INFORMATIVE EVENING ABOUT CANINE COMPANIONS FOR INDEPENDENCE

RE-SCHEDULED FROM AN EARLIER DATE

ALL ARE WELCOME TO AN INFORMATIVE EVENING ABOUT

CANINE COMPANIONS FOR
INDEPENDENCE (“CCI”)


CCI trains service dogs to assist
disabled children and adults

TEMPLE HILLEL
1000 Rosedale Road, North Woodmere, NY 11581
TUESDAY EVENING APRIL 8TH
7:30 PM

In addition to having CCI dog trainers on hand to provide you with information and answer any questions, we will have service dogs in training as well!

Everyone is invited to learn more about this wonderful service organization, and how CCI service dogs can help you, your family and friends.

For more information, please call Alice Laby: 791 5719

Autism Debate Go-To Blogs

Autism Debate Go-To Blogs

By Matthew Herper
Forbes.com

There's been quite a bit of hubbub in the blogosphere about the U.S. government's decision to concede that vaccines may have caused autism-like symptoms in one little girl. Anti-vaccine activists have used the case to argue that a chink has appeared in the government's armor. Government officials and researchers counter that the girl had a disorder related to her mitochondria, not just autism, and that little has changed from either a legal or scientific perspective. The girl's father believes that the benefits of vaccines outweigh the risks. (See this WebMD story.)
You can read plenty about this elswhere on the Web. Here are some great places to start.
Autism Vox is one of my favorite blogs about not just autism, but anything. It's written by Kristina Chew, a Ph.D. in classics who has an autistic son. It is by turns personal and erudite, with a real appreciation for what the science on autism actually says.
Neurologica is a good place to go for a neurologist's perspective. Blogger Steven Novella practices at the Yale University School of Medicine and is president of the New England Skeptical Society.
Stop. Think. Autism. is another thoughtful blog by the parent of an autistic child. Her writing is movingly straightforward, and she's good at finding appropriate articles in the scientific literature.
Respectful Insulence is written by a surgeon who goes by the nom-de-blog Orac. He blogs on this issue so often that I'm beginning he has some kind of alarm that goes off when someone, somewhere tries to point to vaccines as the primary cause of autism.

