19 November 2008
Although I discarded most of my old paper materials in the last millennium, I still find files and folders every now and again. Recently I found a three-page document with the schedule for a symposium sponsored by the Division for Learning Disabilities in 1988. Bernice Wong and Tom Scruggs invited a group of people to [...]
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For its Eleventh Annual Education Symposium, Little Keswick Foundation for Special Education is bringing Rick Lavoie to the neighborhood. Because they’ve seen one or more of his videos, most folks interested in Learning Disabilities are familiar with Mr. Lavoie, but this will be a special opportunity to see him in person. He will speak [...]
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An anonymous post on the Hattiesburg (MS, US) American caught my attention. The poster applauded a facility called the “Dynamic Dyslexia Design School.” This is the school about which Liz Ditz posted a note a couple of months ago. The school is accredited by the International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council, which is probably a [...]
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The fraternal group Scottish Rite Masons, which has been promoting treatment of reading problems for over a decade, stages fund-raising events throughout an area of the US that deserve mention here on LD Blog: Various lodges (as I think they’re called) sponsor runs (or walks) to raise money for their work in providing services to [...]
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Yet another reporter has covered the benefits of providing colored lenses or overlays for improving reading performance. Based on subjective reports from a child and her father, Morgan Bond of television station KPVI in Pocatello (ID, US) described Irlen’s Syndrome as the cause and blue-tinted glasses as the solution to Noel Chapman’s reading problems.
In a [...]
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Despite having dyslexia, Alice Sutton of Wales (UK) has earned her way into a degree university program. As reported by Moira Sharkey of the Western Mail, Ms. Sutton hopes that her “hope my story will show other dyslexics that they can achieve their dreams.”
Alice was diagnosed with dyslexia and her teachers predicted she would [...]
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Jayne Black is an another advocate for individuals with Learning Disabilities who, in addition to working with the Learning Disability Association (LDA) and making presentations about LD, has launched a Web site to further her advocacy. Ms. Black, who was diagnosed as having LD as an adult, chose the nifty name of Mission ABC [...]
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As most folks who’ve been around the block a few times know, old bologna seems to get resurrected every so often. Secretin as a therapy for Autism illustrates this. Even though some of us watched it closely in the 1990s, and found it wanting, there is apparently a resurgence of interest in the use of [...]
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As exploring readers will know, I long ago doubted that food components (especially sugar and dyes and flavorings) were causes of hyperactive behavior in children. There are good reasons for my doubt. Meta-analyses of studies that tested additive-free diets revealed essentially no benefits of the diets. Other studies showed that suspected factors—especially sugar—were not culpable [...]
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According to a story on a CBS (US) television station, a controversial therapy may yield miraculous results. As a reporter for the CBS, Dr. Holly Phillips covered the use of hyperbaric oxgen chambers as a treatment for Autism. She told the story of a family who sought treatment from a New Jersey (US) doctor; the [...]
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Writing for the New York Times, Melissa Fay Greene provides a sympathetic view of the variation on D.I.R.-Floortime (D.I.R. stands for “developmental, individual-difference, relationship-based) methods employed by The Community School of Decatur (GA, US). In “Reaching an Autistic Teenager,” Ms. Greene describes several youths behavior and progress at the school, which was started by a [...]
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Sally Ozonoff and colleagues at the U.C. Davis M.I.N.D. Institute have identified a potential early indicator of Autism: At age 12 months children with autism play with objects differently than typical peers and children who later develop other problems. Professor Ozonoff’s study was published in Autism.
This prospective study examined object exploration behavior in 66 12-month-old [...]
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Christopher Badcock and Bernard Crespi, professors of sociology and biology, respectively, developed a new and intriguing hypothesis about the causes of severe disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. Under the titles “Imbalanced genomic imprinting in brain development: An evolutionary basis for the aetiology of autism” in Journal of Evolutionary Biology (2006) and “Battle of the [...]
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I’ve been meaning to post this for quite some time and, as I prepared for tomorrow’s class, I just now remembered it.
For any (of my two) readers who are interested in the hypothesis about mirror neurons’ connection to Autism, in October of 2007 Professor Marco Iacoboni of UCLA gave a pair of talks [...]
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17 November 2008
The Council for Learning Disabilities, a venerated professional organization devoted to bringing research-based to teachers, is holding its annual meeting in Kansas City (KS, US) next month.
