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Click here to download the full flyer for this training (PDF)As service providers you are in an important position to assist brain injury survivors throughout the many stages of recovery. Each person is diverse and each injury is unique; how do we deal with challenging situations and behaviors and still positively assist individuals in recovery? To learn the answers to this question please attend Brain Injury and Beyond: Effective Strategies for Challenging Situations, presented by the Brain Injury Association of Montana. This training will enhance your skills and provide strategies and tools that develop your work as a service provider working with people with brain injuries and co-occurring diagnosis. Please see the attached brochure for more information about the training and the presenter Ben Woodworth, MSW. Register here for Brain Injury and Beyond: Effective Strategies for Challenging Situations on August 10th (Billings, MT) and August 12th (Missoula, MT)

The Brain Balance Achievement Center, a franchise that opened in Mequon last summer, offers a program that it contends can help children overcome attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, Asperger's syndrome, Tourette syndrome, autism and other disorders. The 12-week program - costing $6,000, plus roughly $125 to $500 in nutritional supplements - purportedly does this by addressing an imbalance between the right and left sides of the brain that it calls "functional disconnection syndrome." The program is based on the contention that ADHD, dyslexia, autism and other disorders all result from this syndrome. "That functional disconnection syndrome basically states in the literature that the two sides of the brain are not communicating effectively together due to the fact that one side of the brain is actually maturing at a faster rate than the other side," said Jeremy Fritz, a chiropractor and co-owner of the franchise. The "literature" consists of one study of children with ADHD, co-authored by the program's founder, published in an obscure journal based in Tel Aviv, Israel. There are no studies in respected, peer-reviewed journals that contend ADHD, dyslexia, autism and other disorders stem from the development of one side of the brain faster than the other. "None of the neuro research would even come close to suggesting that," said Mina Dulcan, a professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and the head of the child and adolescent psychiatry program at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Click here to download the Brochure with Registration Information (PDF) Vision Net training is for kids 0-6 with sensory losses and other disabilities. It will start Jan. 13 -- instructors need advanced registrations to get materials assembled and vision net sites. Please fill out the attached registration form if interested.  Topics will include brain development, sensory processing, family centered practices, use of touch, hearing, vision system, CVI, communication, motor development and more. What: INSITE Basic Training prepares early intervention professional to work with families in acquiring information, skills and support to facilitate the development of their young children who have sensory impairments combined with other disabilities. It includes a comprehensive overview of the rationale and organization of the INSITE Model, including early identification, administration and supportive service components. The majority of the training time is devoted to training in the direct services to families. Participants become familiar with the INSITE resource manual (purchased separately by participants)  which contains information and learning activities for families on early communication, audition, vision, cognition, motor impairments, and the development of auditory and visual skills. They learn about the INSITE approach to information gathering, child assessment and program planning needed for developing the IFSP.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Washington in Seattle, and Washington University in St. Louis, are currently conducting a multi-center study to examine brain development in infants who have an older sibling with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Infants are being seen at 6, 12 and 24 months. Infants who have an older sibling with ASD are at higher risk of developing the disorder than the general population.

This research protocol seeks to learn more about bipolar disorder in children and adolescents ages 6-17. Researchers will describe the moods and behaviors of children with bipolar disorder and use specialized testing and brain imaging to learn about specific brain changes associated with the disorder. This protocol studies children who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and those who have a sibling or parent with bipolar disorder and are thus considered "at risk" for developing the disorder.

Click here to access this presentation and for more information What: Concerns and experiences of college students with TBI How do changes in cognition and social development impact students' college experiences? What services are currently available to students What do students with TBI need in order to be successful in college? Sessions are presented via a fully accessible Talking Communities webinar platform. When: Tuesday, June 22, 2011 at 1 p.m. - 2:30

Western Psychological Services, a publishing company based in Los Angeles, owns many of the common autism screening and diagnostic instruments. These include the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), a widely used screening questionnaire that Constantino developed, as well as the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) and the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R), often referred to as the gold-standard tests for diagnosis of the disorder. Each time one of these tests is administered, the publisher charges a fee, and passes a portion of the royalties on to the test’s developers. “I don’t think there’s any other condition in medicine in which you have to pay a royalty to a publishing company in order to make the diagnosis,” says David Skuse, professor of behavioral and brain sciences at University College London. Skuse has helped develop two freely available tools, the Social and Communication Disorders Checklist (SCDC) and the developmental, dimensional and diagnostic interview (3di). In many countries, paying royalties of even a few dollars represents a substantial hardship. Durkin and others say these costs not only limit access to diagnosis for individuals, but also forestall epidemiological studies, which require surveying thousands of individuals. One reason researchers have traditionally turned to publishers is a lack of alternative distribution channels, Durkin says. A new online clearinghouse of information, DisabilityMeasures.org, attempts to address this issue by gathering free diagnostic tools for developmental disabilities such as autism.

Click here to download the full brochure with registration information (PDF) What: This course is designed to help you develop a more integrated approach, working within the classroom, educators and therapists collaborating to develop therapeutic intervention programs that can be implemented within students’ daily schedules. Participants will: Develop a tool kit of classroom based inter-vention strategies to support students within general education classrooms Discover the three components in class-rooms that have the greatest impact on student learning Uncover simple, movement based strategies to facilitate whole brain learning Decrease unnecessary referrals with a pro-active screening process Learn practical strategies to make visual media more accessible everyday for stu-dents who struggle with maintaining atten-tion How to introduce motor learning labs for reading and writing that can be easily intro-duced with core curriculum Learn strategies for positioning to enhance student performance at near point and far point learning tasks Receive an extensive resource handbook with dynamic intervention strategies Who should attend: Occupational Therapists OT Assistants Physical Therapists PT Assistants Special Education Teachers Regular Education Teachers School Psychologists Speech and Language Pathologists School Administrators When: October 20-21, 2011 Where: Hampton Inn Great Falls 2301 14th Street. SW Great Falls, Montana 59404 Contact: Deb Davison by email at deb_davison@gfps.k12.mt.us