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Tero Toivanen

Autism Therapy: pivotal response training | Healing Thresholds - 0 views

autism.healingthresholds.com/...pivotal-response-training

autism therapy Pivotal Response Training PRT ABA Applied Behavioral Analysis

shared by Tero Toivanen on 29 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Future research may allow therapists to know in advance which type of applied behavior analysis (ABA therapy) is most likely to work for any given child with autism.
  • This study of six children was designed to see if it is possible to predict which type of ABA therapy will work for which child with autism.
  • The authors were able to predict which children would respond to pivotal response training, but not which ones would respond to discrete trial training. The authors note that all children were first exposed to pivotal response training and then to discrete trial training and this may have influenced the results. Children who liked toys were more likely to respond to pivotal response training than children who did not like toys.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • This study looked at whether or not a type of applied behavior analysis (pivotal response training) could be used to teach play skills to children with autism.
  • . Both children in the study improved their social skills during recess time.
  • Tero Toivanen on 29 Dec 09
     
    Type of training in which certain behaviors are assumed to be crucial for other behaviors. These pivotal behaviors are then targeted so that the behaviors that depend upon them can change as well.
Tero Toivanen

Pivotal Response Teaching - 0 views

www.branchesofhope.org/...Page771.htm

autism PRT Pivotal Response Training Pivotal Response Teaching ABA Advanced Behavior Analysis Koegel Schreibman Dunlap Horner Burke

shared by Tero Toivanen on 27 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Pivotal Response Teaching  is an Advanced Behavioral Treatment intervention based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and derived from the work of Drs. Koegel, Schreibman, Dunlap, Horner, Burke and other researchers.
  • PRT builds upon the older ABA paradigms and has a focus on targeting “Pivotal” skills or behaviors in order to produce more broad changes in a child’s development.
  • Pivotal Response Training (PRT) provides a guideline for teaching skills and has been most successful for language, play and social interaction skills in children with autism and related disorders. 
  • Tero Toivanen on 27 Dec 09
     
    Pivotal Response Teaching is an Advanced Behavioral Treatment intervention based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and derived from the work of Drs. Koegel, Schreibman, Dunlap, Horner, Burke and other researchers.
Tero Toivanen

Autism Therapies and Outcomes -- Outcomes and Autism - 0 views

autism.about.com/...abachoice_8.htm

autism therapy behavior progress learning

shared by Tero Toivanen on 10 Dec 09 - Cached
  • The view of the behavior analyst should be that the subject is always right. If the child isn't learning, you need to know why. It's not that the child is defective, it's that the approach isn't working. The therapist needs to ask, "what do I need to do to teach this child?" ...Being autistic shouldn't stop children from learning. It has nothing to do with their ability to learn. They just don't learn typically. That's the problem we have. You can't use "autism" as way to explain behaviors: it is the behaviors. Why do the behaviors occur? We don't always know. But that doesn't mean we can't teach children with autism language and social interaction. They don't need us to have fun -- they can create their own reinforcers. The therapist has to find a reinforcer that's better than what the child can do on his own. That "better thing" should always have a social component.
  • Tero Toivanen on 10 Dec 09
     
    It's important to remember that, when it comes to therapy for children with autism, failure to progress is never the fault of the child. If you hear from a therapist that your child doesn't progress because of his behaviors, attention span, intelligence level, or stubbornness, it's time to question the therapist's technique.
Tero Toivanen

The Genetics of Autism (ActionBioscience) - 1 views

www.actionbioscience.org/...dougherty.html

autism genetics savant

shared by Tero Toivanen on 08 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Despite this relatively high frequency, scientists do not understand the mechanism of this serious developmental problem. What they have discovered is that autism is one of the most heritable mental disorders known. In other words, autism appears to be largely genetic in origin, and most autistic children inherit the disorder from their parents.
  • In the case of PKU, geneticists have determined that retardation is due to genetics (a mutated phenylalanine hydroxylase gene) and the environment (a phenylalanine-containing diet).
  • In the case of autism, the likelihood that the sibling of an affected child also would be affected is between three and six percent.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Nonetheless, this incidence is about 100 times greater than the rate at which autism affects unrelated people in the population.
  • One study showed that the likelihood that the identical twin of an autistic child also would be autistic was 82 percent, whereas the equivalent rate for fraternal twins was only 10 percent.
  • With sophisticated statistical techniques and numerous twin studies, behavioral geneticists now believe that as much as 90 percent of the behavioral phenotype of autism is related to inherited genes.
  • Tero Toivanen on 08 Apr 09
     
