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what’s the advantage of aerosol medicines?Many drugs that used to be administered as a high dose pill, or by IV injection, are now available as aerosols.  Inhaled medications include corticosteroids to treat patients with asthma and antibiotics to treat patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). By delivering these drugs directly to the lungs as an aerosol, we are able to bypass delivery into the systemic circulation, which allows us to give lower doses and reduce unwanted side-effects. Other drugs, such as bronchodilators and hypertonic saline, also benefit from this route of administration.

When a child exhibits behavior problems in school or doesn’t progress academically in line with peers, some parents might think of a developmental disability or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). First, says Margaret Skinner, M.D., consider getting the child’s hearing checked, especially if he or she has suffered repeated ear infections.“During an ear infection, there is fluid in the middle ear,” says Skinner, a Johns Hopkins pediatric otolaryngologist (ear, nose and throat surgeon). “The infection can resolve but fluid may remain. That fluid is associated with mild but typically reversible hearing loss.”

Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once described England and America as two countries separated by a common language. Now research from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center suggests that common language may also be the divide standing between mothers of critically ill newborns and the clinicians who care for them.

Kanner was born in Austria and educated in Berlin. He came to the U.S. in 1924. In 1930, he moved to Johns Hopkins University, where he founded the first child psychiatry clinic in the country. Based largely on his clinical experience, he then wrote a textbook that defined the field of child psychiatry. His humanism is evident in his lifelong fight against the abuse of children with autism and intellectual disability, and his enduring concern for their families. He also made extraordinary efforts to help physicians and scientists escape from Nazi-controlled territories.

A first-of-its-kind study looking at a widely-used program designed to improve behavior finds that the strategy is proving effective for students with and without disabilities. Researchers at Johns Hopkins compared the experiences of students at 21 schools using the program known as School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, or SWPBIS, to kids at 16 schools that did not use the program over four years.

A new scholarship program launched this summer by the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth will give bright, low-income rural students the chance to take part in a challenging summer program at sites across the country.

Many pediatricians score high on screening their patients for developmental delays, but barely make a passing grade in referring children with suspected delays for further testing or treatment, according to a study from Johns Hopkins Children's Center and other institutions to appear in the February issue of Pediatrics. Because screening is only effective if followed by referral and treatment, pediatricians need two separate formalized systems in their practices — one for screening and one for referral — the investigators write in their report available online Jan. 25.

The disquieting side effect of our increasingly detailed longitudinal studies of students is we keep finding warning signs of a future graduation derailment earlier and earlier in a child's school years. Robert Balfanz of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found those warning signs as early as 6th grade— chronic absences, poor behavior, failing math or language arts, which when put together lead to a 90 percent risk that a student won't graduate on time. A study to be released this morning at the American Educational Research Association convention here in New Orleans presents an even earlier warning sign: A student who can't read on grade level by 3rd grade is four times less likely to graduate by age 19 than a child who does read proficiently by that time. Add poverty to the mix, and a student is 13 times less likely to graduate on time than his or her proficient, wealthier peer.

What: Do you need to know more about how to promote successful outcomes for your students in the area of math skills? Come to the MASP Summer Institute to discover how to apply recent research findings in your classroom. Learn the essentials of math preparation that we now know underlie proficiency in mathematics, including the importance of effective instruction. Find out the implications for identifying mathematics disabilities and for planning intervention. This is an important conference because there is a great deal of new evidence about how to foster the acquisition of good math skills, information that is not widely known yet. This will be one of the first opportunities that most people in our audience will have to learn about current knowledge on how children learn mathematics and how that learning can go wrong. Presenter One of the world's leading authorities on how children develop understanding of mathematics, Michèle M.M. Mazzocco is a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She is the principal investigator for the Math Skills Development Project at the Kennedy Krieger School. With Daniel B. Berch, she is the co-editor of Why Is Math So Hard for Some Children?: The Nature and Origins of Mathematical Learning Difficulties and Disabilities, a respected book that provides, in the words of one fan, "an exceptional review of literature on LD in maths." Dr. Mazzocco initiated the Math Skills Development Project in 1997, through which she has followed a group of students from kindergarten through 9th grade (so far!). This project involves an extensive study of normally developing children, children who have learning disability not associated with a genetic condition, and children who have genetic conditions that are known to contribute to math disability. The focus of the research is to seek an understanding of how cognitive, behavioral, and genetic factors contribute toward successful mathematics achievement. Dates and Times: June 12, 13, and 14, 2011 Registration opens at 5 o'clock on Sunday evening, June 12, 2011. The conference begins at 6:30 on Sunday evening and concludes for the evening at 9:30. On the following days, June 13 and 14, the conference continues from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm. The doors open at 8 o'clock each morning. Location: Hilton Garden Inn, Billings Treasure State Salon A & B 2465 Grant Road, Billings, Montana, USA 59102 (near Costco and Best Buy) Tel: 406-655-8800 Fax: 406-655-8802