Working Dad: Rise in childhood mental illness is perplexing

Working Dad: Rise in childhood mental illness is perplexing

By PAUL NYHANP-I REPORTER

Scrambled eggs and toast were on the kitchen table, a soccer game began in an hour and October sun poured into Elizabeth Coplan's Seattle-area home.
Yet it was 11 a.m., and her 10-year-old son would not get out of bed, remaining tucked under his covers more like a teenager than a fourth-grader.
It was the latest of yellow flags that had been waving since Mark Coplan was born that something was wrong: night terrors, lips rubbed until bleeding, recurring stomach aches, aversion to smell, and never much sleep, maybe four hours a night for mother and son.
By the time her son was 6, a psychiatrist told Coplan the boy suffered from depression, the youngest case she had ever diagnosed, and gave him what would be the first in a series of medications.
"There is nothing worse than having a 10-year-old on a bright sunny day refuse to get up," said Coplan, 53, about that day three years ago. "There were times he was just so sad you couldn't get him to do anything."
Today, a growing number of younger children are diagnosed with depression, attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder and any number of other mental illnesses. Overall, 10 million children struggle with psychiatric disorders, according to New York University's Child Study Center.
Today's parent lives in an era of diagnosis. Even if a child isn't coping with a mental disorder, fear often lurks in the back of a parent's mind, put there partly by a drumbeat of persistent media coverage.
Sometimes it seems treatment is struggling to catch up and adapt to this fast-changing and expanding group of children. Health professionals seemingly worry about everything: misdiagnosis, underdiagnosis, overdiagnosis and use of medication.
There even is plenty of debate about what childhood mental illness is and how to treat it, though parents are taking a greater role in treatment.
Those parents, meanwhile, struggle with their own dread that it can mean a lifelong struggle for their children.
"I think the term mental illness is so scary for parents because it sounds like this is going to be persistent, and it's never going to go away," said Dr. Eric Trupin, a professor in the University of Washington's Psychiatry and Behavior Department.
The reality is that mental illness exists among children, but children also change, and a problem in an 8-year-old may be manageable a few years later, Trupin said.
At the same time, psychiatrists, or more often pediatricians, are detecting mental illness in younger children, as the stigma lightens and awareness grows, experts say.
When Elizabeth Coplan was looking for help 10 years ago, it was a different story.
After numerous doctor visits it became obvious her son's ailment wasn't physical, yet she spent the next eight years figuring out what it was.
At age 3, it was sensory integration disorder with traits of autism, though not a full-blown case. By age 5, it was general anxiety disorder, and the kindergartener was given small doses of Valium to help with sleep.
"I was so numb I didn't ask the right questions," Coplan said. "I just blindly filled the prescription because by then both my son and I were suffering six years of sleep deprivation."
Then he turned 6, and his psychiatrist told the family he had depression.
"You want your 6-year-old to be smiling, and if he's not, your heart breaks," Coplan said.
Over the next five years, Mark Coplan, who asked that his first name be changed for this story, tried a series of medications -- the antidepressants Trazodone, Remeron, Wellbutrin and Zoloft, and the hypertension drug Clonidine -- as well as therapy, but nothing worked for long.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Coplan developed her own symptoms, including fibromyalgia and exhaustion. When her son didn't sleep, neither did she.
Finally, they hit on Paxil, another antidepressant that offered steady improvement, while Mark developed new coping skills, such as learning to leave situations and play piano when stressed.
Then he turned 11 and eased off everything.
But Elizabeth Coplan still struggled, frustrated with the little help she found around Seattle.
"Eleven years ago when I was going through this there were no resources," Coplan said.
In response, two years ago Coplan helped to create the Seattle-based Web site and blog support group A Wild Ride, where struggling parents, with or without diagnosed children, share stories, find resources and get child-rearing tips.
Perhaps the biggest problem facing Coplan and other parents is an acute shortage of child psychiatrists, only 6,000 for the nation's 73 million children, according to Dr. Christopher Lucas, an associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University's Child Center.
The shortage means pediatricians are the nation's primary screeners for childhood mental health.
"I don't think you can make a diagnosis of depression in a 10-minute doctor visit, you just can't," said Dr. James Parker, a child psychiatrist at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle.
The challenge is only complicated by diagnoses that often are simplistic or poor, Lucas added.
The good news is resources slowly are improving in Seattle and nationally for mental illness and behavioral problems among children.
These days, Mark Coplan also is markedly improved. He is a typical 13-year-old who plays on a select soccer squad, earns A's and sleeps in a room plastered with posters of Jimi Hendrix, Rage Against the Machine and Kurt Cobain, and littered with clothes.
"I feel like every other kid," he said last week.
His mother still worries, but last week Mark offered her some assurance.
"I've gotten over it once and I can do it again, with a little help from my family."
A GUIDE FOR PARENTS
Childhood mental illness is a complicated, confusing and difficult challenge that should be handled by trained medical professionals. Experts advise parents to follow these guidelines in observing their children:
· Watch for anxiety. It can be an early sign of depression.
· Talk to your kids. They often will tell you how they are doing.
· Eat dinner together.
· Trust your gut instincts about your own child.
· Share concerns with your pediatrician.
· Learn what you can about a diagnosed disorder.
· Take care of yourself.
Resources:
· A Wild Ride: awildride.net
· National Alliance on Mental Illness Greater Seattle, 206-783-9264, nami-greaterseattle.org
· New York University Child Study Center, 212-263-6622, aboutourkids.org
SOURCES: NYU Child Study Center, University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavior, NAMI Greater Seattle

Announcing Glimpse: A new online literary magazine presents works by artists with autism and other developmental challenges

