Archive for June, 2011
Half of all children with autism wait over a year for appropriate educational support, and over a quarter have waited more than two years, finds a new report by The National Autistic Society, published today.
The report launches our Great Expectations campaign on Special Education Needs (SEN), which aims to inform and influence the Government’s proposed overhaul of the SEN system.
Children should expect an education that sets them up for life, yet our research, with over 1,000 parents of children with autism and young people with autism themselves, found that far too many children with autism are not getting the education they need and deserve. Our research found:
- *just half of parents (52%) feel their child is making good educational progress
- *30% of parents feel that their child’s educational placement is not adequate
- *43% of young people feel teachers don’t know enough about autism.
This whole experience has been utterly destructive for the family. An ongoing, uphill daily battle, trying to help a child who is becoming increasingly socially isolated.
Parent of a child with autism
Parents should expect an education system that works with, not against, them, but too many parents have to fight the system to make it work.
- *7 out of 10 parents say it has not been easy to get the educational support their child needs.
- *47% of parents say their child’s special educational needs were not picked up in a timely way.
- *48% of parents say they have waited over a year to get the right support for their child, and 27% have waited more than two years.
- *18% of parents have had to take legal action to get the right support for their children, and have been to tribunal an average of 3.5 times each.
It’s really hard to go to school. People don’t understand how hard it is. They judge me for doing things I can’t help.
Young person with autism
Mark Lever, NAS Chief Executive, says: “We have Great Expectations that the necessary changes to the education system can, and will, be made. It is completely unacceptable that so many parents are still fighting a daily battle for their fundamental right to get an education for their child.
“The Government rightly recognises that action is needed, and that they need to reform a system which continues to let many children with autism down.
“Our report sets out the practical, often simple, steps that the Government can take to create a system that works for everyone. The proposed ‘biggest SEN reform in 30 years’, will shape the future of a generation of children with autism. Let’s get it right.”
Our campaign will be launched in Parliament this evening at a reception expected to attract around 80 MPs, including the Disability Minister, Maria Miller and Shadow Education Secretary, Andy Burnham.
We need your help
You can support our Great Expectations campaign by emailing your MP to ask them to raise these issues in parliament. To find out more about the campaign, and other ways you can get involved, visit our campaign homepage.
Our key recommendations
An education that sets children up for life and a system that works with, not against, parents.
Children with autism expect:
- *to get the support they need quickly and easily, regardless of whether they have a statement or EHCP
- *teachers who understand how to support them and who have easy access to autism specialists for help.
Parents of children with autism expect:
- *to have robust, simple ways to challenge the system if their child doesn’t get the support they need
- *local authorities to have a thorough understanding of the needs of children with autism in their area, and to plan provision accordingly
- *to be equal partners in the system and genuinely involved in decisions about their child’s education and the planning of local services
- *local information that empowers them to make the right decisions for their child.
Let’s work together. Let’s get it right.
To read the full report please visit www.autism.org.uk/greatexpectations
Source:
Mock me all you like but leave my disabled son alone: Katie Price’s heartfelt denunciation of Frankie Boyle’s vile slur and the TV bosses who defended it
By Katie Price
Last updated at 4:07 PM on 30th June 2011
My son, Harvey, turned nine last month, and we held a little party to celebrate.
The only guests were immediate family — too much activity causes Harvey stress and his behaviour can become disruptive — but he did have a big cake decorated with a picture of a frog.
Harvey loves cakes. He always enjoys blowing out the candles, and he adores frogs. They are his latest obsession. He draws them so carefully — the bulging eyes, the long back legs — and colours them in bright green.
At the moment, every scrap of paper in the house is covered in leaping frogs.
The cake and the frog obsession explain a lot about Harvey. Most mothers of nine-year-olds might boast that their child is learning French or the violin. I’m just pleased and proud that Harvey can draw, observe and see colours.
Soon after he was born, I was told he had a serious problem with his sight. Later, I learned that he was blind. Actually, he has some residual vision, and he is brilliant at using it.
He recognises colours and shapes. He has even learned to turn them into pictures.
He draws the same things obsessively, over and over again. First it was aeroplanes, then rainbows, now it’s frogs. That’s down to his autism. Like most children with the condition, he periodically gets fixated on one subject.
He is also compulsive about routines. Nothing must disturb Harvey’s ordered world, or there is hell to pay.
The cake is another matter. Harvey eats and eats, and if I did not stop him he would do so continually. He is prone to weight-gain, but he is not greedy.
He has a clinical condition — I’ll come to that later — which means he can’t control his appetite. The hormones that control his growth are also out of kilter. So he is bigger than most kids. But to the ignorant, Harvey is just a big, fat, blind kid — and he has been called that many times.
I’ve only skimmed the surface of the problems facing my much-loved eldest child, but by now you know enough about Harvey’s disabilities to understand the hurdles he leaps each day.
