socializing <br /><br />If home is where the heart is, then home for a dozen people with Asperger Syndrome could be a 16-acre island blessed with lush gardens and rolling green hills.<br /><br />The island is called "Brigadoon," but unlike its literary namesake, this place is real — or real enough in a 21st century way. "Brigadoon" belongs to a public virtual world called "Second Life," a popular online 3-D environment frequented by tens of thousands of users.<br /><br />Tom Loftus<br />Columnist<br />• E-mail<br /><br />If home is where the heart is, then home for a dozen people with Asperger Syndrome could be a 16-acre island blessed with lush gardens and rolling green hills.<br /><br />The island is called "Brigadoon," but unlike its literary namesake, this place is real — or real enough in a 21st century way. "Brigadoon" belongs to a public virtual world called "Second Life," a popular online 3-D environment frequented by tens of thousands of users.<br />Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here<br /><br />"Brigadoon" is a real-world experiment in social skills made virtual, a private enclave limited to a select mixture of caregivers and individuals with Asperger Syndrome, a higher functioning form of autism. The inhabitants, or "Dooners" as they call themselves, enjoy the same privileges as those in the more public arenas of "Second Life." They are free to create their own digital representations of themselves, called "avatars," build virtual houses and seek out friends. And, most importantly, they are free to create a "second life" with a level of social interaction that, for reasons of their condition, has been hard to come by in their real lives.<br /><br />Is gaming a good thing?<br />Talk of video gaming can set off feelings of unease among parents — no one wants a kid to be glued to a screen for hours on end. But the stakes for children with Asperger's and other autism spectrum disorders — who have difficulties with social interaction — tend to be higher.<br /><br />At issue is the importance of developing enriching personal relationships and becoming a part of society. While video games can be educational and entertaining, their reputation as a solitary activity can present an impediment to progress for people with autistic disorders by limiting their exposure to social situations.<br /><br />Researchers are also concerned that playing video games could simply become one of the many repetitive activities that an affected child engages in.<br /><br />"One feature that highlights the risk of video games is that the behavior of children with autism can be repetitive. They like sameness and routine," says Sally Ozonoff, an associate professor of psychiatry at the MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis. This preference for repetition and familiarity often limits their experiences and prevents them from learning how to adapt to new situations.<br /><br />But if used correctly, video game technology could be beneficial. "Children with autism have a natural inclination to video games and television," Ozonoff adds. "The goal is to try to exploit that inclination therapeutically."<br /><br />New technology in the works<br />Researchers around the world are now attempting to do just that. At the University of Victoria in British Columbia, cognitive psychologist James Tanaka is using a custom-built game called "Let's Face It!" to teach facial recognition. Actually a suite of mini-games, the program uses photos, sounds and positive feedback as part of a scoring system to encourage kids with autism to learn.<br /><br />"You can have kids do an exercise, but they usually don't have the richness or the continuity [of the video game]," says Tanaka.<br /><br />Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Edinburgh and Glasgow Caledonian University are creating video games to study cognitive skills in children with autism using a revolutionary interface: gesture recognition software that registers the players' movements and transfers them to the screen.<br /><br />"From my work, I know that a lot of children [with autism] have production skills we never would expect," says Maggie McGonigle, leader of the project and an expert on non-verbal communication. "So I'm hoping that language-like skills are locked up in their brain even if they can't speak."<br /><br /><br />But in the small world of video games with real-life applications for people with autistic disorders, "Brigadoon" stands out.<br /><br />When "Brigadoon" founder John Lester, an information systems director at Massachusetts General Hospital and research associate at Harvard Medical School, discovered the virtual world "Second Life," one of the first things that came to mind was how he could share the experience.<br /><br />A decade earlier, Lester had founded Braintalk Communities, a self-help support site dedicated to neurological conditions. "I'm big on creating spaces where patients and caregivers can share experiences and emotional support and essentially help themselves," he says.<br /><br />"Second Life" was different. Although not exactly a game, it was rooted in 21st century game technology. In gaming parlance, "Second Life" was "immersive," a world that's both three-dimensional (think "Halo 2") and "persistent," meaning the world is always up and running.<br /><br />"A lot of what's happening in 'Second Life' is social," says Lester. "And I thought that this could be a fantastic place for people dealing with Asperger Syndrome. Give them a simulated environment and let them practice social skills in a three-dimensional space."