Washington, D.C., March 5, 2008 (ICDL). The premier issue of America’s first online literary magazine featuring works by people with autism and other developmental challenges offers more than a Glimpse into the rich, creative inner life of these individuals. Remarkable as both art and insight, these poems, short essays, paintings, drawings, and photography broaden our understanding of the creative processes in all of us.
Following are excerpts from the premier edition:
“If I go for a walk in the forest with a friend and they’re talking, I may as well be at home for I’ve missed the trees and the sounds; all I experience is their voice. If I notice the beauty around me I miss everything they said as I was focusing on the forest sights. So often I go on walks alone, but even then I find while walking I’m missing a lot of the forest. So I stop and enjoy a beautiful tree, but then find I’m missing the sounds and begin to immerse myself in the sounds of the birds and the leaves and even though my eyes are open I literally can not see the tree, my vision is blank. Then I flash back to the tree without planning to and it snaps me out of the trance I was in listening to the sounds. And so it goes.” Michael Moon in “ Autistic/Artistic”
“PLEASE LISTEN TO MY HEART
PLEASE FORGIVE THESE CLUMSY WORDS
JUST HEAR ME FROM MY OPEN HEART TO YOURS
THE LANGUAGE OF MY HEART SPEAKS ELOQUENTLY
WHILE MY FINGERS GRAPPLE FOR THE LETTERS ONE AT A TIME.
MY MOUTH HAS NOTHING TO SAY.” From “ Please Listen to My Heart” by Roy Bedford
Glimpse is published by the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders (ICDL), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the prevention, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of emotional and developmental disorders in infancy and childhood by promoting dialogue and integrating knowledge from different disciplines.
Please click here to access a PDF version of Glimpse:
http://www.icdl.com/bookstore/glimpse/documents/GLIMPSE-1308.pdf
For more information about Glimpse, including submission guidelines, please visit www.icdl.com or contact the editors at Glimpse@icdl.com.
Contact:
Lori Jeanne Peloquin (co-editor): 585-697-0944 X91 or Glimpse@icdl.com or
Natasha Labbe: 240-421-0606 or nlabbe@icdl.com