So you will understand the extent of my shock and anger when I learned that Frankie Boyle, the comedian — though he barely deserves the title — had singled my son out to be the butt of a vile ‘joke’.
To convey the full impact of what Boyle said on his Channel 4 ‘comedy’ show last December, I must, I’m afraid, repeat his offensive remarks in full.
To begin with, he said my ex-husband, Peter Andre, and I had been fighting over custody of Harvey. ‘Eventually one of them will lose and have to keep him,’ Boyle said.
That is the type of cruel offence we expect disabled people to accept. If you are disabled, you are a burden, and people want rid of you.
Then Boyle made a remark so offensive it has no place in civilised society.
Read in Full:
3:33 AM, Jun. 29, 2011
Written by Megan Williams
WAYNESBORO — David Murray knew the job search wasn’t going to be easy.
Besides the tough job market, the 20-year-old had another disadvantage: he has a learning disability.
Unemployment for Virginia job seekers with disabilities is twice that of the general population.
But Murray, with the help of the Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center, where he is currently a student, has a leg up.
He received a Career Readiness Certificate, a component of former Governor Mark Warner’s “Education for a Lifetime” initiative, which illustrates for employers the skills the holder has.
“It felt wonderful,” Murray said when he found out that his performance on the test qualified him for a silver certificate, meaning he has the skills to perform over 11,700 jobs, according to ACT Inc., which developed the test.”I feel that if there are two people who come for a job and I have a certificate and the other person doesn’t then I have a better chance of getting a job.”
Read in Full:
The kids are out of school. Your neighbors are whistling on their way to work, greeting you with an enthusiasm peculiar to warm weather. And if you hear one more person ask you about your summer vacation plans, you will throw a US map and atlas at them.
You don’t mean to be grumpy. But darn it, you are miserable in the oppressive heat, your kids are home for 90 consecutive days, and you are don’t have the stamina to pretend you are giddy that summer has arrived.
Sound familiar?
You’re not alone. After publishing a piece recently about the trigger of Memorial Day for me — reminding me that most of my relapses have happened in the summer months — I’ve heard from so many readers that fear this time of year for the same reason: summer depression.
Ian A. Cook, MD, the director of the Depression Research Program at UCLA names five causes of summer depression in an article published by our friends over at WebMD:
1. Summertime SAD.
You’ve probably heard about seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, which affects about 4% to 6% of the U.S. population. SAD typically causes depression as the days get shorter and colder. But about 10% of people with SAD get it in the reverse — the onset of summer triggers their depression symptoms. Cook notes that some studies have found that in countries near the equator – like India – summer SAD is more common than winter SAD.
2. Disrupted schedules in summer.
If you’ve had depression before, you probably know that having a reliable routine is often key to staving off symptoms. But during the summer, routine goes out the window — and that disruption can be stressful, Cook says. If you have children in grade school, you’re suddenly faced with the prospect of keeping them occupied all day, every day. If your kids are in college, you may suddenly find them — and all their boxes of stuff — back in the house after a nine-month absence. Vacations can disrupt your work, sleep, and eating habits — all of which can all contribute to summer depression.
3. Body image issues.
As the temperature climbs and the layers of clothing fall away, a lot of people feel terribly self-conscious about their bodies, says Cook. Feeling embarrassed in shorts or a bathing suit can make life awkward, not to mention hot. Since so many summertime gatherings revolve around beaches and pools, some people start avoiding social situations out of embarrassment.
Read in Full:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/06/21/6-tips-to-help-summer-depression/
We trawl the world’s journals so you don’t have to:
Resilience and Adaptive Aspects of Stress in Neurobehavioural Development (Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews).
Research on Sexual Arousal (Hormones and Behaviour).
Saccade, Search and Orient (European Journal of Neuroscience).
Mind–Body Connections in Personal Relationships (Personal Relationships).
Psychobiological approaches to stress and health: Recent progress (Japanese Psychological Research).
Intra-Individual Processes Linking Work and Employee Well-Being (Journal of Organizational Behaviour).
Visual search and visual world: Interactions among visual attention, language, and working memory (Acta Psychologica).
[This post was compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest].
Source:
Article Date: 22 Jun 2011 – 1:00 PDT
Did you ever make mud pies as a kid? Remember how good it felt to get your hands in the dirt, to run through the sprinkler, and get pollen from a sweet-smelling flower on your nose? Most kids who grow up in cities today never have this experience. But the latest research is about to change all that.
Jill Litt, PhD, author and associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Public Health and University of Colorado Boulder has been studying neighborhoods and health over the past decade. Litt ‘s research has shown that places such as community gardens matter in terms of neighborhood quality and people’s health. “Community gardens may provide a way to enhance neighborhood environments while also promoting health and well being through economic, social and physical changes. Gardens yield fresh food, bring ‘nature’ to urban areas, bridge ethnically, economically and age diverse communities, promote neighborhood beauty, build skills and knowledge of everyday life, strengthen community capacity and one’s sense of community, and promote active and healthy lifestyles” said Litt.
