The Autism News | English
Sumner Redstone steps up big for the organization’s fifth anniversary.
By Katie Leavitt | Tonic
Sumner Redstone, one of the world’s most prominent and successful media entrepreneurs, donated $1 million dollars to Autism Speaks, the organization announced yesterday.
Redstone, who is the founder and CEO of Viacom Inc, CEO of CBS Corporation, and CEO and Chairman of National Amusements Inc,. is a long-time supporter of the organization, which is North America’s largest autism research and advocacy group.
The gift came just in time for Autism Speaks’ fifth anniversary on Thursday.
In a press release announcing Redstone’s donation, his largest gift to Autism Speaks to date, he states, “I hope this contribution will inspire others to give to this wonderful organization that brings hope to all those dealing with autism.” Redstone has donated to many causes in his philanthropic efforts, giving to cancer research, burn centers and more.
Autism is a neurological disorder that negatively affects a person’s communication, social, developmental and, often, behavioral skills. There are various levels of the condition that fall along the autism spectrum. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention now reports that one in 110 children fall along the spectrum, with boys being affected four times more than girls. Autism disorders are growing in number, up 56 percent from 2002 to 2006. However, early detection of the signs and symptoms in children can greatly improve their development.
Knowledge is key, and Autism Speaks not only works to fund research, but also includes awareness, advocacy and family resources in its mission. The organization has raised $131 million since its inception in 2005.
Redstone’s donation will support medical research into the disorder’s causes, treatments and, hopefully, cures. It will also benefit programs for autism suffers and their families.
Source: http://www.tonic.com/article/autism-speaks-receives-1-million-donation-sumner-redstone/
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The Autism News | English
Rett’s syndrome leaves sufferers with serious speech and mobility problems (BBC News)
By BBC News
Edinburgh Scientists probing a rare type of autism believe the “biological mechanism” behind the disorder may be simpler than was previously thought.
Rett’s syndrome leaves sufferers with serious speech and mobility problems. Mainly found in girls it affects more than 1,000 children in the UK.
Symptoms develop in children from the age of one.
Lab work suggests a faulty protein, which causes the condition to interact with all the genes in brain cells.
Until now experts believed it only affected a handful of genes.
Debilitating disorder
The discovery suggests the impact of the faulty gene – MeCP2 – may be similar in different types of brain cell.
Professor Adrian Bird, of Edinburgh University who led the study, said: “This debilitating disorder is caused by a protein that is much more abundant in brain cells than we had realised and can therefore interact with the entire human genome, rather than with a few selected genes.
“It may be that, in Rett patients, many brain cells share a generic defect – which would mean this disease is less complicated than we feared. More work is needed to investigate this possibility.”
The study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, was published in the journal Molecular Cell.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8538401.stm
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The Autism News | English
A gurney allegedly with the with body of socialite Gigi Jordan’s son Michael Jude Jordan, is wheeled to van outside the Peninsula Hotel in New York Photo: GETTY
By The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Gigi Jordan quit a high-powered job as a pharmaceutical company executive and abandoned her social life to devote all her time to her severely autistic son.
For most of his tortured life, Jude Michael Mirra repeatedly banged his head on the floor, screaming and unable to speak, writhing in pain. His mother, trained as a nurse, went to exhaustive lengths to help the 8-year-old, desperate for a cure.
But nothing worked. Her only child is dead now — by her own hands, according to police.
After years of struggling — with his autism and her inability to help him — Gigi Jordan gave up. To those who knew her, she was a loving, overprotective single mother who snapped under incredible strain. To prosecutors, she was a killer.
Jordan, 49, twice-divorced and living in New York, brought her only child to the Peninsula Hotel on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue on Feb. 3. She paid cash for two nights in a $2,300-a-night suite. After posting a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, she double-locked it and jammed it with a chair.
Inside, prosecutors say she fed Jude a fatal overdose of various prescription drugs and took pills herself. Two days later, police alerted by a concerned relative burst in and found her semiconscious on the floor, “babbling incoherently,” with a faint pulse. Her son lay dead in his pajamas, face up on the bed.
Hundreds of prescription pills were strewn around the bedroom, police said.
