Changing Gears

After a short hiatus, I am pleased to announce that I will now be writing for ICare4Autism as an Associate Editor. ICare4Autism is an international autism awareness organization that provides information and resources to those in the community interested in autism, ASD and special needs. If you are interested, you can read my work on their site: www.icare4autism.org, it will begin the first round of publishing in the next week. I will still be updating on here from time to time to spotlight topics of interest and provide links to relevant articles.

Best Wishes and happy reading!

Early births linked to Autism and learning disorders?

With Caesarean sections becoming more and more popular globally, many women now have the ability to choose their delivery dates. While this may make things easier, scientist in a recent study found that babies born at 39 weeks, which is a common delivery point for many women, have an increased risk of developing a learning disability. 

In Scotland, scientists have been studying the birth histories of  more than 400,000 schoolchildren. They concluded that while babies born at 40 weeks have a 4% risk of learning difficulties, those born at 37 to 39 weeks of gestation have a 5.1% percent risk, a significant increase. 


 The medical community has already developed a consensus regarding the link between premature babies and learning/developmental disabilities, but this study highlights possible risks for babies born in the 24 to 40 week range which was not commonly thought to have been an issue. 

Research is still being done on this subject and much evaluation still needs to be done. If you are pregnant or planning on starting/continuing a family, please consult your physician regarding your best options for a healthy pregnancy and safe delivery. Find useful information here.
  

Cal State San Marcos Announces New M.A. in Education Program

More M.A. programs in SLP are kick starting in California as the demand for SLPs heightens. San Marcos has just announced a new Master’s of Arts in Education with an Option in Communicative Sciences and Disorders.

Dr. Suzanne Moineau, director of the Communicative Sciences and Disorders program at San Marcos said, "There is currently a significant shortage of speech-language pathologists to service the children with communication disorders in our public schools.”

There are several options for individuals interested in working in the public school system, which desperately needs therapists for all age ranges. Find out more about educational programs in your area by visiting the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association website. It's never too late to start a career in Communicative Disorders!

More on Cellceutix...

In May, we spotlighted Cellceutix as they continue to move towards a potential breakthrough in Autism research. Today, they responded to overwhelming public support regarding this matter in a press release. The company is expediting research and collaborating with the InterEd Faculty of Clinical Research (IFCR) to accelerate the development of KM-391, which as we mentioned in our previous post has potential links to Autism.

Very exciting and interesting news- we are keeping our fingers crossed as this research develops further.

A "chemical fingerprint" for Autism?

There has been recent talk of a possible simple, definitive test for autism done through testing urine.While this would be a huge breakthrough in autism research, some professionals are still skeptical.
The research was done at the Imperial College in London and a researcher involved in the project says he may have found a "chemical fingerprint" in the urine of children with autism that can determine whether or not autism is truly present.  These findings are based on the premise that people with autism have gastrointestinal issues which change their digestive chemistry, a topic that has also been debated.

Interesting thing to think about, you can read more from the ICL press release here.

Another iPhone application helps those with Communication Disorders.

Now communicating is just a click away! Proloquo2Go, an application available to the iPod touch, iPad and iPhone has over 7,000 words to choose from for people suffering from communication problems.

Take a look at their website here.

Great news for parents and adults who are having trouble expressing themselves.

Research may give way to possible cure for hearing loss

Stem cells taken from mice are suggesting the possible treatment of many types of deafness and hearing loss.

The experiment, done with two types of stem cells, raises the possibility of treating many types of deafness and hearing loss. The research has to do with generating stereocilia, which are cells in the inner ear have hair-like projections. When sound vibrations reach these cells, the vibrations are converted into a signal that can be processed in the brain as sound. But when these hair cells are lost or damaged, they cannot regenerate, resulting in hearing loss.

The researchers hope to generate stereocilia in the millions, which could lead to leaps and bounds on the road to curing deafness for many in the future, according to their report in the May 14 issue of the journal Cell.

"This gives us real hope that there might be some kind of therapy for regenerating hair cells," David Corey, professor of neurobiology at Harvard University, said in a news release from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Read more about this here.

Infertility drugs and Autism.

A recent study conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that autism was nearly twice as common among children of women who were treated with the ovulation-inducing medicines than women who did not suffer from infertility.

About 34 percent of moms with an autistic child had used fertility drugs compared to about 24 percent of around 3,900 mothers without an autistic child, according to the research. Nearly 47 percent of moms of autistic kids reported infertility, compared to about 33 percent of the other mothers. And, according to the study, the longer women reported being treated for infertility, the higher the chances were that their child had an autism spectrum disorder (Salahi, Lara).

