I got a reader question a few days ago which initially had me stumped. The author has a child with autism who is greatly calmed during car journeys by listening to an iPod. However, due to the child’s autism, they fiddle with the iPod buttons incessantly and occasionally turn it off or pause the sound by accident, then being unable to turn the sound back on again and becoming agitated. The reader asked if I had any ideas for preventing this.

Most children who have trouble controlling their asthma with low-dose inhaled corticosteroids show improvement by increasing the dose or adding another medication, a new study finds. But the best option differs for each child.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan plans to announce Monday that his agency is ramping up enforcement of civil rights laws in schools and colleges, a move that seeks to draw a contrast with the policies of his Republican predecessors.

Lawrence Wang used to hate the shrill sounds of the flute. He'd clamp his hands over his ears to drown out his sister's piano playing. During music lessons, he'd fidget and fight with his teacher.On Saturday, though, he tapped his feet while blowing happily on his saxophone, a member of an unusual band of special-needs performers.

The Montana Legislative Audit Division has completed its information systems audit of OPI’s statewide student information system, AIM – Achievement in Montana.  The purpose of the audit was to 1) Verify controls are in place to ensure the availability of real time data in AIM;  2) Ensure controls are in place to prevent unauthorized access to student data in AIM;  3) Verify processing controls are in place to ensure AIM data completeness; and 4) Ensure AIM is generating accurate reports.  Click here to review the audit report Achievement in Montana: Security of Student Information for the Office of Public Instruction.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is conducting the Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) as part of a broader initiative to encourage disability beneficiaries to return to work. The demonstration provides youth ages 14 through 25 with employment-related services and waivers of certain rules governing the Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance programs, including childhood disability benefits. The waivers augment existing financial incentives for beneficiaries to work.

The American Bar Association's Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law established the national Mentor Program for: law students with disabilities prospective law students with disabilities, and recent law school graduates with disabilities The Program’s purpose is to give members of these groups the opportunity to learn from an experienced attorney. In a recent study conducted for the ABA, those immediately out of law school cited having a mentor as an important driving factor of satisfaction with their career. Career satisfaction, however, is just one benefit of having a mentor-mentee relationship. Practitioners, students, and academics have all praised the benefits of a mentor program for those with disabilities, namely the availability of advice, guidance, and support.  

The American Bar Association's Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law established the national Mentor Program for: law students with disabilities prospective law students with disabilities, and recent law school graduates with disabilities The Program’s purpose is to give members of these groups the opportunity to learn from an experienced attorney. In a recent study conducted for the ABA, those immediately out of law school cited having a mentor as an important driving factor of satisfaction with their career. Career satisfaction, however, is just one benefit of having a mentor-mentee relationship. Practitioners, students, and academics have all praised the benefits of a mentor program for those with disabilities, namely the availability of advice, guidance, and support.  

"Children who enter grade school with cognitive and social-emotional delays are at an increased risk for reading problems, academic underachievement, and becoming disengaged or disinterested in school." This assessment, from Janet Welsh, a research associate at Penn State University's Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development, is at the heart of a new intervention program developed by researchers at the school to help families with kindergarteners at risk for poor school performance.

The father of a 7-year-old Chicago boy who was diagnosed as a toddler with autism has sued the Naperville and Florida doctors who treated his son, alleging they harmed the child with "dangerous and unnecessary experimental treatments."

James Coman and his son were featured last year in "Dubious Medicine," a Tribune series that examined risky, unproven treatments for autism based on questionable science.

The defendants — family-practice physicians Dr. Anjum Usman of Naperville and Dr. Daniel Rossignol of Melbourne, Fla. — are prominent in the Defeat Autism Now! movement, which promotes many of the alternative treatments the Tribune scrutinized. Both have spoken to groups of parents at autism conferences and trained other physicians in their methods.

A bill imposing first-ever federal oversight on the use of restraint and seclusion in schools cleared the House of Representatives Wednesday, paving the way for Senate consideration. The bill now called the Keeping All Students Safe Act passed by a vote of 262 to 153, despite objections from numerous Republicans who said the measure was premature and would infringe on states’ rights to oversee education. The vote came down largely along party lines even though the measure was sponsored by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is conducting the Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) as part of a broader initiative to encourage disability beneficiaries to return to work. The demonstration provides youth ages 14 through 25 with employment-related services and waivers of certain rules governing the Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance programs, including childhood disability benefits. The waivers augment existing financial incentives for beneficiaries to work.

The HCCA program is a collaborative effort of health professionals and child care providers working to improve the early education and health and safety of children in out-of-home child care. This includes increasing access to preventive health services, safe physical environments, and a medical home for all children. The program also strives to increase pediatrician participation and effectiveness in providing high-quality care and promoting early education and children's health and well-being.

Today, we are opening up auto-captions to all YouTube users. There will even be a "request processing" button for un-captioned videos that any video owner can click on if they want to speed up the availability of auto-captions. It will take some time to process all the available video, so here are some things to keep in mind: While we plan to broaden the feature to include more languages in the months to come, currently, auto-captioning is only for videos where English is spoken. Just like any speech recognition application, auto-captions require a clearly spoken audio track. Videos with background noise or a muffled voice can't be auto-captioned. President Obama's speech on the recent Chilean Earthquake is a good example of the kind of audio that works for auto-captions. Auto-captions aren't perfect and just like any other transcription, the owner of the video needs to check to make sure they're accurate. In other cases, the audio file may not be good enough to generate auto-captions. But please be patient -- our speech recognition technology gets better every day. Auto-captions should be available to everyone who's interested in using them. We're also working to provide auto-captions for all past user uploads that fit the above mentioned requirements. If you're having trouble enabling them for your video, please visit our Help Center: this article is for uploaders and this article is for viewers.

If you know and love anyone with autism or on the autism spectrum, you are going to want to keep reading. In my case I have quite a few friends with children on the spectrum and I have a beautiful daughter who is too. I am blessed with three fantastic children all different and special in their own way, I love them each beyond words.

Recently, we asked our Facebook community, “What books about autism do you think are most helpful for newly diagnosed families?” We received nearly 300 responses. Below are some that we chose to pass along to you. 

This compendium is the first of an annual publication of statistics on people with disabilities and government programs that serve this population. It is designed to serve as a reference guide to government publications. The information focuses on state-level statistics published by Federal agencies and presents some time-trend data. A glossary is provided to assist in the interpretation of the statistics. 

SEN Teacher provides cost-free teaching & learning resources for students with special needs and learning disabilities. All the resources available or listed here are free for use in schools, colleges and at home.