The state estimates there are almost 3,000 public school students with some form of autism and lawmakers are considering a bill to establish a special agency to help those children and their families.
Legislators on the Government Administration and Elections Committee heard testimony Friday from relatives and teachers of autistic children.
Rep.
Committee Co-Chairman Rep. Christopher L. Caruso said by moving funding and staff to a new agency modeled on the Board of Education and Services for the Blind, the state can more efficiently help the those public school children "autism spectrum disorders.
"
A new electronic toy seems to be helping children with autism develop language skills. Helma van Rijn developed the toy as part of her graduation project at Delft University of Technology's Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.
The electronic toy, which is called LINKX, consists of blocks that the children must place against a specific object.
The objects -- for example a table or a window -- are equipped with a small electronic device of a certain colour. If the children place a block against such an object, the block lights up in the same colour as the object and the child hears the word that corresponds to the name of the object (this word has been pre-recorded by the child's parents).
When it comes to treating autism, timing is everything, or at least a major part, specialists say.
Children with the neurodevelopmental disorder must be taught what comes naturally to their peers, and while the brain is still pliable enough to absorb the lesson, experts said. Because the immature nervous system has a great deal of plasticity, many neuroscientists think early treatment may enrich neural growth.
"If you have a child with autism who's not wired correctly, and we allow that to continue without intervention, those neuropathways will become fixed, and it becomes far more difficult to undo that tangled mess," said Dr.
David Holmes, president of the Eden Institute, a non-profit autism center in Princeton, N.J.
| It's not just a bracelet,” 12-year-old Sophie announced with great ceremony to the dark-haired girl across the table.
“It's a magic bracelet.”
Perhaps it was magic. The shiny bit of pretend jewelry brought Ava, who is autistic, a friend to share a lazy Saturday afternoon in Rancho Peñasquitos – someone who would play endless rounds of the board game Pretty Pretty Princess.
Friends are often rare for children like Ava, whose developmental disabilities can isolate them from kids their own age.
| Autism Speaks , a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing awareness of autism and raising money to fund autism research, together with an international consortium of researchers and participating families, today announced the publication of the preliminary results from the largest-ever autism genome scan in Nature Genetics, one of the world's most prestigious research publications.
This research was performed by over 120 scientists from more than 50 institutions representing 19 countries who formed a first-of-its-kind autism genetics consortium, the Autism Genome Project (AGP).
The AGP began in 2002 when researchers from around the world decided to come together and share their samples, data, and expertise to facilitate the identification of autism susceptibility genes. The first phase of the effort, the assembly of the largest autism DNA collection ever and whole genome linkage scan, was funded by Autism Speaks and the U.S.
National Institutes of Health. The launch of phase two of the project, building on the success of the linkage scan, is being announced in ten days.
The recent publication of the newest federal study on the increasing prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders has caused renewed interest and alarm from the public.
Teachers and other school personnel will not be surprised by the increase; they are working every day with ever-increasing numbers of children with an autism spectrum diagnosis.
The reason it is called a spectrum disorder is that while there are general characteristics, it is a very broad spectrum. For instance, children with Asperger's syndrome may be extremely bright and have no friends, but also be very affectionate and caring with family members.
Children on the other end of the spectrum may have severe intellectual disabilities, display self-injurious behaviors and require constant care. Between these two extremes are children who have very diverse and individualized strengths and weaknesses. Yet, with the appropriate support and services, children with ASD can have successful school experiences.
The first part is in my native language, and then the second part provides a translation, or at least an explanation. This is not a look-at-the-autie gawking freakshow as much as it is a statement about what gets considered thought, intelligence, personhood, language, and communication, and what does not.
The first live, web-based radio show to focus on children with autism spectrum and other developmental and learning disorders is now airing at this website every Thursday, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.
m. Eastern time.
Call in live with your questions at 1 (877) 907-8889, or email them ahead of time to .
You can also email suggestions for topics and guest speakers.
Holidays are often filled with stress. It takes work to make a beautiful and fun holiday for yourself and those around you.
There is a lot of pressure to make the holidays perfect and fun, and to enjoy yourself while you’re doing it. This is a tall order in any situation, but when you add to that the stress of having a child with special needs for whom you also want the holidays to be perfect and fun, it can become more overwhelming than ever.
When you ask Skyview freshman Beau Thompson about school, he won't have much to say.