Although this study was recently presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Philadelphia, the details of the study have not yet been published- so there is still much evaluation to be done regarding this topic. It does pose an interesting question regarding an ostensible link between infertility drugs and autism.

Read more about it here.

The Importance of Early Intervention & Follow-ups

While many people are fortunate enough to catch symptoms of their child potentially suffering from a communicative disorder, not all parents know the warning signs. For those who do, screening and diagnosis are just the beginning. There are many steps that must be taken, forms that must be filled, professionals that must be consulted, and treatment that must be sought to ensure that a child receives the best care possible to maximize his/her progress and improvement.

May is Better Speech and Hearing Month, let us take a moment to emphasize the importance of care and awareness for special needs children. The Center for Disease Control estimates that 97% of infants born in the U.S. have had their hearing screened in a newborn nursery. Marcus Gaffney, a health scientist with the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that as many as 46 percent of children who failed the newborn screening test in 2007 did not have documented repeat testing and treatment.

Follow-up exams are essential to the proper treatment and diagnosis of a child; without them, we can’t get the full picture. The New York Times recently posted a great article regarding infant hearing loss and the importance of following-up if your child has irregular results to screening tests. Read more about it here.

The article highlighted that hearing loss is one of the most common congenital disabilities, affecting 2 to 4 of every 1,000 babies. It can be genetic, or it may result from prenatal infection: Of the so-called TORCH infections that can attack a developing fetus (the letters stand for toxoplasmosis, rubella, cytomegalovirus, herpes and “other”), several can damage hearing (Klass, Perri).

If you are concerned about your child's hearing, please get him/her checked out.

Recent Announcements Suggest Cellceutix Is Well Positioned With Autism Compound

With biomedical research and pharmaceutical development happening all over the world, it is exciting to see companies now finding a new interest in Autism and ASD. Cellceutix recently indicated that they are in a position to move forward with Autism treatment research.

"These announcements indicate that Cellceutix is in a prime position in the development of treatments for autism spectrum disorder," said Leo Ehrlich, the Chief Financial Officer of Cellceutix. "We are developing a novel compound for a disorder which has few treatment options. In an area that people were once skeptical about pharmaceutical advancements being possible, it is encouraging to see other companies showing significant interest."

Read more about this on the MarketWatch.

Cellceutix acquired the rights to KM-391, its compound for the treatment of autism spectrum disorder, last year and has been diligently developing the compound since. Cellceutix has already completed an animal study that shows very encouraging results. Details of the data from the study are available at the Cellceutix website at www.cellceutix.com.

DynaVox Voice Output Device

This device is one of many kinds of speech-generating devices used by people who can't speak.

Read more about it here.

Some other Augmentative Communication and Speech Generating Devices can be found here.

Often times, devices like these serve as an excellent gap for people struggling with communicative disorders. Through visual cues and sounds, they can also help individuals develop their coordination and work on their interpersonal skills.

Mother's Day

For many of us, Mother's Day is a time to appreciate the valuable and inspiring women in our lives. Mothers with children who suffer from Autism may find it more challenging to celebrate this special day.

Rethink Autism provides online videos and tools to help parents and professionals deal with Autism.

Rethink Autism’s curriculum spans the entire autism spectrum and covers a broad range of skills, including academic, language, social, motor, daily living, and behavior management. All video lessons are consistent with Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) methodology. Endorsed by the US Surgeon General and the American Academy of Pediatrics, ABA is the only treatment for autism that has been consistently validated by independent scientific research (Dillon, Shelly).

In appreciation of mothers of children with autism, Rethink Autism has drawn from its library of video lessons to provide a free online video with a few tips on how to teach a child with autism to appreciate Mom by making a gift or even a meal (using a microwave).

Read more about Rethink Autism here, in an article by the Seattle Special Needs Issues Examiner.

Happy Mother's Day! Please take out some time in your day to value and appreciate all of the strong, dedicated and cherished women in your life.

May is Better Speech and Hearing Month

Voice of Toronto posted a very powerful article regarding BSHM, take a look.

More on diets and Autsim...

The verdict seems to be up in the air regarding diets and Autism. Some studies have shown that certain diets can help children suffering from Autism, as we mentioned in the last post.

A recent article posted by WebMD however, uncovers results found by the University of Texas at Austin conveying that glutton-free and casein-free diets do not seem to show any impact on improving Autism symptoms.

You can read the article here.