In what was meant to be a suicide note, Jordan suggested she was driven by mercy: Jude was “in constant pain,” she wrote. “I hope Jude is in a better place.” A person familiar with the investigation who wasn’t authorized to release the note publicly spoke of it to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
As an ambulance rushed her to an emergency room, she asked for an attorney.
From the jail ward of a Queens hospital, Jordan was arraigned via video link on Feb. 16 on charges of second-degree murder. She pleaded not guilty.
Her attorney, Gerald Shargel, told the court there was a “very viable psychiatric defense” for Jordan, saying she shouldn’t be held criminally responsible for her son’s death because of her mental state. He declined to elaborate.
“This is one of the saddest cases I’ve ever seen,” Shargel said outside the courthouse.
Assistant District Attorney Kerry O’Connell argued that Jude’s death “was completely premeditated.” She cited Jordan’s “articulate” written explanation for what she did, a document which “took her obviously a long time.”
A dermatologist and longtime friend, Dr. Marcus Conant, said Jordan confided in him as she tried desperately to fight Jude’s autism.
Her life became “an obsession with her inability to help the child she loved. It literally drove her crazy,” said Conant, who couldn’t imagine her ever harming the child. She was “brilliant,” Conant said, going to “incredible ends,” studying the latest medical literature and consulting with leading experts.
That obsession with finding a cure even drove her to Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where Jude underwent a rare umbilical cord blood stem-cell transplant on April 30, 2007. It didn’t work. Jude’s pain and screams persisted.
About one in 110 U.S. children have autism, a spectrum of neurological disorders that affect communication and social interaction. While there are no medications that can cure autism, studies show that early identification and intervention can improve long-term outcomes.
With her wealth, Jordan could have hired expert care for the boy but “we had no nannies,” Jude’s father, Emil Tzekov, told the New York Daily News. “She could afford them, but she wanted to do everything herself. She made sure all his food was perfect, that he was sleeping so many hours. Everything.”
At one point, she considered sending him to a school for autistic children in California.
Instead, Jordan moved, Conant said.
“Perhaps she was overprotective,” he added, not fully entrusting her son to anyone.
“She was looking for a cure, for a miracle,” said Conant.
Jordan was convinced two years ago that members of a devil-worshipping cult were violently abusing the boy. She sought out a Wyoming sex-crimes investigator she saw on television, Flint Waters, and brought the child to see him — even though Wyoming authorities had discouraged her visit.
Cheyenne police detective Tom Hood said authorities placed her in emergency detention there for a psychiatric evaluation “to make sure she was not a danger to her son, herself or other people.” When she was determined to be no threat, Hood said, she was reunited with her son.
Autistic children often “cannot express pain or discomfort through speech,” says Dr. Timothy Buie, an autism expert at Harvard Medical School who works at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital for Children. Many suffer a sensory processing disorder, Buie said, so that even an earache or an upset stomach “is profoundly magnified.” They communicate distress by screaming, head-banging, even harming themselves, he said.
“Some people can’t stand a child who cries for an hour,” said Conant. “Can you imagine living with a child who’s been screaming for eight years?”
Some parents of autistic children who try everything and still fail to improve their child’s condition reach a breaking point, said Cammie McGovern, an Amherst, Mass., author with a 13-year-old autistic son. Some take their distress to the extreme, she said, ending their child’s life and taking their own.
That was Jordan’s goal, police said.
“It’s so lonely to love a child who is unable to express that back,” said McGovern, whose novel “Eye Contact” examines the relationship between a mother and an autistic son.
“You are driven to the loneliest place on earth, facing what feels like a failure with a child you haven’t saved — and you’ve believed with all your heart that if you worked hard enough you could,” said McGovern.
Conant, who said he never thought Jordan could hurt Jude, believes her obsession was “a control issue, the feeling that she would be the one to save that child, almost a salvation quest.”
He said he met Jordan 15 years ago through pharmaceutical industry mogul Raymond A. Mirra Jr., managing member of the RAM Capital Group and other health care ventures. Jordan and Mirra, whom she married in 1998, amassed a fortune running their companies.