CLD issued a last call for early registration for “Research, Teaching and All That Jazz!” to be held 3 and 4 October 2008
Early discounted registration ends September 16 [...]
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15 November 2008
I recently learned of the existence of the The Juvenile Bipolar Research Foundation, and I wanted to note it here. Alert readers (I know I make you feel snoozy most of the time) probably noted that a link to the JBRF appeared in the Web Resources section a few days ago, but this is the [...]
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13 November 2008
12 November 2008
Still shot snagged from WFAA video
Shelly Slater of Dallas (TX, US) television station WFAA published a story entitled “Video shows Dallas bus driver choking student” that alleges that bus driver Janet Pitts assaulted a student named Xavier Nava in January of 2007. Ms. Slater reported that Ms. Pitts was removed from her position by the [...]
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8 November 2008
Neurons in the central nervous system communicate with each other chemically through neural synapses. Neurons receive excitatory input from glutamatergic neurons and inhibitory input from GABA-releasing (GABAergic) interneurons. Some hypotheses about Autism are predicated on the possibility that there is an imbalance between the excitatory and inhibitory neural activity, perhaps especially in the so-called mirror [...]
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Teacher magazine has a blog entry referring to news pieces in the New York Times and the Washington Post about Michael Phelps and his family. Interesting reading for those who are interested in ADHD and families. Check the comments.
Link to the post.
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3 November 2008
As some students with EBD grow older, their parents often are faced with critical decisions about ensuring that, as adults, they receive appropriate services. For individuals who may have sudden and substantial needs for psychiatric services, planning for ways to ensure that the person does get those services can be a bewildering problem. A psychiatric [...]
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29 October 2008
Education Week is conducting an Internet-mediated “chat” about adolescents with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. It is slated for the afternoon of Wednesday, 17 September 2008. Here’s the advertisement:
Adolescents with Behavioral Disorders
When: Wednesday, September 17, 2008, 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., Eastern time.
Where: http://www.edweek-chat.org
Join us for a closer look at the past and future research [...]
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28 October 2008
The Screen Actor's Guild Association has made it possible to have a celebrity read to your child. The Association has created the Storyline Online website as an "online streaming...
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ADDitude, a magazine about ADD and ADHD (with a nod to Learning Disabilities), is promoting a story it ran 10 years ago about Olympic swimming star Michael Phelps. Here’s some text the folks at ADDitude asked bloggers to run:
According to an interview with ADDitude magazine about his attention deficit, Michael Phelps’ mom Debbie says she [...]
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25 October 2008
Mental health and related organizations are soliciting participation in a rally to urge the U.S. Congress to pass the legislation that will reform insurance rules to ensure that emotional and behavioral disorders (along with other mental health issues) are covered by health insurance policies. Here’s an example from Mental Health America (formerly the National Mental [...]
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22 October 2008
If you are in the Roanoke, VA area, you'll want to attend the Bridging the Gap Family Forum that is coming up. It is being sponsored by Family Service of Roanoke Valley.
Who should attend: Families...
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20 October 2008
According to correspondent Julio C. Abreu (Senior Director for Government Affairs at Mental Health America), negotiators for the US House and Senate are near or have reached a compromise that reconciles H.R. 1424 (”No Discrimination in Health Insurance Act of 2008″) and S. 558 (”Mental Health Parity Act of 2007″). These two bills are different [...]
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19 October 2008
According to psychologists William Pelham Jr. and Brian Wymbs of the State University of New York-Buffalo,
23% of parents had divorced by their child's eighth birthday if the child had been...
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17 October 2008
Sharon Vaughn, a professor at the University of Texas who studies reading problems and instruction, is slated to present a free, telephone-mediated session on reading for adolescents with reading problems. The dial-in conference is sponsored by the Institute for Literacy and Learning, and it occurs 19 August 2008. The slides for the presentation are already [...]
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16 October 2008
My son's teacher has been absent ten days during the last month. This means that for the past 30 days, 1/3 of his school instruction has been administered by substitute teachers {at least 4 different...
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Professor Elizabeth Sowell and colleagues at the UCLA (CA, US) Department of Neurology have determined that there is a correlation between the thickness of cortices in certain regions of the brain and the presence of Tourette Sydrome (TS) in children. They used magnetic resonance imaging to compared the structure of brains of children with and [...]