<br /><br />Individuals with Asperger's usually aren't comfortable in social situations, but many display an innate understanding of computer technology. These two factors — social deficiencies and computer knowledge — made them perfect candidates to test "Brigadoon."<br /><br />Last year Lester purchased a virtual island in "Second Life," invited participants from Braintalk Communities to establish a claim, and in July 2004, "Brigadoon" was launched.<br /><br /><br />Although virtual, it's possible to explore "Brigadoon" like a real-world island. On a recent personal tour, Lester and "Brigadoon" resident Jamison Read, a mother of a son with Asperger's, showed off the sights.<br /><br />The tour began inside the Temple of Zeus, a meeting place positioned at the top of "Brigadoon's" highest hill. There are meeting places throughout the island — precisely the type of spaces that individuals with Asperger's would avoid in the real world.<br /><br />"That's what most of the spaces around "Brigadoon" are focused on," says Lester.<br /><br />The tour led to a valley and past an aquarium inhabited by a jumping shark created by an individual with Asperger's who goes by the online name of Coos Yellowknife. Nearby, a virtual screen mixed snapshots of past "Brigadoon" social events, like a virtual lobster dinner, with photos from the real-world.<br /><br />"People with Asperger Syndrome get pretty 'beat up' by society," says Read. "Here they can go at their own pace and move into the mainstream."<br /><br />Read originally joined "Brigadoon" to discover if the game would help her son who has Asperger's. He is still figuring out if he wants to join, but for Read there was something about "Brigadoon" — its whimsy, the ability to be creative with colorful virtual gardens and homes, and its reputation as a safe haven — that compelled her to stay.<br /><br />"I have learned a lot about [Asperger Syndrome] from the adults here, so I am trying to help my son counter some of the problems he will have as an adult," she says.<br /><br /><br />"Brigadoon" is still an experiment. It is small in size — just 16-acres if the island existed in the real world — as well as in population. The world may be rich in color, but communication is limited to instant text messaging. When compared to the $10 billion video game industry, "Brigadoon" and its host world "Second Life" register as a mere blip on the radar.<br /><br />But in a field where the quest to lead an enriching and "normal" life is measured by even the smallest steps, "Brigadoon" may be a sign of how video game technology can be used for good.<br /><br />Lester is already convinced. "[The inhabitants] have learned a lot about themselves in how they socialize and they've gained confidence," he says.<br /><br />And, as the "Dooner" named Coos wrote in a "Brigadoon" blog, "We are aliens in this RL [real world]. SL ['Second Life'] has showed me it is OK to be an alien in a strange new world!"<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-33379156415929645732009-03-02T14:23:00.000-08:002009-03-12T03:21:28.770-07:00Study uses music to explore the autistic brain's emotion processingMusic has a universal ability to tap into our deepest emotions. Unfortunately, for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), understanding emotions is a very difficult task. Can music help them? Thanks to funding from the GRAMMY Foundation Grant Program, researchers at UCLA are about to find out. <br /><br />Individuals with ASD have trouble recognizing emotions, particularly social emotions conveyed through facial expressions — a frown, a smirk or a smile. This inability can rob a child of the chance to communicate and socialize and often leads to social isolation.<br /><br />In an innovative study led by Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, a researcher at the UCLA Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity, music will be used as a tool to explore the ability of children with ASD to identify emotions in musical excerpts and facial expressions.<br /><br />"Music has long been known to touch autistic children," Molnar-Szakacs said. "Studies from the early days of autism research have already shown us that music provokes engagement and interest in kids with ASD. More recently, such things as musical memory and pitch abilities in children with ASD have been found to be as good as or better than in typically developing children."<br /><br />In addition, he said, researchers have shown that because many children with ASD are naturally interested in music, they respond well to music-based therapy.<br /><br />But no one has ever done a study to see if children with ASD process musical emotions and social emotions in the same way that typically developing children do.<br /><br />In this study, Molnar-Szakacs will use "emotional music" to examine the brain regions involved in emotion processing.<br /><br />"Our hypothesis is that if we are able to engage the brain region involved in emotion processing using emotional music, this will open the doorway for teaching children with ASD to better recognize emotions in social stimuli, such as facial expressions."<br /><br />The overarching goal of the study, of course, is to gain insights about the causes of autism. Molnar-Szakacs will use neuroimaging — functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI — to look at and compare brain activity in ASD children with brain activity in typically developing kids while both groups are engaged in identifying emotions from faces and musical excerpts.