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Disabled RSS FeedsWhy I will be flexible even if I am old - We all become less flexible as we age.I will be more flexible than most.How can I boast that?It is a small benefit of parenting some very inflexible children. In middle-age my wife and I have been given a graduate level extended boot camp style program in enhanced flexibility.Our natural bounds have been shattered.Assuming a normal decay curve from our artificially elevated heights, we may expect a twenty year flexibility bonus.It's good to have something to offset the accelerated aging associated with parenting special needs children....Feed Source: bestyoucanbe.blogspot.com Warner on Risperdal use in children - The NYT's Judith Warner meant well with a recent blog post about Risperdal use in children with "bipolar disorder" but she was ill-served by the research psychiatrists she interviewed.Here are some excerpts of her writing, with the less sensible parts removed Tough Choices for Tough Children - Judith Warner Blog - NYTimes.comIt was disturbing to read in The Times this week that the ?atypical? antipsychotic Risperdal, a tranquilizing whopper of a drug with serious, sometimes deadly side effects, is now being widely prescribed to children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. .. why, according to new Food and Drug Administration data on doctors? prescribing practices, were 16 percent of the pediatric users of Risperdal over the pa... Altering brain chemistry through dietary means: implications from Alzheimer?s research - A BBC Science article on the animal Alzheimer studies caught my attention because of the reference to altering brain function through dietary changes. Emphases mine ? BBC NEWS | Health | Fatty acids clue to Alzheimer's Controlling the level of a fatty acid in the brain could help treat Alzheimer's disease, an American study has suggested. Tests on mice showed that reducing excess levels of the acid lessened animals' memory problems and behavioural changes. Writing in Nature Neuroscience, the team said fatty acid levels could be controlled through diet or drugs? ? Scientists from Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and the University of California looked at fatty acids in the brains of normal mice and compared them with those in mice genetically engineered to have an Alzheimer's-like condition. They identifie... Diary of a Special Ed Teacher - Just found this one through a NYT essay "Miss Dennis" wrote - Your Mama's Mad Tedious: Diary of a Special Ed Teacher. I'll be reading the back posts and subscribing to the feed.I hope to do a post on her NYT article, she does repeat the article in her blog.... OpenOffice for OS X: touts accessibility - I'm impressed that their accessibility support is a touted feature: www: OpenOffice.org 3.0 New Features: "OpenOffice.org integrates well with the Mac OS X accessibility APIs, and thus offers better accessibility support than many other Mac OS X applications."... Accessibility solutions for OS X - Apple has long been a distant 2nd when it comes to accessibility solutions. Microsoft has put more effort into a reasonable foundation, and 3rd party vendors have built on top of Microsoft's base.Recently, though, Apple has tried a bit harder. Legal threats from several states and fears of being shut out of the education market may have provided valuable motivation. (See: section 508.)For example, OS X 10.5 has an improved screen reader, though Apple still has a long way to go. On the other hand persons with joint and motor disorders want robust voice commands and speech-to-text recognition -- but OS X provides only the feeble and under-developed "Speech Commands" tool.In addition to the improved OS X accessibility page (still heavy on the marketing) Apple now has a 3rd party O... Harcourt family learning series - useful - We've been using the Harcourt Family Learning Complete Curriculum books with our kids, including one child who's disabilities make reading and math pretty darned hard.I'm happy with them. Amazon.com has a pretty good list of the books. The books were published by "Spark Publishing" (Flash Kids), but their web site is gone. I suspect they're no more. I can't find any evidence anyone else is publishing these.The reading and math exercises are interesting enough and quite polished. The Grade 3 level readings are reasonably interesting to our 11 yo boy; it's tough to find that kind of age interesting/readable combination anywhere else.Recommended if you can find 'em! We have the "complete curriculum" for grades 1, 3 and 4.... Controlling nerve cell connectivity - more developments - A day or two ago my post on Fragile X and autism research included a discussion of a general theme in current autism research Bear and other scientists have also identified several drugs that seem to correct the problem. The drugs don't replace the missing brakes in the brain. Instead, they limit acceleration by reducing the activity of a group of receptors on brain cells known as mGluR5 receptors.The drugs have reversed most of the effects of Fragile X in mice. They are now being tried in humans. And at least one small study found that a single dose of a drug had an effect .The idea is that neuronal connectivity is a delicate, dynamic, balance. Too much connectivity, or too little, can both prevent cognition from working correctly.So now there's research on modulating neuronal interco... Minnesota Special Hockey Oct 11th open skate - Our family has enjoyed MN Special Hockey four about 2.5 seasons. We joined up in a pre-launch test, back when we skated with sled hockey. We're starting a new season with a free open skate the University of Minnesota's Mariucci arena (pdf flyer, see directions).If you have a friend or family member in the Twin Cities region with a cognitive or social/behavioral disability, please invite them to our open skate - or check out our contact list.MN Special Hockey has worked well for us. It's kind of a milder version