In fact, the 15-year-old is always pretty quiet. But ask him about football and his eyes light up, he leans forward in his shoes and his hands come out of his blue jeans pockets.
Thompson is autistic and his verbal skills are minimal, but the message is clear.
He loves football.
The Cause of Thunder: A glimpse into the remarkable world of Eliot Grant..
.a five year old boy from Prospect, Nova Scotia with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. Eliot's mother, Carla, shares the joys and frustration of living with her brilliant, but challenging son.
This piece was produced by Stewart Young. This story just received a Gold Medal at the New York Festivals.
Jeff Stimpson and Jill Cornfield have released the first of their ongoing series of podcasts on parenting an autistic son.
The first installments of Today's Special cover Stimpson and Cornfield's reaction to the stares of strangers on the street, and money and where it goes for the family of an autistic son.
Future casts will cover routine sickness and its special meaning when autism is involved, and regrets that Stimpson and Cornfield have regarding decisions they've made since their son Alex (PDD-NOS) was born three months premature eight years ago.
The Combating Autism Act of 2005 builds on the provisions of the Children's Health Act of 2000 and would authorize $860 million in federal funds over five years to combat autism through research, screening, intervention and education.
It also reauthorizes the National Institutes of Health Centers of Excellence Program in autism originally created in 2000, doubling the number of authorized centers.
Visit the site above for more information.
Jason McElwain, the autistic manager of Greece Athena High School's basketball team who scored 20 points as a substitute, won the ESPY Award on Wednesday night for best moment in sports.
He completed high school in June.
McElwain beat out Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant's 81-point game last season. Other nominees were George Mason University's NCAA Final Four run and 13-year-old Dakoda Dowd's LPGA appearance for her mother, who has terminal bone cancer.
July 5 (Bloomberg) -- Use of mercury in vaccines doesn't cause autism among school-aged children, a study says. Advocacy groups had suggested that mercury used as a preservative in some immunizations may be linked to autism, an umbrella term that covers a range of developmental and communication disorders that affect three to six of every 1,000 children born in North America.
The Montreal study found that autism rates rose steadily among school-aged children who had been vaccinated as infants, even though the preservative was not included the shots during the last two years examined, said Eric Fombonne, director of Pediatric Psychiatry at Montreal Children's Hospital
May 30, 2006 — It was supposed to have been a spectacular Sunday in New York City for Paul DeSavino.
He and his mother, Marlene, were on their way to Carnegie Hall, where he was one of a group of piano students in a recital. The others were already there, taking turns warming up. But Marlene DeSavino sensed that there was something wrong with her son, the only autistic performer in recital that day.
When we got to the rehearsal, and he played, I knew immediately as soon as he played the first couple of notes that he wasn't focused, she said.
Dear Sam, my life was changed the moment you were born. So begins this remarkable collection of thirty-two intimate and compassionate letters that Dan ( Pop ) Gottlieb wrote to Sam, his grandson.
Frank and honest, they address the same challenges we all face, each in our own way, and reading them delivers an inspiring and emotional punch.
Although the themes of the letters are universal, they draw from a highly personal well of experience. Dan Gottlieb has been paralyzed from the neck down since a nearly fatal automobile accident twenty-five years ago.
His grandson Sam was diagnosed at fourteen months old with Pervasive Developmental Disability, a severe form of autism. Dan wrote these letters with the hope that Sam would one day be able to read them and, through them, get to know his grandfather.
| Each April, I receive a flurry of announcements regarding Autism Awareness Month.
As the parent of an autistic young man, and as an autistic person myself, I take considerable interest in what is being said about it.
Despite warnings of a national autism epidemic, there's little data to substantiate such a claim, according to new research compiled by a University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist.
Across the country, the number of children diagnosed as having autism has increased substantially and many of these students are in general education classrooms.
How can general education teachers and other education professionals address their complex communication, social and learning needs?
To assist educators in their daily work, NEA has produced a new resource in collaboration with the Autism Society of America, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and the National Association of School Psychologists.
The Puzzle of Autism is a succinct informational guide for all education personnel who work with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
The guide explains common autistic characteristics and suggests effective classroom strategies for improving the communication, sensory, social, and behavioral skills of children who have autism.
Program archive:
Helping children with autism means providing parents, families, and professionals with the best information, practices, and education in the timeliest manner in the most useful format. Printed words are fine for a number of things: text works well when referencing materials, when reviewing known topics.