While still married to Mirra, Jordan became pregnant by Tzekov, a Bulgarian-born yoga instructor in Santa Barbara, Calif. Mirra adopted the baby, promising him financial security and in return, Tzekov signed away custody rights.
Jordan divorced Mirra in November 2001, according to public records in Nevada.
Six days later, she married Tzekov. A photo from that time shows a happy threesome, with a curly-haired, smiling Jude sitting between his smiling mother and beaming, handsome father.
But in 2005, Jordan and Tzekov divorced, and by 2007, she forbade him from seeing Jude.
Tzekov’s next contact with his son was in a Manhattan morgue.
When he heard about his death, Tzekov was stunned.
“I cannot understand,” he told the News, his eyes welling with tears. “Gigi was a loving mother. She was not a killer.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/25/us/AP-US-Manhattan-Hotel-Death.html
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The Autism News | English
By Restorative Remedies
- The first in a series of expos produced by the National University System Center for Integrative Health and Restorative Remedies, LLC
- Event will spotlight the increasing prevalence of gluten intolerance
- Day-long event will feature presentations plus a resource expo for individuals with gluten intolerance
Restorative Remedies LLC and the National University System Center for Integrative Health will join forces to produce a series of events to call attention to a significant health issue in our country — gluten intolerance and the myriad diseases that can result from this condition. The first public event, “Living Gluten Free Expo,” will be held on March 20, 2010 from 9:00am to 3:30pm at National University’s Spectrum Center campus in San Diego. Conference organizers, acknowledging a growing and widespread interest in gluten intolerance, plan to continue with a series of events throughout California and Nevada.
In July of 2009 a Mayo Clinic sponsored study, using frozen blood samples taken from Air Force recruits between 1948 and 1954, found that intolerance to wheat gluten is four times more common today than it was in the 1950s. The findings contradict the prevailing belief that a sharp increase in diagnoses of wheat gluten intolerance has come about because of greater awareness and detection, and raises questions about whether dramatic changes in the American diet have played a role.
“It’s become much more common,” said Dr. Joseph Murray, the Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist who led the study. No one knows why, he said, but one reason might be rapid changes in eating habits and food processing over the last half century.
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota who conducted the study also found that the recruits, who had the undiagnosed digestive condition, also had a four-fold increase in the risk of death. According to their study, an estimated 1 out of 100 people suffer from the inherited disorder, though most of the people are unaware they have it. Gluten intolerance can affect a host of health issues including arthritis, ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder, cancer, diabetes, fibromyalgia, and celiac disease – the most severe form of gluten intolerance.
The event will feature a combination of informative lectures and a product and services expo where the public can connect with organizations and companies that support gluten-free living. The Expo will provide information, products, and networking opportunities to people who are either living gluten free, facing the need to adjust to a gluten-free lifestyle, or choosing to eliminate gluten from their household for other reasons.
Presentations throughout the day will include:
- “The Science Behind Gluten Intolerance” — including a follow-up discussion with Dr. Alex Shikhman, and Jacqueline Konstanturos, co-authors of Gluten Nation
- “Label Reading for Your Health” — with Mary Lyons Collard, RD, contributing author to Gluten Nation
- “The Gluten Chronicles” — personal stories from people on the front lines of battling gluten in everyday living
- “Personalized Medicine: A demonstration of new technologies for better diagnosis and treatment” — with Dr. Alex Shikhman
- “The Best Gluten-Free Recipes Contest” — featuring celebrity judges who will award prizes for the best recipes in several categories: appetizers, breads, entr?es, desserts and overall
In addition to the lectures, the Expo will include displays by organizations that support the gluten-free community, as well as companies that offer products and services designed for gluten-sensitive individuals.
Individuals interested in attending the event can purchase their ticket in advance for $10 for General Admission, $25 for VIP Seating and Gift Bag. A gluten-free lunch prepared by the Star of India Restaurant can be purchased for $10, advanced purchase required. The gluten-free recipe contest carries an entry fee of $25, which also covers a general admission ticket. Businesses and non-profit organizations interested in exhibiting should call 858.605.5880 to learn more.
The site of the conference, The National University’s Spectrum campus Center, is located at 9388 Lightwave Ave., San Diego, CA 92123. Call for more information or visit the Living Gluten Free Expo site at www.restorativeremedies.com/expo.