of pond hockey, except that we play in good settings with great volunteers and coaches. We even have cheerleaders for the spe... Congress Passes Mental Health Parity Bill - Bush says he'll sign. This is a big step forward for all children and adults with special needs, though the primary focus is on the adult psychiatric disorders Health Blog : Congress Passes Mental Health Parity BillThe long fight over putting the coverage of mental health on par with other health conditions is nearly over. Both houses of Congress yesterday passed bills that would prohibit employers who offer mental health coverage from doing things like charging higher co-pays for mental health services than for other kinds of health care. That?s long been a common practice . Kennedy, who has battled substance abuse, is a Rhode Island Dem. and a sponsor of the bill. His dad, Sen. Ted Kennedy, now battling brain cancer, has been a ... Bill Clinton on heatlhcare coverage for autistic children - It's hard to remember the glory days of Bill Clinton's administration.Here's a side comment on an interview he recently had Clinton on the bail-out ? Crooked Timber: . He didn?t talk about healthcare in great detail, but it was clearly on his mind. He said that when he had been stumping for Hillary, he had heard tragic stories about people with no or insufficient health insurance in every town that he had visited. He had been particularly struck by the lack of help for families with autistic kids. He didn?t talk at all about the policy responses ? but this was clearly something that he saw as a priority .... NPR series on autism: Hope for Fragile X, autism in college and more. - Public radio has been running a series on cognitive disorders. You can read summaries and listen to audio on the npr web site. I assembled this list by visiting a few and checking out related links. It covers most of the programs over the past two years, the more recent ones are first. Drugs Hint At Potential Reversal Of Autism (see below) An Autistic Student's Journey To College Confronting 'That Autism Thing' Autism: Helping Children Connect How To Avoid Being Bankrupted By Autism ... The rise and fall of autism vaccine theories - Salon features a book review by a physician journalist that traces the rise and fall of theories relating autism to vaccines. These theories are as dead as phlogiston, but strong supporters persist. Some of those supporters have financial motivations, but for others the belief has come to resemble religious devotion.Most of the story was familiar to me, though I recall far more early skepticism than Dr. Parikh mentions. I think there was more early support among UK scientists, but US physicians were more suspicious. Those suspicions were justified, Lancet retracted the original article and the primary author is now suspected of fraud (emphases mine):Salon.com Books | Inside the vaccine-and-autism scareBy Rahul ParikhSep. 22, 2008 | Dr. Paul A. Offit's new book, "Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicin... Kindle reader - not ready for visually or cognitively impaired - It's a little disappointing that the Kindle is not quite ready for people with visual impairment Amazon.com: Vision Impaired - Can a Kindle help? - kindle swindle Discussion ForumA family member has been having a signifificant problem with her vision. I liked the idea of the magnification provided by a Kindle. I have several questions Reviewing the responses I learn that the Kindle allows several font sizes, but even the largest is only comparable to a large text book. The contrast doesn't work as well for persons with macular degeneration as a backlit device.Of course there's no screen reader integration - yet.The good news is that there are no technical problems with increasing the font sizes, and even the screen reader abilities can't be too far away.... Palin cut special needs funding by 62% - She made these cuts while Alaska's oil revenue was booming. Grasping Reality with Both Hands: The Semi-Daily Journal Economist Brad DeLong [Palin]: To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House. But then you read: However, a comment here notes that Palin actually slashed funding for schools for special needs kids by 62%. Budgets: FY 2007 (pre-Palin), 2008, 2009 (all pdfs). This is consistent with her political record and ideology. We already know McCain's dismal attitude toward... Technology for special needs - It's hard for corporations to invest in solutions for special needs adults with cognitive disabilities. The market seems too small.On the other hand, it's easy to justify solutions for aging Americans with pre-dementia -- that's a large and growing market that will hopefully include me one day. (Live long enough, your brain will go.)The cognitive state of a pre-demented 75 yo overlaps with that of a young person with cognitive impairment. So all of the solutions described in this article are applicable to our loved ones (emphases mine) Basics - For the Advanced in Age, Easy-to-Use Technology - NYTimes.com ?The new market is old age,? said Joseph F. Coughlin, director of the Age Lab at ... Public response to autistic behaviors - living in a small world - Dave Kolpack's editorial on public responses to disruptive children begins with the phrase "politically incorrect". That's best read as "truth that offends the weak minded". He gets a little better, but not much better.Emphases mine.Disruptive behavior by autistic children stirs debate, brings forth conflicted feelingsBy DAVE KOLPACK , Associated PressAugust 13, 2008FARGO, N.D. - When a 13-year-old Minnesota boy was banned from church after parishioners complained about his behavior, it exposed a painful truth so politically incorrect that some people feel guilty just saying it out loud: Some autistic children can be annoying and disruptive in public.The case of Adam Race and others like him has laid bare conflicted feelings ? among both parents of these children and other people ? over autistic youngsters in public