How About Not 'Curing' Us, Some Autistics Are Pleading

By AMY HARMON Published: December 20, 2004
Correction Appended
BOICEVILLE, N.Y. - Jack Thomas, a 10th grader at a school for autistic teenagers and an expert on the nation's roadways, tore himself away from his satellite map one recent recess period to critique a television program about the search for a cure for autism.
"We don't have a disease," said Jack, echoing the opinion of the other 15 boys at the experimental Aspie school here in the Catskills. "So we can't be 'cured.' This is just the way we are."
From behind his GameBoy, Justin Mulvaney, another 10th grader, objected to the program's description of people "suffering" from Asperger's syndrome, the form of autism he has.
"People don't suffer from Asperger's," Justin said. "They suffer because they're depressed from being left out and beat up all the time."
That, at least, was what happened to these students at mainstream schools before they found refuge here.
But unlike many programs for autistics, this school's program does not try to expunge the odd social behaviors that often make life so difficult for them. Its unconventional aim is to teach students that it is O.K. to "act autistic" and also how to get by in a world where it is not.
Trained in self-advocacy, students proudly recite the positive traits autism can confer, like the ability to develop uncanny expertise in an area of interest. This year's class includes specialists on supervolcanoes and medieval weaponry.
"Look at Jack," Justin pointed out. "He doesn't even need a map. He's like a living map."
The new program, whose name stands for Autistic Strength, Purpose and Independence in Education - and whose acronym is a short form of Asperger's - is rooted in a view of autism as an alternative form of brain wiring, with its own benefits and drawbacks, rather than a devastating disorder in need of curing.
It is a view supported by an increasingly vocal group of adult autistics, including some who cannot use speech to communicate and have been institutionalized because of their condition. But it is causing consternation among many parents whose greatest hope is to avoid that very future for their children. Many believe that intensive behavioral therapy offers the only rescue from the task of caring for unpredictable, sometimes aggressive children, whose condition can take a toll on the entire family.
The autistic activists say they want help, too, but would be far better off learning to use their autistic strengths to cope with their autistic impairments rather than pretending that either can be removed. Some autistic tics, like repetitive rocking and violent outbursts, they say, could be modulated more easily if an effort were made to understand their underlying message, rather than trying to train them away. Other traits, like difficulty with eye contact, with grasping humor or with breaking from routines, might not require such huge corrective efforts on their part if people were simply more tolerant.
Spurred by an elevated national focus on finding a cure for autism at a time when more Americans are receiving autism diagnoses than ever before - about one in 200 - a growing number of autistics are staging what they say amounts to an ad hoc human rights movement. They sell Autistic Liberation Front buttons and circulate petitions on Web sites like neurodiversity.com to "defend the dignity of autistic citizens." The Autistic Advocacy e-mail list, one of dozens that connect like-minded autistics, has attracted nearly 400 members since it started last year.
"We need acceptance about who we are and the way we are," said Joe Mele, 36, who staged a protest at Jones Beach, on Long Island, while 10,000 people marched to raise money for autism research recently. "That means you have to get out of the cure mind-set."
A neurological condition that can render standard forms of communication like tone of voice, facial expression and even spoken language unnatural and difficult to master, autism has traditionally been seen as a shell from which a normal child might one day emerge. But some advocates contend that autism is an integral part of their identities, much more like a skin than a shell, and not one they care to shed.
The effort to cure autism, they say, is not like curing cancer, but like the efforts of a previous age to cure left-handedness. Some worry that in addition to troublesome interventions, the ultimate cure will be a genetic test to prevent autistic children from being born.
That would be a loss, they say, not just for social tolerance but because autistics, with their obsessive attention to detail and eccentric perspective, can provide valuable insight and innovation. The neurologist Oliver Sacks, for instance, contends that Henry Cavendish, the 18th-century chemist who discovered hydrogen, was most likely autistic.
"What they're saying is their goal is to create a world that has no people like us in it," said Jim Sinclair, who did not speak until he was 12 and whose 1993 essay "Don't Mourn for Us" serves as a touchstone for a fledgling movement.
At this year's "Autreat," an annual spring gathering of autistics, attendees compared themselves to gay rights activists, or the deaf who prefer sign language over surgery that might allow them to hear. Some discussed plans to be more openly autistic in public, rather than take the usual elaborate measures to fit in. Others vowed to create more autistic-friendly events and spaces.
Autreat participants, for instance, can wear color-coded badges that indicate whether they are willing to be approached for conversation. Common autistic mannerisms, like exceedingly literal conversation and hand-flapping, are to be expected. Common sources of autistic irritation, like casual hugs and fluorescent lighting, are not.
For many parents, however, the autistic self-advocacy movement often sounds like a threat to the brighter future they envision for their children. In recent months, the long-simmering argument has erupted into an online brawl over the most humane way to handle an often crippling condition.
On e-mail lists frequented by autistics, some parents are derided as "curebies" and portrayed as slaves to conformity, so anxious for their children to appear normal that they cannot respect their way of communicating. Parents argue that their antagonists are showing a typical autistic lack of empathy by suggesting that they should not try to help their children. It is only those whose diagnosis describes them as "high functioning" or having Asperger's syndrome, they say, who are opposed to a cure.
"If those who raise their opposition to the so-called oppression of the autistic would simply substitute their usage of 'autism or autistic' with 'Asperger's,' their arguments might make some sense," Lenny Schafer, publisher of the widely circulated Schafer Autism Report, wrote in a recent e-mail message. "But I intend to cure, fix, repair, change over etc. my son and others like him of his profound and typical disabling autism into something better. Let us regain our common sense."
But the autistic activists say it is not so easy to distinguish between high and low functioning, and their ranks include both.
In an effort to refute parental skeptics, the three owners of autistics.org, a major Web hub of autistic advocacy, issued a statement listing their various impairments. None of them are fully toilet-trained, one of them cannot speak, and they have all injured themselves on multiple occasions, they wrote: "We flap, finger-flick, rock, twist, rub, clap, bounce, squeal, hum, scream, hiss and tic."
The touchiest area of dispute is over Applied Behavior Analysis, or A.B.A., the therapy that many parents say is the only way their children were able to learn to make eye contact, talk and get through the day without throwing tantrums. Some autistic adults, including some who have had the therapy, say that at its best it trains children to repress their natural form of expression and at its worst borders on being abusive. If an autistic child who screams every time he is taken to the supermarket is trained not to, for example, he may still be experiencing pain from the fluorescent lights and crush of strangers.
"Behaviors are so often attempts to communicate," said Jane Meyerding, an autistic woman who has a clerical job at the University of Washington and is a frequent contributor to the Autistic Advocacy e-mail discussion list. "When you snuff out the behaviors you snuff out the attempts to communicate."
Perhaps the most public conflict between parents and adult autistics came in a lawsuit brought by several Canadian families who argued that the government should pay for their children's A.B.A. therapy because it is medically necessary. Michelle Dawson, an autistic woman in Montreal, submitted testimony questioning the ethics of the therapy, which the Canadian Supreme Court cited in its ruling against the families in November.
Ms. Dawson's position infuriates many parents who are fighting their own battles to get governments and insurance companies to pay for the expensive therapy.
"I'm afraid of this movement," said Kit Weintraub, the mother of two autistic children in Madison, Wis.
Ms. Weintraub's son, Nicholas, has benefited greatly from A.B.A., she said, and she is unapologetic about wanting to remove his remaining quirks, like his stilted manner of speaking and his wanting to be Mickey Mouse for Halloween when other 8-year-olds want to be Frodo from "The Lord of the Rings."
"I worry about when he gets into high school, somebody doesn't want to date him or be his friend," she said. "It's no fun being different."
The dispute extends even to the basic terminology of autism.
"I would appreciate it, if I end up in your article, if you describe me as 'an autistic' or 'an autistic person,' versus the 'person with...,' " Ms. Dawson wrote in an e-mail message. "Just like you would feel odd if people said you were a 'person with femaleness.' "
Ms. Weintraub insists on the opposite. "My children have autism, they are not 'autistics,' " she wrote in her own widely circulated essay, "A Mother's Perspective." "It is no more normal to be autistic than it is to have spina bifida."
Terry Walker, 37, who has Asperger's syndrome, said he was not opposed to the concept of a cure for autism but he suggested that there was a pragmatic reason to look for other options.
"I don't think it's going to be easy to find," Mr. Walker said. "That's why I opt for changing the world around me; I think that does more long-term good."