    With sophisticated statistical techniques and numerous twin studies, behavioral geneticists now believe that as much as 90 percent of the behavioral phenotype of autism is related to inherited genes.
Tero Toivanen

Eide Neurolearning Blog: Recess Essential for Improving Attention - 0 views

eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/...s-essential-for-improving.html

neurolearning recess learning behavior

shared by Tero Toivanen on 02 Mar 09 - Cached
  • New research suggests that play and down time may be as important to a child’s academic experience as reading, science and math, and that regular recess, fitness or nature time can influence behavior, concentration and even grades.
  • Young children with sensory processing disorders are especially susceptible to behavioral and attention problems if they are not allowed to move and exercise throughout their day.
  • Tero Toivanen on 02 Mar 09
     
    New research suggests that play and down time may be as important to a child's academic experience as reading, science and math, and that regular recess, fitness or nature time can influence behavior, concentration and even grades.
Tero Toivanen

Affordable Computer and Internet-based Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) Prog... - 5 views

autismspectrumdirectory.wordpress.com/...havioral-analysis-aba-programs

autism special education special needs ASD:teaching ASD:educators research ABA Applied Behavioral Analysis

shared by Tero Toivanen on 31 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 31 Dec 10
     
    COMPUTER AND INTERNET-BASED APPLIED BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS (ABA) PROGRAMS
Tero Toivanen

Eide Neurolearning Blog: Different MRI Findings in Autism - Autism not a Single Entity - 0 views

eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/...findings-in-autism-autism.html

autism diagnosis

shared by Tero Toivanen on 13 May 09 - Cached
  • Studies such as this point out the problems of using only behavioral criteria to make the diagnosis of autism. In this study, a multidisciplinary team consisting for child psychiatrists, child psychologists, and speech therapists were used to make the diagnosis. With no hubris intended, we think a neurologist should be included on every autism team. Understanding the specific neurological challenges a child faces can help much more than a more one-size-fits-all approach to intervention.
  • When we have assessed children with an autism or possible autism diagnosis, we have seen the same very wide clinical variation in terms of neurological exam - you would not treat a child with visual processing disorders with purely behavioral modification, nor a child with auditory and language processing problems with facial recognition training.
  • Historically, autism was first recognized as an entity by a psychiatrist, but as it becomes even more clear that the behavioral label subsumes many different neurological conditions, it's time for business-as-usual to come to an end.
  • Tero Toivanen on 13 May 09
     
    Studies such as this point out the problems of using only behavioral criteria to make the diagnosis of autism.
Tero Toivanen

News from the Associated Press - newsjournalonline.com - 0 views

hosted.ap.org/...US_MED_AUTISM_RECOVERY

autism research behavioral therapy recover

shared by Tero Toivanen on 09 May 09 - Cached
  • Leo Lytel was diagnosed with autism as a toddler. But by age 9 he had overcome the disorder. His progress is part of a growing body of research that suggests at least 10 percent of children with autism can "recover" from it - most of them after undergoing years of intensive behavioral therapy.
  • She presented research this week at an autism conference in Chicago that included 20 children who, according to rigorous analysis, got a correct diagnosis but years later were no longer considered autistic.
  • Skeptics question the phenomenon, but University of Connecticut psychology professor Deborah Fein is among those convinced it's real.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Previous studies have suggested between 3 percent and 25 percent of autistic kids recover. Fein says her studies have shown the range is 10 percent to 20 percent.
  • But even after lots of therapy - often carefully designed educational and social activities with rewards - most autistic children remain autistic. Recovery is "not a realistic expectation for the majority of kids," but parents should know it can happen, Fein said.
  • The children in Fein's study, which is still ongoing, were diagnosed by an autism specialist before age 5 but no longer meet diagnostic criteria for autism. The initial diagnoses were verified through early medical records.
  • The researchers are also doing imaging tests to see if the recovered kids' brains look more like those of autistic or nonautistic children.
  • Imaging scans also are being done to examine brain function in formerly autistic kids.
  • Results from those tests are still being analyzed.
  • Most of the formerly autistic kids got long-term behavior treatment soon after diagnosis, in some cases for 30 or 40 hours weekly.
  • Many also have above-average IQs and had been diagnosed with relatively mild cases of autism. At age 2, many were within the normal range for motor development, able to walk, climb and hold a pencil.
  • Significant improvement suggesting recovery was evident by around age 7 in most cases, Fein said.
  • None of the children has shown any sign of relapse. But nearly three-fourths of the formerly autistic kids have had other disorders, including attention-deficit problems, tics and phobias; eight still are affected.
  • Tero Toivanen on 09 May 09
     