<br /><br />"The study should help us to better understand how the brain processes emotion in children with autism; that, in turn, will help us develop more optimal interventions," Molnar-Szakacs said. "Importantly, this study will also help us promote the use of music as a powerful tool for studying brain functions, from cognition to creativity."<br /><br />Approximately 15 children with ASD, ranging in age from 10 to 13, will participate in the study, which is being conducted under the auspices of the Help Group–UCLA Autism Research Alliance. The alliance, directed by UCLA's Elizabeth Laugeson, is an innovative partnership between the nonprofit Help Group, which serves children with special needs related to autism, and the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, and is dedicated to enhancing and expanding ASD research. The project is also being conducted in collaboration with Katie Overy, co-director of the Institute for Music in Human and Social Development at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.<br /><br />"The hope, of course, is that this work will not only be of scientific value and interest, but most of all, that it will translate into real-life improvements in the quality of the children's lives," Molnar-Szakacs said.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-83987123946360193872009-03-02T00:24:00.000-08:002009-03-09T13:59:02.330-07:00Early Intervention Lessens Impact Of AutismANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Contrary to popular fears that half of autistic children will never speak, new findings by the University of Michigan show just 14 percent of autistic children are unable to talk by age 9 and 40 percent can speak fluently.<br /><br />Early intervention leads to better treatment, said Catherine Lord, director of the U-M Autism and Communication Disorders Center. The center has been conducting a sweeping longitudinal study of children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) that started when participants were age 2 and followed them over many years with most of that subject group now in their teens.<br /><br />The number of children diagnosed with the disorder has increased tenfold over the past decade.<br /><br />Lord, a nationally known pioneer in autism research, played a key role in learning how to properly diagnose 2-year-olds a decade ago and is making new gains diagnosing young children at the U-M center. She is confident the University's research will make it routine to diagnose autism for children just 18 months old and sometimes even younger.<br /><br />While medications have helped with related conditions such as depression and hyperactivity, the best way to deal with autism is to intervene as early as possible to treat the condition, she said. Children who developed even some very simple speech skills prior to the first time they were evaluated at age 2 were far more likely to overcome the disorder that is now found in one out of every 200 children, she added.<br /><br />"One third make incredible progress, with almost all children making real gains, even if they continue to have significant difficulties," Lord said. "About 5 percent of the children we have followed do not have symptoms of autism at age 9."<br /><br />Another 10 percent are doing well but still have some mild social difficulties and or repetitive behaviors or interests. Another 10 percent clearly have behaviors associated with autism but are able to compensate enough to spend much of their time in mainstream activities and classes, she said. The rest do improve, but continue to have behaviors and difficulties associated with the ASD, according to Lord.<br /><br />The center is also working on research showing autism "is very unlikely caused by a single gene," Lord said, adding that parents of a child with autism have only a 5 to 10 percent chance of having another child with autism. Having a fraternal twin with autism similarly gives the child the same odds of developing the disorder.<br /><br />However, if one identical twin has autism, there is a 95 percent chance the other identical twin will develop ASD or a related disorder, Lord said.<br /><br />Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life. Autistic spectrum disorders impact the normal development of the brain processes related to social interaction and communication skills. Children and adults with autism typically have difficulties with verbal and non-verbal communication, social interaction and leisure or play activities.<br /><br />The center is conducting many studies and is especially looking for children aged 12-24 months old whose parents are concerned about possible ASD or related communication delays as well as children from families with two or more members have the disorder. A study of normal communication development from 12 to 24 months is also under way that should yield important information about the early stages of language development. For more information about participating in the research studies, call the center at (734) 936-8600.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-12964989323772651682009-02-25T21:42:00.000-08:002009-02-25T21:44:41.653-08:00Couple Lives With Autism, Comfort of Each OtherLove Bloomed After Socializing Was Learned<br />By THEA TRACHTENBERG and LINDSAY GOLDWERT<br />Feb. 25, 2009 <br /><br />David Hamrick, 29, and Lindsey Nebeker, 27, look like a typical couple in love, but what's not apparent is how hard they've worked to be together.<br />A couple finds a connection despite both having autism.<br /><br />Hamrick and Nebeker live together in a Jackson, Miss., apartment, yet they have separate bedrooms, eat meals apart and spend most of their time focused on their own interests.