Source: Press Release News
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The Autism News | English
An advocate for de-institutionalization, Mary Paulsen years ago placed her severely autistic, adult son in a group home, hoping he might achieve some level of independence. But Philip, now 45, has started to regress. His violent outbursts require the type of security, consistency and supervision that Paulsen believes can only be found at the Utah Developmental Center. But Utah Human Services officials won’t authorize his transfer from a group home, saying he doesn’t meet the legal requirements (he’s not a danger to himself or others). Paulsen, 73, disagrees and says her appeals have fallen on deaf ears. She and other parents are lobbying for a change in state law to expand enrollment at the Developmental Center. After an accident in his previous group home where Philip was severely burned in a kitchen accident she is taking care of him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in her Salt Lake City home. In a rare quiet moment Mary gets Philip to sit down and look at a family photo album and name the relatives in the pictures. He pats her on the head in a sign of affection. It only lasted about a minute. (Al Hartmann / The Salt Lake Tribune )
By Kirsten Stewart | The Salt Lake Tribune
In one group home, Philip Paulsen was left unattended and was seriously burned in a cooking accident. While playing with water — a habit when he’s anxious — the severely autistic adult caused $5,000 in damage to a supervised apartment. He was evicted for assaulting a caregiver.
As his mother, 73-year-old Mary Paulsen rounds the corner to old age, she feels the “security, consistency and supervision” her son needs can only be found at the state-run Utah Developmental Center in American Fork.
But with a movement to keep the disabled out of institutions underway for decades, Paulsen and other parents feel shut out of decisions about where their loved ones will live. They’re now asking lawmakers to endorse legislation that would make it easier for parents to institutionalize their mentally disabled children.
SB 160 would require the Division of Services for People with Disabilities to “strongly consider” the preference of a parent or legal guardian when deciding whether to place someone at the Developmental Center. It would guarantee a transfer to the center in cases where the cost is equal to, or less than, the cost of keeping someone at a private nursing home. And it limits the division’s power to move residents to less restrictive settings.
“This isn’t about which choice is better,” Paulsen said at a recent committee hearing. “It’s about freedom of choice.”
Currently, placement decisions for people getting Medicaid-paid services are made by a committee. And the Developmental Center is open only those who are a danger to themselves or others and who are in need of continuous medical care or evaluation.
Disability services director Alan Ormsby can override the committee. He hasn’t taken a position on the bill other than to say the Developmental Center plays an important role. Part of its charge is to “stabilize people with challenging behavioral and medical issues and help them to return to the community,” he said.
While 22 people in three years have transitioned out of the center, very few newcomers have been admitted in. At a time of shortages, as nursing homes are nearly full, the center has 45 vacant beds.
“It seems people can choose to get out, but no one can choose to get in,” said Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, the sponsor of SB160.
The measure is expected to come before the Senate this week, having won committee endorsement, despite concerns from disabled rights advocates who say it would be fiscally irresponsible to open admission to the most expensive service option in a budget crisis.
“Utah’s waiting list for disabled services has been frozen for 18 months,” said Joyce Dolcourt with the Legislative Coalition for People with Disabilities.
Various studies have shown the Developmental Center costs from 10 percent to 100 percent more than options in the community, such as group homes. Hoping to capitalize on an appetite to contain Medicaid costs, advocates have in recent years argued for the center’s closure.
But parents like Paulsen say the belief that community is always cheaper is partly to blame for a woefully underfunded community system that is ill-equipped to care for those with complex needs.
“For some, institutional care is actually the least expensive option. But there aren’t enough beds in this state,” said Carola Zitzmann, the Holladay mother of a non-verbal autistic adult.
She believes that by denying access to the few beds that are open at the Developmental Center, Utah is in violation of federal Medicaid law, which gives individuals a choice between institutional care or home and community care.
Dean Robinson says bleeding the Developmental Center of clients raises its per-bed costs, which he fears will eventually lead to its demise.
Robinson’s profoundly retarded son Mark, 55, is one of the center’s long-term residents. “Community placement wasn’t an option for us,”said Robinson, a retired dentist living in Orem.