Interesting article with useful information. As research progresses, we hope to learn more about effective approaches to helping individuals with ASDs.

Alternative Approaches to Autism

According to the CDC's December, 2009 ADDM autism prevalence report, 1 in every 110 American children is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder; for boys, the odds increase to 1 in 70. The Autism Society estimates that the lifetime cost of caring for a child with autism ranges from $3.5 million to $5 million; and the United States spends almost $90 billion annually on ASD related costs for research, educational spending, housing, transportation, insurance costs and non-covered expenses and Medicaid waivers for autism, not to mention related therapeutic services and caregiver costs (CDC, 2010).

Although many resources are available for parents of children with Autism, many are still desperate to find alternative techniques and therapies that could help their child move even further. In fact, 1 in 5 parents of children with autism are currently relying on some sort of non-conventional therapy for autism, according to research presented at the annual Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Vancouver this weekend (Thornton, 2010).

The most common alternative treatments for autism involve placing affected children on a special diet, with quite a bit of anecdotal evidence, at least, showing that special diets help improve the behavior and quality of life among those with ASD. The most common special diets among children with autism are gluten free, dairy free or both (Thornton, 2010).

Diets, picky eating, trouble in digestion and food intake are hot topics in ASD community and this subject has been discussed previously on this ; refer to: this post.


To read more about alternative approaches to autism, you can find this article by the Dallas Healthy Trends Examiner.

Rally Support for your Special Needs Child.

With laws in health care and education changing rapidly in recent times, it is important that we remain involved and aware of the way new legislation may affect special needs children. It is important to consider global approaches to this topic, as well as the measures that are being taken by other governments.

David Cameron tackled over special needs in schools

Conservative leader David Cameron was tackled on the election trail over the alleged segregation of disabled children in the education system.

Accompanied by his wheel-chair using son, Samuel, Jonathan Bartley told Mr Cameron of the two-year struggle he had faced to get the seven-year-old into his local school.

He voiced concerns about Tory plans to end the bias towards inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream schools.

Read the full BBC article here.

APD

The New York Times recently published this article highlighting auditory processing disorder, a syndrome we are still working to learn more about.

Little-Known Disorder Can Take a Toll on Learning

Parents and teachers often tell children to pay attention — to be a “good listener.” But what if your child’s brain doesn’t know how to listen?

That’s the challenge for children with auditory processing disorder, a poorly understood syndrome that interferes with the brain’s ability to recognize and interpret sounds. It’s been estimated that 2 to 5 percent of children have the disorder, said Gail D. Chermak, an expert on speech and hearing sciences at Washington State University, and it’s likely that many cases have gone undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

The symptoms of A.P.D. — trouble paying attention and following directions, low academic performance, behavior problems and poor reading and vocabulary — are often mistaken for attention problems or even autism.

Read the full article here.

It's Special Education Week...

Court Oversight Ends in Longtime Special Education Suit

A federal judge signed a joint settlement agreement last week that puts an end to a 26-year-old special education lawsuit in Baltimore.

Read more about this here.

College professor with autism will speak in Harrisburg

Many of you may have heard of Temple Grandin, author and professor at Colorado State University who has given Autism a whole new platform by speaking publicly and writing about her personal battle with it.

She was also featured in an HBO special about her life, which gave viewers an intimate account of living with Autism.

Grandin is scheduled to speak in Harrisburg, read more about it here.

Picky Eating is Common in Autistic Children, May Be at Nutritional Risk

Two new studies out this year have focused on the nutritional adequacy of diet in children with autism, particularly those who are selective about what they eat. Many children are picky eaters as they go through the more independent stages of toddlerhood and school-age years, but the trait is more common in children diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD).

Autistic children have limitations or difficulties in several key areas of development, including language, communication, social interaction, and rigid or repetitive behavior. “Selective eating”, the clinical term for a picky eater, can be a component of the desire to have a more structured environment. While most children outgrow their tendency to be picky about what they eat, children with ASD often carry the trait into adulthood.

The rest of this article can be found here.

Calling all iPhone users...

Founder of the Grace App, Lisa Domican, created a picture-based iPhone application to help her communicate with her daughter. The tool was so successful she is now trialling it in a school for autistic children in Ireland.

The Grace App is essentially a digital version of the Picture Exchange Communications System - a book of laminated pictures attached to a board by velcro that allows children with autism to build sentences and communicate.

More info on this app can be found here.

To learn more about Lisa Domican's creation and inspiration behind the Grace app, click here.

Linking underserved communities and the developmentally disabled...

