Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

The National Institutes of Health has awarded $5.3 million in initial one-year funding to the latest two recipients of the Autism Centers of Excellence (ACE) program. With these awards, announced on World Autism Awareness Day, these and nine other ACE centers around the country are now being funded for up to five years. The program was created in 2007 to launch an intense and coordinated research effort aimed at identifying the causes of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and finding new treatments.

Before stimulant drugs such as Ritalin, Concerta and Adderall began their rise to popularity in the 1970s, treatment for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) focused on behavioral therapy. But as concerns build over the mounting dosages and extended treatment periods that come with stimulant drugs, clinical researchers are revisiting behavioral therapy techniques. Whereas stimulant medications may help young patients focus and behave in the classroom, research now suggests that behaviorally based changes make more of a difference in the long-term.

NCLD collected data from a random sampling of 1,980 adults in the United States, evenly distributed across males and females, via an online survey in August 2012. The sampling is representative of the U.S. population with a margin of error of 4.4 percent.  Twelve percent of the respondents cited having a learning disability, and eight percent of the parents surveyed have a child with a learning disability.  Results reveal the need for more education about the causes, treatments of, and treatments for learning disabilities, and a better understanding of the rights of learning disabled people in the workplace.

Click here for the Save the Date!What:The day's offerings include renowned speakers on children's psychiatry & treatment, integrated recovery models including primary care, dual-diagnosis treatment, and the mental health consumer recovery movement. Five CMEs (currently pending approval) will be available to those attending; conference registration is $60.When:March 1, 20129:00 am - 3:00 pmWhere:Miles City Community CollegeMiles City, MTContact:Phone: 406-587-7774

Click here for more information! (PDF)Cost: $15.00 non refundable - Includes lunch buffetWhat:Increasingly faced with students who present very challenging behavioral issues, most school staff have not be trained as treatment providers, but as educators. Punitive and reactive strategies are often the response of choice, in spite of the frequent negative side effects and drawbacks of such approaches. We will take a look at another approach to classroom management of oppositional and defiant students. A montana licensed psychologist in private practice in Billings, Dr. House was a school psychologist in Bozeman for a dozen years before returning to graduate school in Oregon to earn a Masters and Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. He practiced a couple of years in a private psychology clinic and a year in a psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents, and then shifted to a psychiatric residential treatment facility, where he filled several professional roles during his twenty one years of service, resigning from there this past summer to pursue his private practice. He is still licensed as a school psychologist and is a NCSP.When:March 14, 201211:30 am - 1:30 pmWhere:Student Union Building, Lewis and Clark RoomMSU-Billings, Billings, MTContact:Debra Miller Phone: (406)657-2312Email: dmiller@msubillings.edu

For the first time in 15 years, a major psychiatric organization is updating its practice guidelines for treating kids and adolescents with autism. A series of seven recommendations from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry outline the responsibilities clinicians have in diagnosing and treating those on the spectrum. The guidance published this month in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is an update to recommendations first presented by the group in 1999. It offers clinicians a roadmap for the best assessment and treatment practices for autism, though doctors must also take into account each patient’s unique circumstances in developing a plan, the organization said.

If you currently don’t have insurance that pays for autism treatment, you may live in one of the 27 states that is now offering that coverage through its state exchange, and you may qualify for federal subsidies to reduce the costs of that insurance.

The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 required health plans that offer mental health and substance use disorder benefits to cover them to the same extent that they cover medical/surgical benefits. Among other things, it prohibits having treatment limits or financial coverage requirements such as copayments or deductibles that are more restrictive than a plan’s medical coverage. Interim regulations issued in 2010 clarified some issues about implementing the law.