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13 October 2008
I recently wrote a two part story entitled Homework & Your ADHD/LD Child on Trusera. Since homework seems to be a major issue with so many ADHD & LD children, I have a few more tips to pass...
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11 October 2008
Over on Kenny Handleman’s ADDADHDBlog I learned of a product recall for Daytrana.
Do you or your child take the Daytrana patch for ADD/ADHD? If you do you need to know that the company that manufactures this drug, Noven Pharmaceuticals, is recalling two lot numbers.
Fortunately, the recall is for problems with the packaging. Parents still [...]
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9 October 2008
Project Forum, a group that works to inform policy makers and administrators about special education issues, has announced the release of a document about US states’ policies on eligibility for special education of students with Learning Disabilities. The Project Forum paper, which was prepared by Eileen M. Ahearn of Project Forum under a Federal Cooperative [...]
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7 October 2008
Over on SpedPro I’ve posted a note about the call for papers for the 14th International Child & Adolescent Conference, to be held 6-8 November 2008 in Minneapolis (MN, US). Jump to that post.
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6 October 2008
I recently came across this picture on flickr. Isn't it touching? I think it is a wonderful sentiment and shows a mother's true love. The writing on page says:
My son... you have ADHD. So does your...
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5 October 2008
I recently received a question from a reader about ADHD support options in Canada. I must admit I was clueless. However, I did what I also do when faced with the unknown, I started researching. I...
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3 October 2008
Over on A Photon in the Darkness, one can read a good reflection on mitochondrial mutations and their relationship to Autism. Of course, there’s a lot of hub-bub about mtDNA, because of the article by Hannah Elliott and colleagues, “Pathogenic Mitochondrial DNA Mutations Are Common in the General Population,” that appeared in American Journal of [...]
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30 September 2008
I have just completed a two-part story about homework and your ADHD/LD child on the health site Trusera. Part one details general views about the demands of homework currently placed on...
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Here’s an announcement of the second in the series of polls to assess readers’ perspectives on response to intervention or response to instruction (RtI) and Learning Disabilities. RtI (which was expressly permitted in the US Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), is commonly considered to have multiple tiers of intensity with careful monitoring of students’ progress [...]
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Courtesy of the ever-alert Liz Ditz, here’s an opportunity for US parents and others to emphasize issues in services for individuals with Autism and their families (e.g., research on evidence-based practices).
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On September 15, 2008, members of the Services Subcommittee will meet to review all public comments submitted to date, and will present [...]
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28 September 2008
According to an article on AdditudeMag.com, the following six accommodations are most effective for ADHD and/or LD children:
Seating the student near the teacher and away from doors and windows....
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27 September 2008
photo from cache.daylife.com
Since I live right in the midst of Hokie Country, I thought it only fitting to share this story...
Stephan Virgil, starting cornerback for Virginia Tech, was diagnosed...
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Johnson & Johnson recently created a channel on YouTube featuring videos about various health conditions. One of the series of videos is about ADHD. So far they only have three videos posted, but...
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26 September 2008
National Bullying Prevention Awareness Week is Oct. 5 - 11, 2008. It is sponsored by PACER Center’s National Center for Bullying Prevention and cosponsored by the American Federation for Teachers,...
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25 September 2008
I discovered that I had mistaken paths for some of the documents in the “Documents” section of EBD Blog, and I’ve corrected them. So, if you’re interested in the contents of the data base on placement literature, those PDFs can now be downloaded correctly. Sorry for the problems.
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23 September 2008
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I’ve known about the Literacy Site for a long time, but never thought to link to it from LD Blog until yesterday. If you’ve been around the Internet since it’s first 5 years or so, you probably remember the sound that echoed when the Hunger Site went live. I can remember the desk and the [...]
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21 September 2008
Last December, Delegates Robert Marshall and colleagues of the legislature of the Commonwealth of Virginia (US) introduced a bill that would require health insurance companies to pay costs of habilitative services for children and youths. A potential effect of the legislation is that families of children with Autism would be able to receive support for [...]
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I'm sorry...... those two tiny little words carry an enormous amount of weight and for some reason are incredibly hard to say for some parents.
After all, we are human. It is inevitable that we're...
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