Read in Full:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/229236.php
Jun
22
Wallowing in the bath, immersed in soothing warm water, the benefits are more than sensuous, they’re social too. That’s according to John Bargh and Idit Shalev, researchers at Yale University, whose new research shows that physical warmth can compensate for social isolation. Indeed, their study suggests that people subconsciously self-comfort against loneliness through the use of warm baths and showers.
Among 51 undergrads, those who reported being more lonely also tended to bath or shower more often, to do so for longer and with warmer water. Overall, 33.5 per cent of the variation in these measures was accounted for by loneliness. A similar result was found for a community sample of 16 women and 25 men. Perhaps lonely people simply have more time to take baths because they go out less, but the association with preferring warmer water is harder to explain away.
A second study confirmed the causal role that physical temperature can play in people’s sense of social warmth. Students conducted what they thought was a product test of a small therapeutic pack, which was either warm or cold. Those who evaluated the cold pack, holding it in their palm, subsequently reported feeling more lonely than those who tested a warm version of the pack.
Read More …
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on June 19, 2011
Two popular antipsychotic medications made by Johnson & Johnson — Risperdal and risperidone — have been recalled due to possible contamination with a chemical used to treat the wood pallets the drug is often transported on.
The drug is from the Johnson & Johnson-owned subsidiary Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals.
The recall was prompted by reports from two consumers of an odd odor emanating from their medication. Johnson & Johnson tracked the odor down to trace amounts of TBA (2,4,6 tribromoanisole).
According to Johnson & Johnson, TBA is a byproduct of a chemical preservative sometimes applied to wood often used in the construction of pallets on which materials are transported and stored.
While not considered to be toxic, TBA can generate an offensive odor and a very small number of patients have reported temporary gastrointestinal symptoms when taking other products with this odor.
As it relates to Risperdal and risperidone, there have been no reported serious adverse events caused by the presence of TBA.
The antipsychotic drug is commonly used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar mania in teens and adults, and the treatment of irritability associated with autistic disorder in children and teens.
Two lots are affected by the recall. The Risperdal lot was shipped to pharmacies between 8/27/2010 and 2/15/2011 and the risperidone lot was shipped to pharmacies between 11/10/2010 and 1/01/2011. The recalls are for Risperdal tablets 3mg, Bottles of 60 Tablets (Lot #0GG904, expiration 5/2012) and risperidone tablets 2mg, Bottles of 60 Tablets (Lot #OlG175, expiration 8/2012).
Johnson & Johnson warns that patients should not stop taking their medication.
Instead, anyone experiencing an uncharacteristic odor associated with Risperdal 3mg Tablets or risperidone 2mg Tablets should return the tablets to their pharmacist, and contact their healthcare professional if they have questions.
Patients or healthcare professionals can contact the Medical Information Recall Line at 1-800-634-8977 (Monday – Friday, 9 am – 5 pm ET). Information can also be found on www.risperdal.com and www.patriotpharmaceuticals.com.
Investigation Into the Contamination
According to information supplied by Johnson & Johnson, they conducted an investigation involving suppliers to evaluate the potential source of this TBA issue.
Read in Full:
Jun 17, 2011
If your child has been diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, you may be wondering whether you should opt for behavioral therapy or medication to treat Asperger Syndrome.
Several years ago, the FDA approved risperidone or Risperdal for the treatment of “irritability in
autistic children,” but the drug has serious side effects especially for boys.
People with Asperger Syndrome have a different “brain wiring,” and Asperger falls on the autism spectrum. However, it’s not a disease or a medical condition. If a psychiatrist wants to prescribe a medication such as Risperidone, it will be for symptoms such as aggression or accompanying disorders not for social awkwardness.
One of my friends with a son with Asperger Syndrome had him on Risperidone. Because of the side effects such as impotence and massive weight gain that can lead to diabetes, many parents are skeptical about allowing their child with autism to take Risperidone.
Here are some key facts about Risperidone as a medication to “treat” Asperger Syndrome …:
Why Risperidone is prescribed
In most cases, Risperidone, an antipsychotic, is used to treat schizophrenia in adults as well as children 13 and older. Psychiatrists may prescribe it to treat mania for those with bipolar disorder. For autistic children ages 5-16, Risperidone may be used to reduce aggression.
Side effects of Risperidone
In addition to extreme weight gain and impotence in men, Risperdal may cause dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, dry mouth, heartburn, stomach pain, drowsiness, anxiety, agitation, difficulty urinating, vision problems, insomnia. Symptoms that may require immediate attention from emergency personnel include confusion, fever, muscle stiffness, rash, hives, fever, sweating. Other adverse events reported include pituitary tumors in males.
Read in Full:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8153759/dark_side_of_risperidone_for_boys_with.html?cat=5