Text is not the vehicle to reach and teach parents struggling with new and at times frightening issues and concepts. The answer is the spoken word. A voice conveys information, nuances, purpose and emphasis printed words cannot begin to capture.
A voice is active; resonating with thought and emotion, turning ideas into understandable practice. Better still is the ability to ask questions. Our Internet real-time radio format allows folks to call or email questions to the hosts and get real answers: truthful, honest, unbeholden to special interest groups.
The only group we serve is the autism community. Autism One Radio presents knowledgeable, caring hosts providing answers to many of the most important questions. We cover a wide range of topics, including the most effective treatments and therapies, school concerns, legal issues, government policies, family dynamics and more.
The web, unlike TV and land-based radio stations, is not constrained to geographic boundaries. The web reaches everyone from the East Coast to the West from Europe to the Philippines and every point in between.
Renee Montagne talks with Rhea Paul, professor of communication disorders at Southern Connecticut State University and a researcher at Yale's Child Study Center, about Asperger's Syndrome.
Paul explains the disability in the context of this week's StoryCorps installment that features a conversation between a child with Asperger's and his mother.
Spencer Hua, 7, is just minutes into his piano lesson when his mind begins to wander. He closes his eyes and rests his head on the keys.
It's normal for a child with autism to get distracted this way, but Spencer's teacher, Beth Bauer, knows exactly how to bring him back.
Should we do the duet today? she asks, taking his hand.
Do you want to count or should Beth do it?
The intelligence of people diagnosed with autism is being underestimated, a science conference in St Louis, US, has been told. Research by scientists in Montreal suggests current ways of measuring their intelligence are inaccurate.
Giving autistic people the right stimulation can help draw out innate skills, the study's authors said.
Temple Grandin is one of the nation's top designers of livestock facilities. She is also autistic.
In her 1995 book Thinking in Pictures, she described how her inner-autistic world led her to develop an empathy for how animals cope. Temple Grandin is currently an assistant professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Her new book is Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior.
AUSTIN -- There is a quiet irony in Jeanette and Patrick O'Donnell's house, where autism has taken hold of five of their six children.
Differences in spatial working memory and complex visual, verbal memory may contribute to problems with social interaction, information processing
WASHINGTON — If children with autism can’t see the forest for the trees, that may be partly because the burden of processing all those trees at once makes it harder to lock in the scene. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System have found that children with autism differ from other children in two specific memory capabilities.
The research is in January’s Neuropsychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA).
An effort to use poor children to advance their school voucher campaign failed last year, so House Republican leaders this year are turning to children with autism. “We have to walk before we begin to run in the school choice arena,” House Speaker Brian Bosma told the Indianapolis Star in November.
“I think this is the next step, to look at those who could be served better and more efficiently.”
The speaker’s words reveal the ultimate goal: steering tax dollars from public education to private and parochial schools. It’s telling that the Autism Society of Indiana, the Indiana Autism Coalition and other disability advocates have said they will not support the proposed scholarship program.
- Advice for Parents of Autistic Children A collaboration of information by many influential professionals in the field of Autism. Includes discussions of diagnosis, treatment and interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).
- U.
S. Surgeon General's Report This report discusses the characteristics of Autism and the treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders. The report supports and documents the effectiveness of behavioral intervention programs.
- Current Treatments in Autism: Examining Scientific Evidence and Clinical Implications This article discusses both behavioral and pharmocological interventions.
- Intensive Intervention Programs for Children with Autism This paper discusses different behavior treatment methodologies efficacy.
- Neurologic Treatment Strategies in Autism: An Overview of Medical Intervention Strategies This article discusses medical treatment options for individuals diagnosed with Autism.
- Understanding Autism: The Physiological Basis and Biomedical Intervention Options of Autism Specturm Disorders This paper discusses genetic susceptibility, environmental insults, biomedical dysfunctions, biomedical treatments and immunization recommedations.
- A Clinicopathological Study of Autism This article provides information on brain tissue abnormalities seen in individuals diagnosed with Autism.
It took Kim Peek just over an hour to read Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October.
Four months later, when asked to give the name of the book's Russian radio operator, Peek quoted the entire relevant passage. It was a prodigious feat. Yet for Peek - the real-life 'savant' on whom Dustin Hoffman's character in the film Rain Man is based - such recall only gives a glimpse of his powers.
He knows 9,000 books off by heart; he can direct people around US cities from maps he has memorized years ago; and he has total recall of the dates of all major world events.