<br /><br />This unusual setup is how Hamrick and Nebeker, who are both autistic, make their relationship work.<br /><br />About 1.5 million people in the United States have autism, with varying degrees of severity. Many people with autism struggle with the most basic social interactions, so finding love may seem like an impossibility.<br /><br />Hamrick and Nebeker are high-functioning but, since childhood, both have found it difficult to make friends and even harder to keep them.<br /><br />"All of her socialization had to be learned, usually by hard experience," said Nebeker's father, Gordon Nebeker.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-51979118970305295082009-02-22T14:03:00.000-08:002009-03-02T00:24:19.655-08:00Babies Who Don't Respond To Their Names May Be At Risk For Autism Or Other DisordersYear-old babies who do not respond when their name is called may be more likely to be diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder or other developmental problem at age 2, making this simple test a potential early indicator for such conditions, according to a report in the April issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a theme issue on autism spectrum disorders.<br /><br />Although as many as half of parents of children with autism report concerns about their child's developmental progress before the first birthday, the disorder is usually not diagnosed until age 3 or 4, according to background information in the article. "Earlier identification of autism offers the possibility of early intervention, which holds promise for improving outcomes in children with autism," the authors write. "This has motivated a growing body of research that aims to ascertain the earliest reliable indicators of autism."<br /><br />Aparna S. Nadig, Ph.D., of the M.I.N.D. Institute, University of California Davis, Sacramento, and colleagues assessed the tendency of infants to respond when their names are called, which is "one of the most consistently documented behaviors in infancy that distinguishes children later diagnosed with autism from those with typical development or developmental delays," they write.<br /><br />Infants whose older siblings had autism, and who were therefore at risk for autism, were compared with control infants who were not at high risk of developing the disorder. While each child sat at a table playing with a small toy, a researcher walked behind the child and called his or her name in a clear voice. If the child did not respond after 3 seconds, the name was called again up to twice. Fifty-five at-risk infants and 43 control infants completed this test at age 6 months, and 101 at-risk infants and 46 control infants were tested at age 12 months.<br /><br />"At age 6 months, there was a non-significant trend for control infants to require a fewer number of calls to respond to name than infants at risk for autism," the authors write. "At age 12 months, 100 percent of the infants in the control group 'passed,' responding on the first or second name call, while 86 percent in the at-risk group did."<br /><br />Forty-six at-risk infants and 25 control infants were followed up for two years; three-fourths of those who did not respond to their name at age 12 months were identified with developmental problems at age 2. A total of 89 percent of infants who did not have an autism spectrum disorder (including autism, Asperger's syndrome and related conditions all defined by deficits in language and social skills) and 94 percent of infants without any developmental delays at two years responded to their name on the first two calls at one year. Of the children who were later diagnosed with autism, half failed the test at one year, and of those who were identified as having any type of developmental delay, 39 percent failed the test.<br /><br />"Thus, failure to respond to name at the well-child one-year check-up may be a useful indicator of children who would benefit from a more thorough developmental assessment," the authors write. "It will not, however, identify all children at risk for developmental problems."<br /><br />"Since this task is easy to administer and score and takes few resources, it could be incorporated into well-child pediatric visits at 12 months of age," they conclude. "If a child fails to orient to name, particularly reliably over time, this child has a high likelihood of some type of developmental abnormality and should be referred for more frequent screening, comprehensive assessment and, if indicated, preventive early intervention."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-6555569851026590472009-02-22T13:57:00.000-08:002009-02-27T04:09:43.386-08:00Important Clue To Learning Deficit In Children With AutismA study by researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute has discovered an important clue to why children with autism spectrum disorders have trouble imitating others: They spend less time looking at the faces of people who are modeling new skills.<br /><br />The study was conducted using high-technology eye-tracking headgear and software that measures with precision the point at which a child is looking when learning a task. Researchers used an actor to demonstrate a task on a computer screen.