Attorney Areva Martin, parent of an Autistic son, co-founded Special Needs Network Inc. to help provide a link between underserved communities, developmental disability organizations and government institutions. The nonprofit has served 20,000 families in California through educational forums, intervention programs and advocacy training (Munz, Michele 2010).

Learn more about Areva Martin's story here.

Special Needs Network, Inc. is an excellent Los Angeles-based organization that works with the community, professionals and parents to help build awareness, support and solutions for Autism in underserved communities.

Find out more about SNN here.

Funding for craniofacial research

Study Aims at Identifying Genetic Causes for Birth Defects

Submitted By The Medical College of Wisconsin

The Medical College of Wisconsin received a two-year, $418,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders to investigate the genetic causes of birth defects that result in deformities of the head and face. Elena V. Semina, Ph.D., professor of pediatrics at the Medical College and a developmental biology investigator at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, is lead researcher for the study.

Read the full article here.

Updates on Cytomegalovirus (CMV)

Though many people have never heard of CMV, approximately 1 in 150 children is born with congenital CMV infection (CDCP, 2006). The following article discusses some of the screening tests used to detect CMV, their accuracy, and analysis of the results of some recent studies regarding CMV detection.

Blood Test Misses Most Deafness-Causing Infections

Adding a dried blood spot DNA test for cytomegalovirus (CMV) to routine newborn screening wouldn't identify most babies with this major cause of childhood hearing loss, researchers found.

In a large prospective study, this approach -- using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods -- missed two-thirds of CMV infections, compared with the standard saliva rapid culture assay.

The low sensitivity suggested the test has no place in large-scale screening, Suresh B. Boppana, MD, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues concluded in the April 14 Journal of the American Medical Association.

Universal newborn screening has been useful in combating many disorders, including phenylketonuria (PKU), but the tactic requires both an accurate test and a good strategy to prevent the consequences among children who test positive, commented James F. Bale, Jr., MD, of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

The blood spot test for CMV isn't necessarily a faulty method, he wrote in an accompanying editorial. Instead, the results "suggest that not all infants with congenital CMV infection remain viremic at birth," he wrote.

The saliva test, too, is inadequate for mass screening, being both time consuming and expensive, Bale noted.

To read the full article, click here.

Original publication site: medpagetoday.com
By Crystal Phend, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: April 14, 2010

Great news for Caldwell College...

Autism funding at Caldwell College: A boost for teaching and research

New Jersey has one of the highest rates of autism in the country, and a $550,000 federal grant to Caldwell College will help ensure that more teachers learn how to recognize and teach children with the disorder.

The funding, announced during Autism Awareness Month, is a reminder that not all federal budget earmarks are for bridges to nowhere. In this case, the bridge is a program that can lead autistic children out of their isolation.

Children with autism are slow to develop language and social skills, but many with the diagnosis can be taught through an intensive, step-by-step process for learning behaviors most of us take for granted: making eye contact when talking to someone, waiting your turn in the playground or classroom, controlling inappropriate impulses.

The grant, together with an earlier appropriation of $476,000, will fund a Caldwell campus center for treating children, clinical training for doctoral students and research on effective strategies. The center is scheduled to open in the fall.

"We give children lots of practice, encouragement and feedback until they learn it," said Sharon Reeve, coordinator of the doctoral program at Caldwell, and who has helped launch the college’s teaching certificate and master's programs. "And then we make it a little harder, and we keep building from there, so they can navigate in the world." The center will offer infant screening because "the sooner the intervention, the better for the child," Reeve said.

The need is evident. One in 94 children in the state is diagnosed with autism — higher than the national average of 1 in 110 children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However only 394 New Jersey teachers have been trained to work with autistic children, said Linda Meyer, executive director of Autism New Jersey. Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez both have directed funding toward autism programs and research at Caldwell and elsewhere, and ensured that behavior treatments will be covered in the state-based insurance exchanges established under health care reform.

New Jersey’s reputation for autism care, including more than a dozen world-renowned programs, draws families here: Princeton Child Development Institute and its various satellite sites, the Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center at Rutgers and the Alpine Learning Group in Bergen County also train educators, treat children on site and conduct research. The Center for Autism opened at the North Ward Center in Newark this year, with plans to offer services to children and their families and eventually open a charter school devoted to children with autism.

Caldwell College has nine affiliate sites that offer specialized teaching for autistic children; more than 400 are on waiting lists around the state for schools that typically serve about 30 students. The college’s new center will be another important beacon for parents in search of solutions to the puzzle of autism.