Now studies of Peek's abilities are being used by scientists to shed intriguing light on the human mind, and to open the way for men and women to exploit far more of their intellectual potential, as the latest issue of Scientific American reveals.
Welcome to our distance learning platform created by those serving the autism community.
Here you can learn about autism through videos, written presentations and informative chats. Please review our most recent presentations shown below, or search the growing library of presentations.
After putting 24 children with autism through 2-4 years of non-aversive treatment, including cognitive, language, adaptive, social, and academic measures, a new study finds that 11 of the children showed Full Scale IQs in the average range, with IQ increases from 55 to 104, as well as increases in language and adaptive skills.
At age 7, these children were succeeding in regular first or second grade classes and demonstrated generally average academic abilities, spoke fluently, and had peers with whom they played regularly.
The study, titled Intensive Behavioral Treatment for Children With Autism: Four-Year Outcome and Predictors by Glen O. Sallows and Tamlynn D.
Graupner is published in the November 2005 issue of the American Journal on Mental Retardation (Volume 110, No. 6). To read an abstract (free) and/or download a copy of the article (payment applies), visit
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Autistic children lack a key brain activity that helps others understand people's feelings and intentions, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The study, published Sunday in the journal Nature Neuroscience, supports evidence that neurological defects cause the social problems associated with autism, according to the researchers.
It opens the way for new ideas and treatments and insights into autism, said Mirella Dapretto, the study's lead author and an assistant professor at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
Methylphenidate, a medication used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), may be effective in treating hyperactivity symptoms in children with autism and related pervasive developmental disorders, researchers report in the November Archives of General Psychiatry.
| Learn valuable parenting tips and information on parenting toddlers through teens. Find out about children's health issues such as learning disabilities, weight problems and other common health problems with children.
| Normal noise often painful to autistic kids, study finds
Autistic and some gifted children are among the most severely affected by noise, a study in early education by Massey University has revealed.
What other children perceive as normal noise can be intense and painful to autistic children, eroding their ability to communicate and learn.
Stuart McLaren, senior lecturer in health science at the Wellington campus, says researchers will investigate strategies to help those affected.
Words came slowly to Nick Gustin.
He clung to his mother when other youngsters his age took tentative steps of independence. He didn't enjoy being held by his grandparents. Every reaction was an overreaction.
I felt in my heart that something was just not right, said his mother, Heidi Gustin.
It wasn't until Nick, now 10, reached first grade - after his parents held him back a year - that educators and doctors acknowledged he might need more testing. The UC Davis-based MIND Institute, which specializes in neurodevelopment disorders, diagnosed Nick as a high-functioning autistic/Asperger syndrome child.
A growing number of organizations have partnered to form AutismCares, a nationwide disaster relief effort driven to organize assistance for the autism community in the Katrina disaster area.
November 9-13, 2005. 9th International Conferences: Autism and Disorders of Relating and Communicating * Can Autism Be Prevented?
Reliable Early Indicators and Safe and Effective Preventive Interventions
* Biomedical Interventions to Improve Memory, Cognition Language
* Emerging Neuroscience, Brain Imaging and Genetic Findings
* Integrating the Best of the Best: Using the DIR/Floortime Model as a Framework to Organize Different Interventions into a Comprehensive Approach that Meets the Unique Needs of Each Child and Family.
* The ICDL Diagnostic Manual: Pinpointing and Mobilizing the Building Blocks of Language, Sensory Processing, Learning, Thinking and Social Skills
There is no known cure for autism. Yet stories of miracle remedies abound.
Swimming with dolphins, prism therapy, injections of hormones derived from pigs and the consumption of megavitamins are among those hailed as potential therapies.
Parents are easily influenced by such stories, especially if they have exhausted conventional approaches.
I am a parent of an autistic son and when you have tried everything that the professionals have to offer, you will clutch at anything to make headway for your child, said Keith Lovett, the director of the charity Autism Independent UK.
By JENNIFER C. YATES
The Associated Press, Friday, August 26, 2005; 1:43 PM
PITTSBURGH -- The death of a 5-year-old autistic boy has raised questions about whether a medical treatment aimed at cleaning the body of heavy metals should be used to treat the neurological and developmental disorder.
Officials said they do not know for sure what killed Abubakar Tariq Nadama, who went into cardiac arrest and died Tuesday after receiving his third chelation therapy treatment at a suburban medical clinic.
State police were investigating.
News RSS