<br /><br />"We found that the children with autism focused on the demonstrator's action and looked at the demonstrator's face much less often than did typically developing children," said Giacomo Vivanti, a postdoctoral researcher at the M.I.N.D. Institute and the study's lead author. "The typically developing children may be looking at the demonstrator's face to check for information on what to do or how to respond appropriately, information that the children with autism are less inclined to seek. This is an important finding, because children with autism have difficulty learning from others. This might be one key to why that is so," Vivanti said.<br /><br />Imitation plays an important role in how children learn, as well as in how people interact socially, said M.I.N.D. Institute researcher and senior study author Sally J. Rogers, who has been studying imitation impairment and autism for more than 20 years. "This is a trait we see as early as we can diagnose autism, and it's one of the traits that is present even in mildly impaired adults," Rogers said.<br /><br />Impaired imitation leads to additional impairments in sharing emotions, pretend play, pragmatic communication and understanding the emotional states of others. For years, scientists thought that children with autism and related disorders had trouble with learning through imitation because they had poor motor skills or because they did not pay attention to the action being performed. The current study rules out these hypotheses.<br /><br />"We now understand more about how this imitation deficit might be working and, after more study, we may actually be able to address it in a way that helps children with autism develop a more natural set of behaviors," said Rogers, a UC Davis professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.<br /><br />In the current study, which was published online in June and will appear in print in November in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 18 children aged 8 to 15 with high-functioning autism were carefully matched with a group of 13 typically developing children. While wearing special eye-tracking headgear, the children were shown video clips that ranged from seven to 19 seconds in length. After viewing each clip, the children performed the demonstrated action. The results confirm previous research that shows that children with autism have difficulty imitating tasks when compared to normally developing children. It also showed that children with autism paid just as much attention to the action being performed as the other children in the study, ruling out previous hypotheses about poor attention to the task.<br /><br />"This finding is particularly important," Rogers said. "Now we can rule out this variable. We know these children are looking at the task."<br /><br />Researchers also found that successful performance of a task by children with autism increases with the amount of time they study it but is not correlated with their basic motor skills, ruling out the possibility that it is a lack of motor ability causing the imitation effect.<br /><br />Finally, the study showed that both groups of children shifted their attention from the action to the demonstrator's face, but the children with autism did this much less often.<br /><br />According to Rogers, this finding suggests that imitation is not just about repeating an action, but understanding the reason for the action.<br /><br />"That information is conveyed in our faces," she explained.<br /><br />Rogers and Vivanti are continuing to try to understand how this difference in looking at faces affects more complex forms of learning and understanding.<br /><br />"We are looking at how children look at emotions and intentions that are conveyed in a demonstrator's face and how looking at this information in faces or not looking at them may affect how they understand and imitate the observed actions," Vivanti said.<br /><br />Based on these studies, Vivanti and Rogers hope to one day develop studies aimed at determining whether or not face-looking is an important part of the imitation process. "It could be that if people with autism could be better at reading emotion they might naturally start to imitate their models the way like other people do," Rogers said. "If it's about how people understand the information in a face, then it gives you a target for intervention."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-87398449367210631822009-02-22T13:53:00.000-08:002009-02-25T21:10:10.720-08:00Computer Game Helps Autistic Children Recognize EmotionsAn interactive computer software program called FaceSay™ has been shown to improve the ability of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to recognize faces, facial expressions and emotions, according to the results of a study conducted by psychologists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). FaceSay™, created by Symbionica L.L.C., features interactive games that let children with ASD practice recognizing the facial expressions of an avatar, or software “puppet.” Specifically, the computer games teach the children where to look for facial cues such as an eye gaze or a facial expression.<br /><br />The study found that the children with Asperger Syndrome who used the FaceSay™ program made significant improvements in their ability to read facial expressions. The children with autism made less improvement. Children in both the autism and Asperger groups, however, both improved their ability to recognize emotions.<br /><br />Specifically, the children with autism who used FaceSay™ averaged a mean score of 14.8 on a facial recognition test. The control group averaged 12.8. The children with Asperger Syndrome scored much higher with an average score of 18.4 compared to 15.4 by the control group.