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Amy Weitlauf, Ph.D., assistant professor of Pediatrics, will be leading a study among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to examine the effectiveness of mindfulness training as part of early interventions for children with ASD. Amy Weitlauf, Ph.D. Through a nearly $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau (Grant No. R40MC27706), Weitlauf and colleagues from Vanderbilt Kennedy Center’s Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders (TRIAD) will teach all participating parents to use the Early Start Denver Model, an intervention method aimed at early treatment of ASD.

Just six treatment sessions designed to help moms of kids with developmental disabilities manage their stress can go a long way toward reducing depression and anxiety, researchers say. Parents of children with developmental disabilities often experience greater stress than moms and dads of typically-developing kids. Nonetheless, most interventions target the needs of their children with disabilities exclusively. Now, researchers say more attention ought to be paid to the unique needs of these parents. In a trial of two treatment programs, Elisabeth Dykens of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development and her colleagues found that weekly sessions with trained peer mentors could help moms conquer their stress and, in turn, interact more constructively with their children with disabilities.

The old cliché “great minds think alike” couldn’t be more wrong. Today more than ever schools need high functioning teams that represent diverse backgrounds and thinking, teams that challenge the status quo. This session will dispel old myths about collaborations and introduce a new paradigm to create result-oriented teams. Several assessment instruments will be introduced to assist educators in determining the makeup of teams at their schools. Participants will be given tools they can use to build high functioning teams that produce measurable and sustainable results.

Visit www.mtagate.org for more information Download 2011 Registration Form Download 2011 Application to Present Download 2011 Parent Fee Waiver Application What: 31st Annual Montana AGATE Spring Conference “Sharpening Minds with Gifted Education” When: Thursday, April 28 – Saturday, April 30, 2011 Where: Hilton Garden Inn, 1840 Hwy. 93 South, Kalispell, Montana Call (406) 756-4500 to make hotel reservations. ** Ask for the AGATE rate! ** ** Please reserve hotel rooms by April 7 for best options! ** Questions? Contact Sandra at (406) 250-4730 or samconst@centurytel.net or Darci at (406) 360-7768 or agsnmt@msn.com

Great Falls residents are promoting mental well-being around the community - one step at a time. The Center for Mental Health held a team captain kickoff luncheon on Wednesday for the annual Beautiful Minds Walk. The event aims to help improve the lives of those living with mental illness.

What:Is Asperger's syndrome really less common in girls and women, or are females just better than males at masking autistic symptoms? Rudy Simone, a San Francisco singer, writer and stand-up comic, didn't learn that she was on the autism spectrum until her mid-40s. Simone has Asperger's syndrome - a high-functioning form of autism that leads to social problems but no intellectual disabilities - which, like all forms of autism, appear much more commonly in boys than in girls. Ten times more men are believed to reside on the spectrum than women. But some experts think the real prevalence of Asperger's in girls may be much higher than believed, because girls tend to be far better than boys at concealing its symptoms, masking social problems and hiding the repetitive behaviors often associated with autism. So, many women go undiagnosed until middle age, along the way given other labels and therapies that do not address their real issues. To help make up for the lack of resources available to girls with Asperger's and their families, Simone wrote Aspergirls: Empowering Females with Asperger's Syndrome. Healthland spoke with her recently. Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/27/mind-reading-a-qa-with-the-author-of-aspergirls/#ixzz1hl7AHuDt Ms. Simone will be speaking in Montana this spring. More details will be provided in mid-March. All of her appearances will free and open to the public. Where and When:Billings (CEC Conference) - April 25, 2012Helena - April 26, 2012 Missoula - April 27, 2012Kalispell - April 28, 2012Contact: Doug Doty, Coordinator Website: www.opi.mt.gov/autism/maep Phone: (406) 444-0907

Animated Minds is a series of short animated documentaries which use real testimony from people who have experienced different forms of mental distress. A single aim underpins all the films: to help dispel myths and misconceptions about ‘mental illness’ by giving a voice to those who experience these various difficulties first hand.

Summer is almost over, and parents everywhere are experiencing that inevitable anxiety over how to make the most of the upcoming school year. In my experience, anticipating the hurdles of reentry and carefully structuring the first few weeks of school goes a long way to setting the stage for a successful year, particularly if your child has an anxiety disorder or another psychiatric condition. With that in mind, here are some dos and don'ts for families who want to start the school year right.

The 13-year-old author of The Reason I Jump invites you, his reader, to imagine a daily life in which your faculty of speech is taken away. Explaining that you’re hungry, or tired, or in pain, is now as beyond your powers as a chat with a friend. I’d like to push the thought-experiment a little further. Now imagine that after you lose your ability to communicate, the editor-in-residence who orders your thoughts walks out without notice. The chances are that you never knew this mind-editor existed, but now that he or she has gone, you realize too late how the editor allowed your mind to function for all these years. A dam-burst of ideas, memories, impulses, and thoughts is cascading over you, unstoppably. Your editor controlled this flow, diverting the vast majority away, and recommending just a tiny number for your conscious consideration. But now you’re on your own.

Technology is fascinating. And I know you can find pretty much anything on the Internet, but the fact that this dad found the directions to create what he did is pretty darn amazing.