Paulsen, meanwhile, is at a loss to understand why the state rejected her petition to transfer Philip to the Developmental Center.
After his shirt caught fire on a gas stove, burning much of his back and part of his arm, Paulsen took him into her Millcreek home, scrubbing his scabs and changing his bandages with the help of a friend who is a nurse.
He is now at another group home, after his eviction from a supervised apartment for injuring staff last year.
“I know what Philip can be like,” said Paulsen. “I know him better than anyone else, which is why I think I should have some say on his placement.”
Source: http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14472014
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Une hormone am?liore les contacts sociaux d’autistes selon une ?tude
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The Autism News | French
Par AFP
PARIS — L’administration par voie nasale d’une hormone, l’ocytocine, connue pour son r?le dans l’attachement maternel et le lien social, am?liore le comportement social de patients autistes, selon une ?tude fran?aise.
L’?tude, une des premi?res ? d?montrer un effet th?rapeutique potentiel de cette hormone sur les d?ficiences sociales dans l’autisme, est publi?e lundi dans les comptes-rendus de l’acad?mie des sciences am?ricaine.
L’ocytocine est une hormone qui favorise l’accouchement et la lactation, et joue un r?le dans le lien social et les comportements ?motionnels.
Selon de pr?c?dentes ?tudes, le taux sanguin de cette hormone est bas chez les patients atteints d’autisme, maladie marqu?e par des difficult?s ? communiquer avec l’entourage et ? d?velopper des liens sociaux.
L’?quipe d’Angela Sirigu du Centre de neuroscience cognitive (CNRS) ? Lyon (France), en collaboration avec le Dr Marion Leboyer (Inserm, h?pital Chenevier, Cr?teil, pr?s de Paris) a test? l’hormone sur 13 patients souffrant d’autisme de haut niveau ou du syndrome d’Asperger. Ces sujets ont des aptitudes intellectuelles normales, mais n’arrivent pas ? s’engager spontan?ment dans des situations sociales. Par exemple, lors d’une conversation, ils ?vitent de croiser le regard de l’autre.
Les patients ont ?t? observ?s pendant des jeux de balle et soumis ? des tests visuels de reconnaissance sur des photos de visages exprimant diff?rents sentiments.
Sous placebo, les patients renvoyaient la balle indistinctement ? leur trois partenaires. Au contraire, les patients trait?s tenant compte des diff?rences entre les partenaires, renvoyaient la balle au plus coop?rant.
Lors des tests visuels, les patients sous placebo regardent la bouche ou en dehors de la photo. Mais apr?s avoir inhal? de l’ocytocine, ils ont un degr? d’attention plus ?lev? aux stimuli faciaux : ils regardent les visages photographi?s et plus souvent les yeux.
Les r?sultats des tests montrent que l’administration d’ocytocine permet aux patients autistes de s’adapter au contexte social en identifiant des comportements diff?rents parmi les membres de l’entourage et d’agir en cons?quence en montrant plus de confiance envers les individus les plus coop?rants. L’ocytocine diminue ?galement la peur des autres et favorise le rapprochement social, ajoutent les chercheurs.
La poursuite des travaux portera sur les effets ? long terme de l’hormone, sur l’am?lioration des troubles de la vie quotidienne des patients autistes et son efficacit? ? un stade pr?coce de la maladie.
Source: AFP
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The Autism News | French
Par Universcience
Fran?ais, Fran?ais
The Autism News | English
(Istockphoto)
By Joanna Weiss | The Boston Globe
LAST WEEK, my 15-month-old son got his Pentacel shot, which contains vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, and a form of influenza that can cause bacterial meningitis. By rights, I should have felt relieved: He’s now protected from a pack of dread diseases. But I was nervous for days, watching his every move. Was he still making eye contact? Saying “Hi, Dada”? Or was this the moment he’d slip away?
Maybe I’ve read too many stories about parents like Doug Flutie, who swears that his child was normal, got some shots, and changed. But I know that few things strike terror into parents’ hearts like the dramatic increase in autism diagnoses, now estimated at one in 100 American children. Some attribute the rise to changes in how the disorder is diagnosed – the child who once would have been labeled “troubled” or “odd” now falls on the autism spectrum. (Indeed, the bulk of new autism cases involves kids with average and high IQs.)