    Leo Lytel was diagnosed with autism as a toddler. But by age 9 he had overcome the disorder. His progress is part of a growing body of research that suggests at least 10 percent of children with autism can "recover" from it - most of them after undergoing years of intensive behavioral therapy.
Tero Toivanen

BMSO Training Manuals - 0 views

education.ucsb.edu/...behaviormanuals.html

Pivotal Response Treatments PRT manual First Words Play dates priming Problem behavior Self-management socialization Parent-professional Toilet training

shared by Tero Toivanen on 01 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 01 Jul 09
     
    Training manuals cover a wide range of behavioral strategies, including Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT), Priming, Understanding Problem Behaviors, Self-Management, Parent-Professional Collaboration, and Toilet Training.
Tero Toivanen

Marlene Behrmann: Connecting Autistic Behavior to Brain Function - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...-research-study_b_1905925.html

autism research behavior brain

shared by Tero Toivanen on 23 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • It turns out that in all three of the primary cortices -- visual, auditory and somatosensory -- we did not see the typical response trial after trial in the individuals with autism. Instead, we saw considerable variability -- sometimes a strong response, sometimes a weak response. The fact that we did not see precise responses in autism was a really important result. It suggests that there is something fundamental that is altered in the cortical responses in autism. This variability in the brain response might also possibly explain why individuals with autism find visual stimulation, touch and sound to be so strong and overwhelming.
  • We know from genetic research that many of the neurobiological changes that occur in autism have to do with changes at the level of the synapse, the way that information is transmitted from one neuron to another.
  • Tero Toivanen on 23 Sep 12
     
    "A team of researchers ... were interested in trying to understand on a basic neural level what happens inside the brain that might give rise to the altered behaviors in autism."
Tero Toivanen

Why parents swear by ineffective treatments for autism. - By Sydney Spiesel - Slate Mag... - 0 views

www.slate.com/2215076

autism ineffective treatments treatment

shared by Tero Toivanen on 02 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Since most of the ways we diagnose autism are based on behavior, we can't rely on biological, structural, or chemical findings to determine if a treatment is working. We primarily measure success based on a patient's change, or lack thereof, in behavior.
  • The behavioral changes produced by the few effective treatments make life in social settings (including the home) possible, but we have no idea whether they have any effect on the underlying cause (or causes) of autism or whether they even make severely affected patients feel better.
  • One method intended to help, "facilitated communication," is based on the idea that a sensitive facilitator will hold the hand of a patient over a kind of Ouija board. She will then help the patient respond to questions by sensing his intention and helping guide his hand to spell out answers. Rigorous studies have shown that the spelled-out answers come from the unconscious (or, worse, the conscious) mind of the facilitator. Nonetheless, the practice is still in use, and I know parents who are utterly convinced that it is valid and useful. Frankly, something important did happen when facilitated communication was introduced to my patients: They improved, they brightened, they became more social and more interactive, and they seemed, somehow, happier, even though facilitated communication didn't actually translate their thoughts into words. I'll come back to "why" in a minute.
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  • The techniques of sensory integrative treatment include rubbing or brushing skin (using graded and tactile stimulation), balance exercises, exposure to soft music, and the use of weighted clothes, among other things. Does it work? Most of the research has been of very poor quality, but, in virtually all of the recent studies, sensory integration doesn't seem to be any more beneficial than any other treatment.
  • It looks as if environmental alteration, especially if coupled with increased attention and perhaps expectation, often leads to change in human behavior. It's called the "Hawthorne effect."
  • People respond—mostly favorably—to positive attention and interaction. The question we need to ask about all the treatments available for autism is whether they actively shape and change brain development and thus treat the underlying condition, as many proponents believe, or whether the benefits (if they are present at all) are simply another example of the Hawthorne effect.
  • Perhaps my patients who became more alive and more interactive after facilitated communication was introduced changed because their families and caretakers were taking them more seriously as people who might have an inner life—people worthy of attention and interaction.
  • Tero Toivanen on 02 Apr 09
     
    People respond-mostly favorably-to positive attention and interaction. The question we need to ask about all the treatments available for autism is whether they actively shape and change brain development and thus treat the underlying condition, as many proponents believe, or whether the benefits (if they are present at all) are simply another example of the Hawthorne effect.
Tero Toivanen

Applied Behavioral Analysis - Understanding ABA Therapy - 1 views

www.brighttots.com/aba_therapy

autism ABA Applied Behavioral Analysis PRT Pivotal Response Therapy PECS Picture Exchange Communication System Lovaas Discrete Trial Training

shared by Tero Toivanen on 07 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 07 Jun 09
     
    Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) techniques have been proven in many studies as the leading proven treatment and method of choice on treating individuals with autism spectrum disorder at any level. ABA approaches such as discrete trial training (DTT), Pivotal Response Training (PRT), Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS)
Graeme Wadlow

Following Gaze: Gaze-Following Behavior as a Window into Social Cognition - 0 views

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...PMC2859805

attention orienting social attention joint attention shared attention theory of mind

shared by Graeme Wadlow on 04 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Graeme Wadlow on 04 Jan 12
     
    Following Gaze: Gaze-Following Behavior as a Window into Social Cognition
Graeme Wadlow

Explosive, oppositional, and aggressive behavior in children with autism compared to ot... - 0 views

www.sciencedirect.com/...S1750946711001450

RP1 autm attn ScienceDirect Attention-Deficit_Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD autism ASD Explosive; Oppositional; Aggressive;

shared by Graeme Wadlow on 04 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Graeme Wadlow on 04 Jan 12
     
    ScienceDirect - Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders : Explosive, oppositional, and aggressive behavior in children with autism compared to other clinical disorders and typical children
Tero Toivanen

YouTube - Aditi Shankardass: A second opinion on learning disorders - 3 views

www.youtube.com/watch

autism developmental disorders diagnosis behavior Aditi Shankardass brain TED

shared by Tero Toivanen on 18 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 18 Sep 10
     
    Developmental disorders in children are typically diagnosed by observing behavior, but we should be looking directly at their brains. 
Amanda Kenuam

Links for Teachers on Teaching Children with Special Needs - 0 views

www.mangomon.com/...ng-Children-with-Special-Needs

special education special needs disabilities sped teaching websites resources behavioral disabilities

shared by Amanda Kenuam on 03 May 10 - Cached
  • Amanda Kenuam on 03 May 10
     
    "special education, special needs, disabilities, sped, teaching, websites, resources, behavioral disabilities"
Tero Toivanen

Magnetic stimulation helps researchers trigger responses in autistic brain - The Boston... - 0 views

www.boston.com/...er_responses_in_autistic_brain

autsim Asperger Syndrome transcranial magnetic stimulation neuroscience

shared by Tero Toivanen on 09 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Now a small but growing number of researchers see hope in a tool called transcranial magnetic stimulation, which lets scientists spark activity in specific areas of the brain and watch what happens to patients' behavior. The technology may illuminate some of the biology behind the disease, and some specialists speculate it may one day offer a treatment.
  • John Gabrieli, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Transcranial magnetic stimulation "is fantastic for identifying brain regions that are essential for specific mental functions. . . . I think if we can start to use it more systematically with autism, one could hope we'd understand a lot more about what's going on."
  • Researchers at the Boston hospital's Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation used rapid, repetitive stimulation to simulate what happens in the brain when people learn a new task. Then they gave a single pulse of stimulation and measured minute muscle twitches that told them how long people's brains maintained connections formed by the initial stimulation.In people with no evidence of autism, changes lasted about 30 minutes, on average. But in people on the autism spectrum, the initial stimulation caused brain changes that lasted much longer - on average an hour and a half.
  • Tero Toivanen on 09 Jun 09
     
    Now a small but growing number of researchers see hope in a tool called transcranial magnetic stimulation, which lets scientists spark activity in specific areas of the brain and watch what happens to patients' behavior. The technology may illuminate some of the biology behind the disease, and some specialists speculate it may one day offer a treatment.
Tero Toivanen

New Theory Of Autism Suggests Symptoms Or Disorder May Be Reversible - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...090401145312.htm

