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Tero Toivanen

For a Child with Autism, How Much Help Is Too Much Help? - 3 views

  • I've noticed that when you offer a person constant help and support, even when he doesn't need it, he will stand back and let you do all the work.  It's just human nature: why work hard when someone else will do it for you?
  • Over the years, I've noticed that teachers and parents get into the habit of accomodating and stepping in for their children with autism.
  • I'm working hard to overcome my tendency to help too much, expect too little, and accept less than my son's best.
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    How to teach students to be independent?
Tero Toivanen

Facing Autism in New Brunswick: In Future Will Autism Spectrum Disorders Be Referred To... - 2 views

  • f brain connectivity is the biological problem that gives rise to autism disorders will  effective treatments and cures be developed targeting the connectivity issues?
  • 'People have started to look at autism as a developmental disconnection syndrome - there are either too many connections or too few connections between different parts of the brain,' says Sahin.
  • Sahin hopes that the brain's miswiring can be corrected by drugs targeting the molecular pathways that cause it.
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    If further study results indicate that autism deficits arise from brain connectivity disorders will the autism spectrum disorders come to be known as the Brain Connectivity Disorders?
Tero Toivanen

Research adds to evidence that autism is a brain 'connectivity' disorder - 1 views

  • Now, researchers led by Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD, of Children's Department of Neurology, provide evidence that mutations in one of the TSC's causative genes, known as TSC2, prevent growing nerve fibers (axons) from finding their proper destinations in the developing brain.
  • Sahin and colleagues showed that when mouse neurons were deficient in TSC2, their axons failed to land in the right places.
  • Further investigation showed that the axons' tips, known as "growth cones," did not respond to navigation cues from a group of molecules called ephrins.
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  • Although the study looked only at retinal connections to the brain, the researchers believe their findings may have general relevance for the organization of the developing brain. Scientists speculate that in autism, wiring may be abnormal in the areas of the brain involved in social cognition.
  • there are either too many connections or too few connections between different parts of the brain
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    Research evidence suggesting that autism spectrum disorders, which affect 25 to 50 percent of TSC patients, result from a miswiring of connections in the developing brain, leading to improper information flow.
Tero Toivanen

Real Autism - What Is Real Autism - 0 views

  • Here are answers from a top expert, Dr. Susan Levy of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
  • Dr. Levy says, while about 80% of autism is idiopathic (of unknown cause), there are at present many known causes of autism including FAS, rubella, Fragile X Syndrome, and more. In addition, according to a a report published in Pediatrics in 2009 entitled "Prevalence of parent-reported diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder among children in the US, 2007," as many as 40% of children who received an autism spectrum disorder at some point in their lives are no longer diagnosable on the autism spectrum.
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    Here are answers from a top expert, Dr. Susan Levy of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Tero Toivanen

Journal Says No Proof Special Diets Help Autistic Children - The World Newser - 2 views

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    The report from a panel of experts finds no scientific proof that digestive problems are more common in children with autism and no evidence that special diets work.
Tero Toivanen

Genes implicated in twins' autism | The Autism News - 1 views

  • Researchers have known for years that when one identical twin has autism, the other is also likely to be diagnosed with it – evidence that autism likely has a genetic component.
  • Researchers at Kennedy Krieger Institute studied 277 pairs of twins and found that when one identical twin had the disorder, the other developed it 88 percent of the time; for fraternal twins, that figure was 31 percent.
  • Despite this progress in unlocking the mysteries of autism, scientists have simply confirmed that there are likely numerous genetic links to autism.
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  • Each discovery explains just a tiny fraction of autism’s causes. Researchers think the great majority – 90 percent – of autism cases have a genetic cause, but they’ve found fewer than 10 percent of the triggers.
  • researchers have found about 50 genes so far that might be tied to autism, which explain very few cases, he said.
  • Autism isn’t one disease; it’s too individual to locate just one genetic cause. It’s not like cystic fibrosis, a disorder for which researchers have identified one gene – and tests to diagnose it.
  • autism researchers envision that a wide variety of gene defects are responsible for the symptoms collectively known as autism spectrum disorders. The disabilities, different in each child, range from the mild Asperger syndrome to more severe impairments in social interaction and communication.
  • “It’s going to take some work before we understand the true causes of autism,” he said. “We need to make much more headway to ever have enough understanding so that patient management and therapies can be improved.”
  • None of the new findings explains why more children are being diagnosed with autism. Genes, said Goldstein, tell only part of the story.
  • “The idea is there is an environmental interaction with the genetic component,” he said.
  • Autism may be inherited to some degree, but even twin studies show that not all sets of identical twins have autism. And when they do, they don’t always have the same severity of the disorder
  • That connection between genes and the environment, called epigenetics, might explain these distinctions
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    Researchers have known for years that when one identical twin has autism, the other is also likely to be diagnosed with it - evidence that autism likely has a genetic component.
Tero Toivanen

