If you give girls and boys language tasks, most girls will process the information in the same way (in a specialized language area)
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shared by Tero Toivanen on 02 Mar 09
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Eide Neurolearning Blog: Why Boys Need Alternatives with Reading and Writing - 0 views
eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/...alternatives-with-reading.html
neurolearning Reading and Writing brain
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But for boys, sensitivity to the modality of how words are presented means that an extra steps need to be taken to match words that are picked up by listening and words that are read on the printed page. No wonder dyslexia is much more common in boys - the separate system means that the sight and sound of words are learned as distinct processes.
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As a result, verbal competence may be strong in one domain (oral speech for instance), but be weak in another (reading).
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because boys require two areas and a matching of visual-auditory inputs, impairment in one system may cause the whole language coordination process to fail.
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The visual-auditory gap may also be why some boys may need to read word-for-word outloud or to themselves (i.e. not silently read) in order to fully comprehend or remember the story.
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Some careful consideration needs to made of instructional implications for boys given some of these new discoveries. Learning by listening and learning by reading are not synonymous; route-congruent factors(listening - oral presentation, reading - written response) may need to be considered when a learning gap or frank underachievement is seen, and an insistence on the availability of auditory-visual supports (reading along with books-on-tape, detailed handouts for lecture courses) should be a requirement of every classroom.
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Childhood disintegrative disorder: Causes - MayoClinic.com - 0 views
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Causes There's no known cause of childhood disintegrative disorder, also known as Heller's syndrome. Most experts agree that there's likely a genetic basis for autism spectrum disorders. The theory is that an abnormal gene is switched on in the early stages of development, before birth, and that this gene affects other genes that coordinate a child's brain development.
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Causes There's no known cause of childhood disintegrative disorder, also known as Heller's syndrome. Most experts agree that there's likely a genetic basis for autism spectrum disorders. The theory is that an abnormal gene is switched on in the early stages of development, before birth, and that this gene affects other genes that coordinate a child's brain development.
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New Theory Of Autism Suggests Symptoms Or Disorder May Be Reversible - 0 views
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the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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"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.
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autism, the LC-NA system is dysregulated by the interplay of environment, genetic, and epigenetic factors
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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.
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a higher incidence of autism among children whose mothers had been exposed to hurricanes and tropical storms during pregnancy.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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"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."
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shared by Tero Toivanen on 15 Jul 09
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Is Your Child Autistic -- Or Could He Have This Syndrome? - 0 views
autism.about.com/...ould-he-have-this-syndrome.htm
autism syndrome apraxia symptoms Gluten Casein biomedical treatments vitamin E vitamin D malabsorption low muscle tone cordination sensory integration HLA gene
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Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland scientist and pediatric emergency medicine physician, Claudia Morris, MD says she has identified a syndrome which combines apraxia (a speech disorder) with symptoms often associated with autism. Many of these symptoms are precisely the ones that are pointed to by those whose children appear to benefit from biomedical treatments -- specifically Gluten and Casein-free diets and vitamin supplements.
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The data clearly demonstrated a common cluster of allergy, apraxia and malabsorption, along with low muscle tone, poor coordination and sensory integration abnormalities. In addition, Dr. Morris was able to gather laboratory analyses in 26 of the children, which revealed low carnitine levels, abnormal celiac panels, gluten sensitivity, and vitamin D deficiency among others. All children genetically screened carried an HLA gene associated with gluten sensitivity and celiac disease.
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Most significantly, the data indicate that the neurologic dysfunction represented in the syndrome overlaps the symptoms of vitamin E deficiency. While low vitamin E bioavailability may occur due to a variety of different causes, neurological consequences are similar, regardless of the initiating trigger. The study suggests that vitamin E could be used as a safe nutritional intervention that may benefit some children. Growing evidence support the benefits of omega 3 fatty acid supplementation in a number of neurodevelopmental disorders.
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Like all preliminary studies, this one is... preliminary. In other words, it has not been replicated, and the findings may turn out to be misleading.
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Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland scientist and pediatric emergency medicine physician, Claudia Morris, MD says she has identified a syndrome which combines apraxia (a speech disorder) with symptoms often associated with autism. Many of these symptoms are precisely the ones that are pointed to by those whose children appear to benefit from biomedical treatments -- specifically Gluten and Casein-free diets and vitamin supplements.