Whether they’re looking to find practical advice on therapies, filter out misinformation, or just vent about a rough day, many parents of children with autism have found support in the Facebook community. Babble’s trusted panel has once again been tasked with narrowing down this year’s Top 30 Autism Facebook Fan Pages. This list includes pages created by advocacy organizations, autism professionals, bloggers (some of whom also appear on our Top 30 Autism Blogs), and much more. We’re confident you’ll see some of your favorites here (if not, be sure to nominate them in the comments for consideration on next year’s list!), but we also hope you’ll find new sources of information and advice. — Barbara Spindel

GREAT FALLS - A new loan program is bringing almost $1 million worth of financial services to Montanans with disabilities and on Tuesday, the National Disability Institute trained local credit counselors for the program. With one in five US adults living with a disability, and those adults being three times more likely than their peers to live at or below the poverty line, providing them with financial services is crucial to opening up the doors to more opportunities.

The aim of GEMSS is to assure all children with genetic health conditions succeed in school-life. Children who have genetic conditions are members of neighborhood schools across the country. In fact, it is estimated that about 1 in 20 children have a genetic condition.  

In this webinar, Dr. Blumberg presents data from the recently released 2011-2012 National Survey of Children's Health and the 2011 Survey of Pathways to Diagnosis and Services to help participants better understand the rise in prevalence estimates of parent-reported autism spectrum disorder.

One of the most devastating calls you can receive as a parent is the School calling to tell you they have initiated an expulsion proceeding against your child due to poor behavior. If your child has an Individualized Education Program (“IEP”) before the expulsion process can start they must hold a Manifestation Determination review. This review must be held within 10 days of the conduct. At which time the IEP team must review the complete file and consider all relevant information, including the IEP, any teacher observations, and any information supplied by the parents.

Helena will play host to documentary dealing with mental illness. The film about the stigma of bi-polar disorder will debut free of charge on Wednesday night in Helena. The film, sponsored by NAMI-Helena and Carroll College is called "Of Two Minds."

With about six million children requiring special education services, you may very well be the parent of a special needs child. Your journey may be difficult. How can you be sure you are getting the best care for your child? Are there programs to help your child that you don’t know about? What can you do to make yourself feel better during the extra stressful moments? Here are 8 tips that were offered by special needs parents.

Assessment plays an important role in the Response to Intervention (RtI)/Multiple System of Supports (MTSS) process. While the different types of assessment seem clearly outlined and easily understood for those in the assessment field, comprehensive assessment systems used beyond special education are relatively new to many educators. Consequently, there are varied interpretations and implementations of assessment across districts and schools. Uncertainty still exists about the purpose of specific assessments, how often to use them, how to use the information effectively, and even the terminology used to describe different assessments. This confusion is largely due to multiple meanings of assessment terms, and a misunderstanding of the value and purpose of various assessments. It is such a widespread conundrum that my colleague, Nancy Eberhardt, and I devoted an entire chapter to it in our book, RtI: The Forgotten Tier.

Six-year-old Charlie Jones gets super excited when Skyler Bexten, 18, comes over to take care of him and his 3-year-old brother, Max. “It’s kind of hard to excite Charlie with someone coming over,” his mother, Elizabeth Cummings, said.  Both diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, Skyler and Charlie share an unspoken deep understanding and a bond that continues to grow. For Cummings, Skyler provides a role model for her son and the community of what people with autism can achieve and contribute. “His success has been tremendous,” she said of Skyler. “He is a fully mainstreamed student who will graduate with honors from Glacier High School this spring.”

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers, which had released pieces of its proposed accommodations policy for students with disabilities, has now put out a full draft of its accommodations manual for public comment. (The organization also has an explanatory Powerpoint presentation and a list of frequently asked questions linked to the release.)

The folks at AT&T and Autism Speaks hosted an app idea contest that was judged by the people who know autism best, the autism community. Autism Speaks Facebook fans and community members submitted ideas for apps that might make life with autism better organized, more social or just plain easier or more fun.

It was 50 years ago this month that the movement to help students with learning disabilities began. Here’s what happened.

The publication, “We Can Do Better,” evaluates state policies on child care and assigns each state a score. This year, no state scored above 87 percent, and the lowest-ranked state, Idaho, rated only 15 percent. Texas was actually ranked in the top 10 states, at 82 percent. But, as Cohn’s story explains, child care centers in Texas are inspected only once a year, and home day care centers only every other year.

Rich Janssen, a lifelong Ronan resident and involved community member, has an autistic child.  His son, Jake, was diagnosed with autism May 31, 1998, when he was 2 years old. At the time, about one in 1,000 children were autistic. That number has risen exponentially through the last 15 years to one in 50 males. One-third of those diagnosed with autism develop epilepsy. Jake is among them and was recently diagnosed with diabetes.  Even so, Jake seems like one of the happiest children you’ll ever meet. “He’s a blessing and he’s really humbled me to what’s important in life,” Rich said. “It’s not anything arbitrary or anything that you can lose, and it’s made me much more sympathetic to those with a disability ... anyone with a disability is on our short list of going to heaven pretty quick.” Having been integrated into Ronan schools since he was 2 1/2 years old, Jake will graduate with a high school diploma this spring and has the option to walk with his class at graduation. 

A major disability doesn’t stop Skyla DeLapp from having the ability to live independently.The 21-year-old woman has spent her life dealing with cerebral palsy, which greatly debilitates her muscle movement and coordination. However, it doesn’t debilitate her capacity to live a full life.

KALISPELL- Hundreds of kids in Montana are diagnosed with having autism spectrum disorder each year, but that diagnosis varies largely from child to child.

Under mounting pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, one state now plans to start moving away from sheltered workshop placements for people with developmental disabilities. Just two weeks ago the Justice Department filed a motion to intervene in a class-action lawsuit against the state of Oregon alleging that the state is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by not providing supported employment services. Federal officials said they sought to join the suit after unsuccessfully attempting to negotiate with the state. Now, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber is taking steps to alter the employment landscape for those with disabilities. In an executive order set to take effect this summer, Kitzhaber said the state will no longer fund new placements in sheltered workshops as of July 2015.

“Just because a person can’t speak doesn’t mean they have nothing to say.” A very important reminder from a parent of a non-verbal child. Communication is a basic human need, allowing people to connect with others, make decisions that affect their lives, express feelings and feel part of the community they live in. People with little or no speech still have the same communication needs as the rest of us.  We may just have to work a bit harder to find a communication strategy that works. The following tips have been contributed to Netbuddy by parents of children and adults with special needs. We hope you will find them useful, and please do share your own!

Finding sports opportunities for kids with disabilities is not always as simple as going down to the local soccer club during the first week of March for sign-ups.  Many families are not located near an existing adaptive sports team. However, this certainly doesn’t make our kids less interested in sports – or less in need of physical fitness opportunities! Hopefully including children with disabilities in sports will soon get even easier, thanks to new guidance from the U.S. Department of Education that clarifies that school districts are legally obligated to provide equal access to extracurricular athletic activities to students with disabilities.

Nancy Rosenberg, PhD, BCBA, a special educator and behavioral specialist from the University of Washington, presents a Positive Behavior Support approach to addressing challenging behaviors in children on the autism spectrum. Topics include the importance of understanding the function of a child's behavior, a toolkit of key strategies for preventing problem behaviors and techniques for teaching replacement behaviors.