But the numbers are so stark that many believe the environment plays a part. And because the rise in autism has correlated with a dramatic increase in the number of shots babies get – and vaccines, unlike air, are something a well-meaning parent can control – it’s little surprise that immunization has been the focus of fear, and has caused a rift between some parents and pediatricians.
How much fear? It depends where you look. The majority of parents follow the Centers for Disease Control’s vaccination schedule to the letter; in 2008, 76 percent of 19-to-35-month-olds had received gotten the government’s recommended menu of vaccines, which now begins with a Hepatitis B shot at birth.
But some parents want to avoid vaccines altogether, and doctors report an increasing number that want to delay the schedule or limit the number of shots given at each appointment. The doubters are often educated and affluent: When she practiced pediatrics in inner-city Philadelphia, Dr. Meg Fisher rarely saw parents who questioned vaccines, but in the New Jersey suburbs where she now works, the skeptics are more plentiful. And some of the country’s lowest vaccination rates are in places like Berkeley, Calif., and Boulder, Colo., according to Arthur Allen, the author of “Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver.”
“It’s sort of where the intellectual hippies meet the black helicopter crowd,” Allen said.
That would almost be amusing if the stakes weren’t so high, and if there weren’t so many well-meaning parents Googling desperately for clarity, trying to weigh the risk of disease against the shadowy specter of autism, wading through dueling statistical analyses and ugly barbs. (On the Internet, vaccine advocates are lemmings and shills for the pharmaceutical industry, while skeptics are parasitic cranks who get their science from Jenny McCarthy.)
And new information has done little to change the debate. When the Lancet, a British journal, recently retracted an influential 1988 paper that suggested a link between autism and the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine, the antivaccination forces were more emboldened, saying this was just a move to discredit unpublished research that would prove a vaccine-autism link.
As Allen has written, it will be nearly impossible to quiet the doubts. Many respectable studies have found no link between autism and the ingredients of vaccines. But there has been no definitive non-proof, either – no controlled longitudinal study of children who get vaccines on the current CDC schedule and those who don’t. (Ethics rules and practical considerations, such has how to create a control group, make one virtually impossible.) And for every scientific study that rejects a link, there’s a heartbreaking, unprovable, irrefutable anecdotal story that says otherwise.
So it’s little surprise that parents sometimes react with emotion, and pediatricians sometimes get annoyed. Fisher, who heads the American Academy of Pediatrics’ infectious diseases committee, says about 20 percent of doctors she speaks to refuse to treat children whose parents won’t follow the CDC schedule to the letter. Others have voiced frustration about having to explain and re-explain the importance of vaccines: “I know, I am supposed to be understanding, but I don’t have time to do this anymore,” one doctor wrote last year on the website sciencebasedmedicine.org.
The American Academy of Pediatrics urges doctors to work with skeptical patients, but Fisher says that isn’t always easy. Doctors worry that children will get sick or spread diseases to other patients. They don’t want their good intentions to be questioned. And so parents who raise doubts can find themselves treated like nuisances or enemies of science. Some of them walk away.
I’m not arguing against vaccinations, but I do think doctors need to give parents more credit for seeking information, and approaching medicine with some degree of skepticism. History is filled with stories of well-meaning doctors prescribing medicines that turned out to be harmful. In very rare cases, vaccines can cause damage. And while vaccines have been made significantly safer over the years, it’s not irrational to think that, with more study, they could become safer still.
Again, that’s not to say that parents should ignore the threat of infectious disease – anecdotes about children suffering from whooping cough are enough to give anyone pause. But something needs to change in the doctor-patient relationship, too, which is why some pediatricians are preaching compromise.
Perhaps the most famous of them is Dr. Bob Sears, the son of attachment-parenting guru William Sears. In “The Vaccine Book,” Sears, the son, promotes an alternative schedule he says urges vaccine coverage for some of the most common and life-threatening diseases for infants – such as meningitis and whooping cough – while giving parents permission to delay other shots.