autism new theory brain

shared by Tero Toivanen on 02 Apr 09 - Cached
  • the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible.
  • autism is a developmental disorder caused by impaired regulation of the locus coeruleus, a bundle of neurons in the brain stem that processes sensory signals from all areas of the body.
  • The new theory stems from decades of anecdotal observations that some autistic children seem to improve when they have a fever, only to regress when the fever ebbs.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • This study documented that autistic children experience behavior changes during fever.
  • Einstein researchers contend that scientific evidence directly points to the locus coeruleus–noradrenergic (LC-NA) system as being involved in autism. "The LC-NA system is the only brain system involved both in producing fever and controlling behavior," says co-author Dominick P. Purpura, M.D., dean emeritus and distinguished professor of neuroscience at Einstein.
  • The locus coeruleus has widespread connections to brain regions that process sensory information. It secretes most of the brain's noradrenaline, a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in arousal mechanisms, such as the "fight or flight" response. It is also involved in a variety of complex behaviors, such as attentional focusing (the ability to concentrate attention on environmental cues relevant to the task in hand, or to switch attention from one task to another). Poor attentional focusing is a defining characteristic of autism.
  • "What is unique about the locus coeruleus is that it activates almost all higher-order brain centers that are involved in complex cognitive tasks," says Dr. Mehler.
  • autism, the LC-NA system is dysregulated by the interplay of environment, genetic, and epigenetic factors
  • They believe that stress plays a central role in dysregulation of the LC-NA system, especially in the latter stages of prenatal development when the fetal brain is particularly vulnerable.
  • a higher incidence of autism among children whose mothers had been exposed to hurricanes and tropical storms during pregnancy.
  • autistic children, fever stimulates the LC-NA system, temporarily restoring its normal regulatory function. "This could not happen if autism was caused by a lesion or some structural abnormality of the brain," says Dr. Purpura.
  • future of autism treatment probably lies in drugs that selectively target certain types of noradrenergic brain receptors or, more likely, in epigenetic therapies targeting genes of the LC-NA system.
  • If the locus coeruleus is impaired in autism, it is probably because tens or hundreds, maybe even thousands, of genes are dysregulated in subtle and complex ways," says Dr. Mehler. "The only way you can reverse this process is with epigenetic therapies, which, we are beginning to learn, have the ability to coordinate very large integrated gene networks."
  • "You can't take a complex neuropsychiatric disease that has escaped our understanding for 50 years and in one fell swoop have a therapy that is going to reverse it — that's folly. On the other hand, we now have clues to the neurobiology, the genetics, and the epigenetics of autism. To move forward, we need to invest more money in basic science to look at the genome and the epigenome in a more focused way."
  • Tero Toivanen on 02 Apr 09
     
    the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible.
Tero Toivanen

Interview with Robert Koegel | Pivotal Response Treatments for Autism Author on ABC's S... - 1 views

www.pbrookes.com/...interview.htm

pivotal Pivotal Response Treatments PRT ABA

shared by Tero Toivanen on 31 Mar 09 - Cached
  • The NLP became synonymous with motivation and motivation is pivotal in teaching children with autism to respond to multiple questions.
  • 1988 was the first time the word pivotal was used to describe this method. It was referred to previously as the NLP. It is considered a behavior intervention with similarities to the Lovaas method/ABA. 
  • Why would you say PRT is more effective than other therapies
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • First and foremost, children think of it as fun and learn skills by doing what they enjoy.
  • PRT is effective in all of the child’s environments and versatile enough to use at home, in clinical settings, in an inclusive classroom, and in the community, and parents can easily start folding PRT strategies into the child's established routine right away.
  • How does PRT decrease stress for parents?
  • Children often hate having to perform drill practices involved with other autism treatments, they feel like they are being forced to do something they don't enjoy and they react to this by causing a scene to get out of treatment.
  • What exactly are "pivotal responses?"
  • "areas that are central to wide areas of functioning such that improvements occur across a large number of behaviors." 
    • Tero Toivanen
      Tero Toivanen on 31 Mar 09
       
      Pivotal responses määrittely!!!
  • Once they understand the connection between using their own words and getting something they want, they will start to use words spontaneously to communicate their needs. Mastering this one pivotal behavior, motivating the child to understand the connection between their own efforts to communicate with the outcomes of their efforts, will have an enormous ripple effect on other skills.
    • Tero Toivanen
      Tero Toivanen on 31 Mar 09
       
      In practice.
  • It works because there is a motivator that makes the child want to work to accomplish the task at hand, the reward for accomplishing the task has a direct connection to it.
  • PRT was named by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences in 2001 as one of the top 10 state-of-the-art treatments for autism in the United States.
  • A child who is highly motivated to communicate and is having fun doing it will learn much more rapidly than a child who is not motivated and not enjoying what they are learning.
Tero Toivanen

Journal of Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment - Dove Press - 0 views

www.dovepress.com/b-acute--peer-reviewed-article

shared by Tero Toivanen on 16 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Increasing evidence has shown that, in animal stroke models, administering melatonin significantly reduces infarct volume, edema, and oxidative damage and improves electrophysiological and behavioral performance.
    • Tero Toivanen
      Tero Toivanen on 16 Mar 09
       
      Melatonin also improves behavioral performance.
  • Given that melatonin shows almost no toxicity to humans and possesses multifaceted protective capacity against cerebral ischemia, it is valuable to consider using melatonin in clinical trials on patients suffering from stroke.
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