In the national discussion taking place about health care, two premier medical centers are repeatedly brought up as positive examples of how to deliver care more efficiently while still cutting costs and eliminating waste--the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic. Both share an approach that Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has referred to as "advanced primary care."Most medical experts have a cozier name for it: the "medical home."

DENVER - Chase was just 18 months old when he started speaking his first words and sentences to a stunned mom and dad.

"It started with him just loving books, picking up books and playing with them," Brett Perry, Chase's father, said. "Then he went into this fascination with numbers and letters." Before they knew it, Chase was doing more than just looking at the letters. He was reading full words out loud, and then full sentences out loud. Mind you he wasn't even 2 years old.

Michelle Ford cannot remember ever feeling like a normal person. "I always thought there was just something wrong with me," she said. "When I found out I had brain damage, I was so relieved to find out nothing was really wrong with me. I was just brain-damaged. I wasn't crazy. There was an explanation for what was wrong, and it wasn't my fault."

Research on parents and children with autism has grown exponentially in recent years. Now, grandparents are invited to get into the act too. Since 2007, over 30,000 individuals with autism and their immediate families have submitted information about themselves to The Interactive Autism Network (IAN). Researchers then mine data from the registry to learn more about autism and to find subjects for studies.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today unveiled several new resources on the federal government’s one-stop resource for flu information -- www.flu.gov.  The Web site now features a new H1N1 Flu Self-Evaluation guide for adults 18 and older along with a new Flu Myths and Facts section, which provides the public with the latest and most accurate information about the flu.“Flu.gov is a one-stop clearinghouse for the latest news about the flu,” said Secretary Sebelius.  “These new resources on flu.gov will help individuals get critical information on how to protect themselves and their families from the H1N1 virus. They will also help us to get accurate information out into the public realm so people know what the facts are about the flu.”

Practice Guides Especially for Parents

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Literacy Learning Experiences

Transitioning to Kindergarten: A Toolkit for Early Childhood EducatorsThe transition to kindergarten is most successful when it is carefully planned out over the entire pre-kindergarten year.  Starting as early as the first day of preschool, it’s important to make sure that children are developing the academic skills that help form a foundation of strong pre-reading and pre-writing, as well as the social and emotional skills they’ll need in kindergarten. 

We want to help you make the most of the latest technologies and innovative ways to use them as we settle into the 2009-10 school year, so we've put together a brand-new free resource for you: the PDF Ten Top Tips for Teaching with New Media. Full of succinct and practical ways to prepare our students for 21st-century success, this guide will help you deliver the relevant and meaningful education all students deserve.

Kids.gov is the official kids' portal for the U.S. government. It links to over 2,000 web pages from government agencies, schools, and educational organizations, all geared to the learning level and interest of kids.

Washington, DC — Last Wednesday, President Obama visited the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to announce the single biggest investment in biomedical research in American history. Among the $5 billion in grants he announced are new explorations of longtime research targets from cancer to heart disease. But the grants also include the largest-ever investment in an Obama administration priority that has so far gone mostly unnoticed: autism research.

a new documentary suggests that the rising number of autism diagnoses does not actually represent an increase in the number of kids who have the developmental disorder. Rather, the filmmakers say that autism is becoming an umbrella term latched onto by parents and diagnosticians alike in their efforts to get services for children whose needs are not easily defined.

Technology—and especially the subset of technology tools known as assistive technology—can be an effective, if not necessary, element of the writing curriculum for students with disabilities. Assistive technology (AT) can be defined as a technology (including the training and support to use it) that allows someone to accomplish a critical educational or life task. Since writing is so integral to school success, AT is often indicated to assist students with disabilities. In this article, CITEd looks at how technology can support students’ writing.

Innovations in computer technology in the last 20 years have changed the way most people live, work, shop and communicate. Education has changed, too. Now students can upload assignments to a class website, email questions to their teachers, and work on assignments with distant peers using instant messaging, online discussion forums and wikis.

The Senate Finance Committee worked for eight days to amend Chairman Baucus’ Mark. In sum, close to 150 amendments were considered by the Committee on topics that included affordability, the public option, Medicaid expansions, private insurance market reform, and many more. Please join Families USA this Friday, October 9th at 3 PM, to demystify the Senate Finance mark-up.

MK-869 wasn't the only highly anticipated medical breakthrough to be undone in recent years by the placebo effect. From 2001 to 2006, the percentage of new products cut from development after Phase II clinical trials, when drugs are first tested against placebo, rose by 20 percent. The failure rate in more extensive Phase III trials increased by 11 percent, mainly due to surprisingly poor showings against placebo. Despite historic levels of industry investment in R&D, the US Food and Drug Administration approved only 19 first-of-their-kind remedies in 2007—the fewest since 1983—and just 24 in 2008. Half of all drugs that fail in late-stage trials drop out of the pipeline due to their inability to beat sugar pills.

The Impact on Students with LD and AD/HD The Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) was passed by Congress in December 2008 and became effective January 1, 2009. This significant piece of legislation corrected what Congress considered to be a departure from the intent of the original ADA (passed in 1990) brought about by several narrow interpretations of the law through Supreme Court rulings. These rulings weakened the law and made it difficult for people with disabilities to receive the protection the law intended.The ADAAA also has a direct and substantial impact on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) -an important law that provides protections for school-age children with disabilities.   This Parent Advocacy Brief will help you understand the changes brought about by the ADAAA, how they apply to Section 504, and how these changes may impact children with disabilities, including learning disabilities, as well as other conditions such as Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD), Aspergers Syndrome, diabetes, asthma, and life-threatening food allergies.

Jessica Green dares to dream.

Sharing her dreams and hopes for herself and others with Down syndrome in a recent speech helped Green win a seat on the board of directors of the National Down Syndrome Congress. triggerAd(1,PaginationPage,11); In her "Dare to Dream" speech, given at a congress event in Sacramento, Calif., the 26-year-old Indianapolis woman talked about her abilities and how people with Down syndrome should "stand up for themselves."

Sharing her dreams and hopes for herself and others with Down syndrome in a recent speech helped Green win a seat on the board of directors of the National Down Syndrome Congress.

JUSTIN, Texas - Video games and a young boy with Aspererger's Syndrome has led one North Texas district to learn barriers can be broken. Matthew Lowery, who has a mild form of autism, has become an inspiration for many in the Northwest Independent School District, and a lot of that is thanks to those at Gene Pike Middle School in Justin, Matthew's parents say.

Life is full of transitions, and one of the more remarkable ones occurs when we get ready to leave high school and go out in the world as young adults. When the student has a disability, it's especially helpful to plan ahead for that transition. In fact, IDEA requires it.