Posted on The Star-Ledger Editorial Page on April 13, 2010, 5:27AM

Link to this article can be found here.

Continuing on with the theme of this month...

Cindi Roche of Port Huron is the parent of a son with autism and wrote the following article for the thetimesherald.com.

Roche: Autism asks acceptance

During last year's Autism Awareness Month, I wrote that one in every 150 people is affected with some form of autism. That statistic has been the same for years.

When I received an e-mail from Autism Speaks with newer statistics in October 2009, I thought: Finally, the rates are beginning to go down. Imagine my surprise when I read one in every 91 children now is part of the autism spectrum disorder. One in every 58 boys is affected.

More than ever, it is imperative that this special population is accepted into a society they might not understand and doesn't understand them. It's time to show more compassion and have more patience with those who are not the same as everyone else.

What do you show members of this special population when they are having a hard time? Perhaps they're having a meltdown in trying to cope in a world they don't understand.

Do you say encouraging words to the parents or silently pray for a blessing for them? Or do you feel compelled to judge and ridicule them because their perfection is not the same as yours?

As Dr. Wayne Dyer once said, "Whenever you have a thought that excludes or judges anyone else, you aren't defining them. You're defining yourself as someone who needs to judge others."

Perhaps children with autism are here to teach us how diversity in others should be accepted, loved and respected. It's time for a shift in consciousness.

My 23-year-old son has high-functioning autism. Imagine a world in which he can be accepted for the kind, loving young man he is. Isn't that what every parent wants?

As parents, we must be willing to get rid of the lives we planned in order to have the lives that are waiting for us and our exceptional children. I have the pleasure of knowing many kids with varying degrees of autism, and they all are different in their abilities.

If you know someone who has autism, don't think that you "know" autism. You only know that child. They all are unique and different, as Van Gogh and Einstein were.

Imagine how different life would have been without those two.

The original article can be found here.

Songbird genome may shed light on speech disorders

Baby zebra finches learn to sing in virtually the same way as human babies learn to speak -- by copying their elders -- which means the tiny bird should serve as a valuable model for understanding human learning and memory.

"Song learning is an excellent paradigm for all types of learning," said Chris Ponting, a professor with the Medical Research Council Functional Genomics Unit at University of Oxford, who was involved in the research.

"There are experiments that can be done that immediately provide information as to what changes occur in neurons (brain cells) upon the learning of a song. The zebra finch genome provides a tool that allows this exploration," he told Reuters.

The Australian zebra finch, which weighs less than half an ounce (14 grams), is only the second bird to have its genome sequenced, after the chicken in 2004.

Baby finches, like human infants, start off by "babbling" before the young males learn to imitate their father's song and eventually pass it on to the next generation.

As they learn in such a predictable way and many of their genes are also found in humans, finches could provide a window onto the origins of speech disorders, such as autism, strokes, stuttering and Parkinson's disease.

It gives the zebra finch genome a "unique relevance to human neuroscience," a team of international scientists led by Wes Warren of Washington University's Genome Center reported in the journal Nature Wednesday.

Still, untangling the vast web of genetic and molecular factors involved in learning will not be easy.

Experts previously thought there might be around 100 genes involved in zebra finch singing, however, the fact that at least 800 genes exist underlines the sheer complexity of learning.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

(Editing by Hereward Holland)

April is National Autism Awareness Month

Incidence and prevalence rates in Autism are rising- particularly in the United States. For many of us, Autism is a word with no personal meaning. We may have heard of it, or read an article, or watch a TV special, but we have never known a person who has suffered from it. Often times, this unfamiliarity makes it easy to assume Autism is a far off, unrelated issue that doesn't affect you or me. This could not be farther from the truth. Autism is not restricted to a certain type of person, it can occur to anyone's child, in any family, anywhere. For this reason, it is important that we do our part to help educate the community and raise awareness.

If you are interested in Autism and would like to know more about diagnosis and treatment, here are a few helpful sites:


http://www.autismspeaks.org/whatisit/index.php
http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_home

There are plenty of organizations that work to build awareness and support Autism research, some of the aforementioned links also have pages for donations.

Autism Speaks will be holding the 2010 Walk Now for Autism at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. This event will take place on April 24th, 2010. For more information on this event, or to find an event near you, please visit their site directly at:
http://www.walknowforautismspeaks.org

Get involved in your community!

Welcome

Welcome to Speech And Language Therapy of OC! Here you will find relevant information on Speech, Language, Auditory and Cognitive Disorders. Please check back frequently for updates. Thank you for stopping by!



- SLT Team