Researchers define uniform method to interpret autism spectrum disorders - 2 views

  • This approach makes it easier to understand both commonalities and differences between ASD and other conditions, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This approach will make it possible to test predictions about the location of these brain networks, how they function differently in people with ASD and how to use this knowledge to design interventions and compensatory strategies.
  • A recent study of a U.S. metropolitan area estimates that 3.4 of every 1,000 children between 3 and 10 years-old have Autism.
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    Dr. Dorit Ben Shalom recommends a uniform approach to evaluating and confronting the four common problems associated with ASD.
Tero Toivanen

Another study finds no MMR-autism link | Reuters - 1 views

  • the study found, children who had received the MMR vaccine actually had a lower risk of autism than their unvaccinated peers. Nor was there any evidence of an increased autism risk with the measles-only vaccine.
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    The study found, that children who had received the MMR vaccine actually had a lower risk of autism than their unvaccinated peers. Nor was there any evidence of an increased autism risk with the measles-only vaccine.
Tero Toivanen

Facing Autism in New Brunswick: Intellectual Disability Acceptance in the Autism Community - 0 views

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    In this blog says: approximately 75-80% of persons with Autistic Disorder are intellectually disabled or cognitively impaired.
Tero Toivanen

New Year, New Decade Resolutions for the Autism Community - 0 views

  • parents leaving their offices with an autism spectrum diagnosis for their child will have a clear plan of action for getting their child the help they need, where and when they need it.
  • Researchers will develop a better understanding of autistic subgroups, so that it will become possible to recommend appropriate treatments and therapies based on individuals' symptoms, challenges and strengths.
  • Less time, money, energy and angst will go into confrontation, and more time, money, energy and love will go into autism-related volunteerism, mentoring, program development, and other positive activities.
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    Less time, money, energy and angst will go into confrontation, and more time, money, energy and love will go into autism-related volunteerism, mentoring, program development, and other positive activities.
Tero Toivanen

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

  • 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.
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  • 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.
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    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

  • 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. 
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    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

Inside the Mind of a Savant: Scientific American - 1 views

  • In the meantime, we draw some practical conclusions for the care of other persons with special needs who have some savant skill. We recommend that family and other caregivers “train the talent,” rather than dismissing such skills as frivolous, as a means for the savant to connect with other people and mitigate the effects of the disability. It is not an easy path, because disability and limitations still require a great deal of dedication, patience and hard work—as Kim’s father, by his example, so convincingly demonstrates.
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    Kim Peek possesses one of the most extraordinary memories ever recorded. Until we can explain his abilities, we cannot pretend to understand human cognition.
Tero Toivanen

Inside the Mind of a Savant: Scientific American - 0 views

  • Theory guides us in one respect. Kim’s brain shows abnormalities in the left hemisphere, a pattern found in many savants. What is more, left hemisphere damage has been invoked as an explanation of why males are much more likely than females to display not only savantism but also dyslexia, stuttering, delayed speech, and autism.
  • The proposed mechanism has two parts: male fetuses have a higher level of circulating testosterone, which can be toxic to developing brain tissue; and the left hemisphere develops more slowly than the right and therefore remains vulnerable for a longer period. Also supporting the role of left hemisphere damage are the many reported cases of “acquired savant syndrome,” in which older children and adults suddenly develop savant skills after damage to the left hemisphere.
  • although autism is more commonly linked with savantism than is any other single disorder, only about half of all savants are autistic.
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    Article about Kim Peek and mind of savant.
Tero Toivanen

Autism Blog - Kim Peek has passed on « Left Brain/Right Brain - 1 views

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    Father says Kim Peek, Utah man who inspired Dustin Hoffman's 'Rain Man' character, dies at 58."
Tero Toivanen

Patrick Ecker: AAC - 2 views

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    This site is intended to be an active community for sharing graphics, pictures, and visual supports for children with disabilities. Parents, professionals, and others can share their ideas and help children learn to use language and communicate the best they can.
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