Resource Fair - Tuesday, March 11

LAWRENCE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
SPECIAL EDUCATION
FAMILY RESOURCE FAIR

You Are Cordially Invited to Attend
Our First Annual Resource Fair
Tuesday, March 11, 2008 • 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Lawrence Middle School • 195 Broadway, Lawrence

Local organizations and community agencies will provide
valuable information regarding recreational services including
camps, after-school programs, athletic opportunities and respite programs
for students with disabilities and their families.
Refreshments will be served.
To RSVP by phone, please contact
Rosanne Gromadski-Bogard at (516) 812-7505.

Please mail RSVP form to: Rosanne Gromadski-Bogard, Lawrence School District, Pupil Personnel
Services, 195 Broadway, Lawrence, New York 11559
PARENT’S NAME:
STUDENT’S NAME:
SCHOOL:
HOME ADDRESS:
PHONE #: E-MAIL:
The 1st Annual
LEARNING
CAN BE FUN!

Research study looking for teen participants

Does Your Teenager or Adolescent Have Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, or PDD-NOS?
You may be eligible to participate in a research study being conducted by researchers at the North-Shore-LIJ Center for Autism about adolescence. Topics will include:
• PUBERTY AND HYGIENE
• GROWING UP
• SEXUAL FEELINGS
• SOCIAL AND RELATIONSHIP SKILLS
• APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR
• PERSONAL SAFETY
The purpose of this study to learn whether a 10-week parent group education
program is helpful for parents to learn about sexuality/growing up issues that are
relevant for youth with autism spectrum disorders, and how to teach these subjects
to their children.
Participation in this study involves:
• A comprehensive diagnostic evaluation for your child
• Cognitive assessment for your child
• A 10-week parent education and skill building group including
completion of sets of questionnaires
There is no cost to participate. You will receive compensation for
completion of three (3) assessment sessions.
For more information about this project, please contact:
Georgianna Reilly, Research Assistant, at (516) 802-8686 or GReilly@nshs.edu