<br /><br />On an emotion recognition skills test, the children with autism who used FaceSay™ scored an average of 6.53. The control group’s average score was 5.2. The children with Asperger Syndrome had a mean test score of 8.7 compared with the control group score of 6.79. UAB doctoral student Maria Hopkins, Ph.D., and UAB associate professor of psychology Fred Biasini, Ph.D., conducted the study.<br /><br />Autism spectrum disorder includes a range of developmental disorders such as autism, Asperger Syndrome and other pervasive developmental disorders. Children with ASD often avoid eye contact with others, which prevents them from perceiving and understanding the emotions of others. Many have problems remembering faces.<br /><br />Hopkins and Biasini tested 25 children with autism and 24 children with Asperger Syndrome. The children ranged in age from 6 to 15, with an average age of 10 years. The group consisted of 44 boys and five girls. The computer training sessions were held twice a week for at least six weeks for an average of 20 minutes each session. The software featured three interactive games.<br /><br />Psychologists at UAB plan to conduct more studies to assess the longtime effects of the FaceSay™ intervention.<br /><br />The study’s results were presented recently at a meeting of the Association for Psychological Science.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674522101424501708.post-74907590909363849742009-02-22T13:42:00.000-08:002009-02-22T13:45:37.695-08:00Surprising Language Abilities In Children With AutismWhat began as an informal presentation by a clinical linguist to a group of philosophers, has led to some surprising discoveries about the communicative language abilities of people with autism.<br /><br />Several years back, Robert Stainton, now a philosophy professor at The University of Western Ontario, attended a presentation by his long-time friend Jessica de Villiers, a clinical linguist now at the University of British Columbia. The topic was Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). De Villiers explained that many individuals with ASD have significant difficulties with what linguists call "pragmatics." That is, people with ASD often have difficulty using language appropriately in social situations. They do not make appropriate use of context or knowledge of what it would be "reasonable to say." Most glaringly, many speakers with ASD have immense trouble understanding metaphor, irony, sarcasm, and what might be intimated or presumed, but not stated.<br /><br />Drawing on his philosophical training, however, Stainton noticed less-than-obvious pragmatic abilities at work in de Villiers' examples, which were drawn from transcripts of conversations with 42 speakers with ASD -- abilities that had been missed by clinicians.<br /><br />Thus began research to more clearly understand and define the conversational abilities and challenges of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Stainton and de Villiers' research, in collaboration with Peter Szatmari, a clinical psychiatrist at McMaster University, has shown that indeed, many individuals with ASD do have "a rich array of pragmatic abilities."<br /><br />These researchers do not contest the well-established claim that people with ASD have difficulty with non-literal pragmatics, such as metaphors ("Juliet is the sun") or irony/sarcasm ("Boy, is that a good idea"). They have, however, found that many speakers with ASD do not show the same difficulty with literal pragmatics. An example is the phrase, "I took the subway north" from a transcript of a conversation with a research participant with ASD. The use of the word "the" could indicate there is only one subway in existence going north. "The subway" could also be referring to a subway car, a subway system or a subway tunnel. Taking account of the context and the listener's expectations, however, the individual using the phrase was able to convey the specific meaning he intended. That is, he used pragmatics effectively.<br /><br />In short, Stainton and his colleagues produced surprising evidence to show that speakers with ASD use and understand pragmatics in cases of literal talk, as in the subway example.<br /><br />Stainton, who is also Acting Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Western, says, "It is especially gratifying and encouraging, because this is an Arts and Humanities contribution to clinical research. Without a philosophical perspective, this discovery might not have been made."<br /><br />Related research allowed de Villiers and Szatmari to develop a rating scale of pragmatic abilities that can be used in the clinical assessment of people with ASD. Stainton says, "In the short term, their new tool will help identify where an individual fits on that spectrum. In the longer term, however, by making use of recent results in philosophy of language, it may contribute to our theoretical understanding of the boundary between knowledge of the meanings of words, and non-linguistic abilities -- specifically pragmatics."<br /><br />Stainton believes that both clinicians who work with people with ASD, and language theorists who are interested in pragmatics for philosophical reasons, will find these results striking.<br /><br />ASD affects approximately one in 165 people. The results of the research, conducted from a study of 42 children with autism and Asperger's Syndrome, has been published in the journal, Midwest Studies in Philosophy.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=authelphi-20&o=1&p=27&l=qs1&f=ifr" width="180" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>Maria Lourdeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11829994750146979479noreply@blogger.com0