places. And it has stirr... The Tropic Thunder boycott - Here's the email from the Down Syndrome of MN executive director:By now you may be aware that Tropic Thunder, a film which depicts people with developmental disabilities in a derogatory and disrespectful manner, will open in our area tomorrow evening.Despite aggressive attempts to get Dreamworks-Paramount to modify the offensive content, the film with its offensive and hurtful stereotypes about people with disabilities has debuted intact. The Down Syndrome Association of Minnesota, therefore, joins the National Down Syndrome Congress, National Down Syndrome Society, Special Olympics and Arc of the United States and other disability organizations in calling for a boycott. One of the best ways to send a message to Hollywood is to cut into their ticket sales.Considering what we ask, we must be completely honest. While trusted members of our community were allowed to preview the complete film, all that is available generally is a promotional trail... Schizophrenia revelations - implications for autism - Following close on the heels of findings that major gene scramblings are common in "normal" brains comes more startling news about brain disorders:
Gene-Hunters Find Hope and Hurdles in Schizophrenia Studies - NYTimes.com The variants discovered by the two groups, one led by Dr. Kari Stefansson of Decode Genetics in Iceland and the other by Dr. Pamela Sklar of Massachusetts General Hospital, are rare. They substantially increase the risk of schizophrenia but account for a tiny fraction of the total number of cases.This finding, coupled with the general lack of success so far in finding common variants for schizophrenia, raises the possibility t... Autism and ADHD are not so different after all - More evidence that our current categorization of early onset cognitive disorders needs a rewrite.Evidence for overlapping genetic influences on aut [J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2008] - PubMed ResultBACKGROUND: High levels of clinical comorbidity have been reported between autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study takes an individual differences approach to determine the degree of phenotypic and aetiological overlap between autistic traits and ADHD behaviours in the general population.METHODS: The Twins Early Development Study is a community sample born in England and Wales. Families with twins born in 1994-6 were invited to join; 6,771 families participated in the study when the twins were 8 years old. Parents completed the Childhood Asperger Syndrome Test and the ... Please don't feed the nasty man - Imagine there exists a nasty man of limited insight who's income depends on national attention.Isn't giving him attention like feeding a bear with a bad tooth? He'll just come back for more.... Lessons from gene deletions affecting learning and autism both - On the one hand, this article annoyed me. It demonstrates the usual confusion between association and causation, and it extrapolates from an exotic genetic disorder to the much larger group of children labeled as "autistic".
The reasoning errors, incidentally are not the journalist's. They come from the researchers. Researchers are as prone to this fallacy as anyone else.
On the other hand, it has some interesting hints. So I'll delete the worst parts, and focus on the interesting hints.
Autism Genes That Control Early Learning: Scientific American
A new genetic analysis of large, inbred Middle Eastern families pinpointed six new genes that may contribute to autism . They report in Science that all of the linked genes are involved in ... Guanfacine for ADHD in children with autism -- and a recent literature report - Guanfacine in Children with Autism and/or Intellec [J Dev Behav Pediatr. 2008] is basically reassuring. Guanfacine substantially improves ADHD behaviors in children with autism and similar cognitive disorders. It doesn't have other behavior score benefits. Side-effects were as expected.I have a standing PubMed search on Guanfacine because it's a long used medication that was recently found to be an "alpha 2A adrenoceptor". That's making it the subject of extensive research, such as:changes in neuronal connectivityextended release works well in children and adolescentsstrengthening working memory networks (?)... Games for focal abilities: Set and visual perception - Last week I wrote about focal abilities in the context of cognitive disability, and implications for employment in a distributed world. I was partly inspired by a friend who knew of an autistic child who was very good at the card game "Set":Be the Best You can Be: Employment for special needs persons ? hints from the classification of galaxies These [larger] disabilities are often offset by domains of relative, and even, absolute, strength, such as rapid pattern recognition in the card game ?Set?, or rapid discrimination of large amounts of visual data. Tasks similar to the Galaxy Zoo classification, but with payment attached, might become an option ? in time Since Child A has almost savant ab... Employment for special needs persons ? hints from the classification of galaxies - The Galaxy Zoo uses humans as ?computers?. We?re very good at grouping things by resemblance, so hobbyists are used to group images of galaxies into ?types? With your help, we've been able to collect millions of classifications, with which to do science faster than we ever thought possible ?If you're already familiar with basic Galaxy Zoo analysis, click here to read the instructions and click here to take part. Galaxy Zoo 2 will go live in the near future featuring a much more detailed classification system, while further off we plan GalaxyZoo 3 with lots of exciting new data One amateur astronomer made an important original discovery. Some persons on the autism spectrum with a personal interest in astronomy might be interested in the Galaxy Zoo today, but from a special needs p... Copyright © 2008, Mulitple Sources of Income. All Rights Reserved. |