“Instead of ignoring parents’ worries or blowing them off or telling them they’re wrong to be concerned about their baby, I’ve chosen to understand their concerns, listen to them, and find a way to help them vaccinate,” he told me by phone. “By kicking these parents out of our offices, we won’t achieve anything.”
It’s true that Sears’s schedule is more hunchwork than science – there’s a fair amount of marketing savvy mixed in there, too – which is why he is sometimes rebuked by other doctors. But he ought to get credit at least for trying to keep parents in the vaccination fold, and for encouraging dialogue. Parents might be more open to reason, after all, if they know they’ll be having a conversation instead of girding for a fight. They aren’t questioning because they hate science, after all. They’re questioning because they love their children.
Source: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/02/27/seeking_common_ground_in_the_autism_vaccine_debate/
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By Greg Groogan
HOUSTON – A musical perspective both unique and provocative. It is the gift of Richmond singer and songwriter Kyle Cousins.
Cousins’ capacity to express with music what so many others living with autism keep locked up inside has offered a welcome window into an often mysterious world.
His debut album “Spectrum” drew devoted fans and now his song “Everybody Wants to be Heard” has been licensed by the national advocacy group Autism Speaks as a national campaign song.
“This isn’t just about a few states or a few cities this issue is nationwide, so its the perfect campaign song for this cause, to stop autism once and for all,” says the 20-year-old Cousins.
The song has been incorporated in soon to be distributed public service announcements.
For Cousins’ proud parents, this thriving and inspiring is a worthy pay-off for years of struggle.
“To be offering this hope to other young families is a miracle to me,” says Kyle’s mom, Diane Cousins.
For Kyle Cousins, exposure to a new and growing national audience represents a real chance to make a meaningful mark with his music.
“Yes, I do have autism, but really I’m just a singer, that’s all.”
A self image that says as much about where he’s headed, as where he’s been.
Kyle Cousins- Moon’s Lamp Post
Source: http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/news/local/100226-autistic-singer
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Book Review: Squirmy Wormy: How I Learned to Help Myself by Lynda Farrington Wilson
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The Autism News | English
Look Inside This Book
By Gavin Bollard | Blogcritics Books
It’s not often that I see a book which comfortably sits across several age groups and brings useful and different information to each. Squirmy Wormy is such a book.
Squirmy Wormy is a picture book which deals with Autism and Sensory Processing Disorder. As someone with Aspergers Syndrome and two children on the autism spectrum, the book was of particular interest to me.
Squirmy Wormy is a quick and easy read. The story itself is a mere 18 pages with about five lines of new text on each page plus a little repetition which is great fun for reading aloud. It’s easy reading for average young readers and even for struggling readers in grades three and four.
What makes Squirmy Wormy so different from your average picture book though is that apart from having a generally non-linear story from which you can simply read one or two relevant pages without having to read the entire story, is that it offers a great deal of advice for parents but more importantly, for children. One of the main aims of this book is to encourage children to help themselves.
Taking a child’s point of view, it’s easy to see the advice for given situations. For example; one page reads, “Sometimes I just get upset and confused and I just don’t know what else to do but scream or cry.” The advice follows on quickly: “But I just close my eyes, take a deep breath and think of something that makes me happy.”
There’s also a reassurance of normality: “It’s okay when I feel upset. I will feel better soon.”
Other pages suggest breaks for the child and even provide some interesting ideas for parents to implement. Best of all, a child who is reading the book may begin to implement or recommend their own therapy for a given problem.
The illustrations in the book are all bright and colorful. They’re also very easy for children to relate to. There’s a lot of detail in the illustrations and my children had great fun pointing out various bits and pieces.
I read the book aloud to both of my children and they stayed attentive throughout. Best of all, it provided me with some great ideas and opened some enlightening discussion topics with them. It was interesting to be able to point to pages and ask them, “do you feel like that?”.
I’d recommend Squirmy Wormy to all parents of children on the autism spectrum, with SPD or even with non-autistic conditions such as learning difficulties and ADHD. There are a lot great ideas in it which are suitable for a much broader range of children.
Professionals working with special needs children really need to grab a copy, too. If nothing else, it’s the kind of book that they should have in their waiting rooms.
Source: http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-squirmy-wormy-how-i/
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