PLUK eNews

Premature babies who receive an interventional therapy combining their mother’s voice and a pacifier-activated music player learn to eat more efficiently and have their feeding tubes removed sooner than other preemies, according to a Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt study published today in Pediatrics.

Accessibleplayground.net is the THE site for Accessible Playgrounds.  Here you will find great resources on how to develop an accessible playground from A to Z.  You will also find hundreds of examples of what other people have done.  In addition, if you are heading out on vacation and want to ensure you have an accessible place to play, the site can point you in the right direction.

Native Voices: Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness explores the interconnectedness of wellness, illness, and cultural life for Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. Visitors will discover how Native concepts of health and illness are closely tied to the concepts of community, spirit, and the land.

When David Blum got caught in a cement silo drill and had to have his lower leg amputated, his doctor told him he would never work his farm again. Blum looked at his farm — his alfalfa, his corn, his soybeans and his cows — and had some choice words for the doctor. “Don’t let anybody tell you the word no,” he said. Today, Blum is one of many farmers who works every day with a prosthetic device, but it hasn’t been easy.

Last week, 35 law enforcement officials from around the Gallatin County took a day to talk to patients with schizophrenia, manic-depressive disorder, personality disorders, bipolar disorder and more at the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs. Patients told officers about hearing voices, not being able to discern between mortals and immortals and other terrifying realities they face on a daily basis.

Free evidence-based resources to elevate your professional learning. Discover what you need to be the teacher they remember - the one who empowers their success!

iCommunicator makes effective two-way communication possible for persons who are deaf, hard-of-hearing or experience unique communication challenges The iCommunicator translates in real-time: • Speech to Text • Speech/Text to Video Sign-Language • Speech/Text to Computer Generated Voice

Braille Institute is proud to introduce ViA (Visually Impaired Apps), a fully accessible app for iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad.  ViA has been designed to help identify apps that are useful for adults and children who are blind or have low vision, including those with additional disabilities.  Users can easily sort through the 500,000+ apps in the App Store and locate those that were built specifically for, or provide functionality to, the user with a visual impairment.

Electronic Brailler LLC Manufacturers of the Cosmo Braille Writer and "BERT" Braille Education Remote Tool  Now as never before a blind student using a Braille Writer in the classroom can be as quiet as a sighted student writing with a pencil on paper. The non disruptive patent pending Cosmo Braille Writer is a classroom-friendly Braille writer and quiet embosser. The Cosmo Braille Writer is easy for children and adults to use, economical to run and easily maintained. For the first time in the history of Braille; Braille can be taught over the internet. BERT is a revolutionary new tool that enables both the teacher and student to communicate by voice and keyboard in real time during a remote teaching session. Any keys depressed by the student on the BERT Braille keyboard will be immediately recognized by the teacher either on their Braille display or for sighted teachers on their computer screen. BERT enables real time interactive communication between teacher and student, creating a "side by side" mode of working together.

Electronic Brailler LLC Manufacturers of the Cosmo Braille Writer and "BERT" Braille Education Remote Tool  Now as never before a blind student using a Braille Writer in the classroom can be as quiet as a sighted student writing with a pencil on paper. The non disruptive patent pending Cosmo Braille Writer is a classroom-friendly Braille writer and quiet embosser. The Cosmo Braille Writer is easy for children and adults to use, economical to run and easily maintained. For the first time in the history of Braille; Braille can be taught over the internet. BERT is a revolutionary new tool that enables both the teacher and student to communicate by voice and keyboard in real time during a remote teaching session. Any keys depressed by the student on the BERT Braille keyboard will be immediately recognized by the teacher either on their Braille display or for sighted teachers on their computer screen. BERT enables real time interactive communication between teacher and student, creating a "side by side" mode of working together.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common childhood disorders and can continue through adolescence and adulthood. Diagnosing ADHD can be tough and once a diagnosis is discovered, the next steps are crucial. For this reason we have compiled an eight part series on that will provide you with over 100 ADD/ADHD resources in a series of weekly blog posts. This post is part six:

This six-part webinar series, Girls Matter, provides research, best practice and critical thinking on the topics that professionals working with girls and young women must know. Each session addresses a key area of what matters to adolescent girls today—including challenges, opportunities, and strategies for supporting girls. SAMHSA has created this webinar series to: Increase the behavioral health workforce’s understanding of the needs and concerns of adolescent girls (primarily ages 12-18) Bring visibility and attention to the specific behavioral health concerns of adolescent girls

HAMILTON — Ravalli County has the third-highest population of hired farm workers of any county in Montana, right behind Lake and Gallatin counties, according to the last census taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2007.At that time, there were 867 hired farm workers in the county, and at least 38 of those were migrant workers.According to Claudia Stephens, the strategic-planning specialist at the Montana Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Council, those numbers have held steady and Ravalli County still has one of the highest percentages of agricultural workers in the state.In order to provide seasonal and permanent farm workers with access to affordable and preventative health care, her agency has opened a new year-round clinic just north of Lolo.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our children had super teachers every year that completely meshed with both their needs as well as our own? Sadly, no matter what school, what State of the Union, type of child or how calm the parent, your child may end up with a teacher that does not fit their style or your own. It is a basic fact of life. While it can be hard to deal with a bad fit, there are some important strategies you can use to get through the year.

These are the scenarios that confront parents with children who may later be diagnosed with a developmental delay or disability.  These scenarios do little justice to the fear and anxiety that can grip a parent when faced with these events unfolding in their daily lives.  As humans, we are generally never more vulnerable then when something threatens our own children.

Welcome to our new training curriculum on early intervention! The full curriculum isn’t done yet, but we are pleased to make three modules available for your reading, downloading, and training use, and have many more on the way.

Edutopia’s curated list of blogs, articles, and videos for parents about fostering kindness, empathy, resilience, perseverance, and focus in children.

Kojiro Hirose, a professor at the Graduate University of Advanced Studies and the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan, and a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago, will present, “The World through Touch: Creating a Museum Everyone Can Enjoy” at 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27, in 1-121 Wilson Hall at Montana State University.  Hirose, who is visually disabled, will lecture about his work as an organizer of various exhibitions of “tactile culture” at Japan's National Museum of Ethnology, and his efforts to make museums accessible for everyone.

A week after announcing that the federal government will pay for tracking devices for kids with autism, officials are offering more details about how families can access the technology. Police departments nationwide will be able to make the tracking devices available to children in their communities who are at risk of wandering using money available through the Justice Department’s Byrne grant program, officials at the federal agency said.

The Network of Care for Service Members, Veterans & Their Families is a one-stop-shop for virtually all services, information, support, advocacy, and much more. This public service is an attempt to bring together critical information for all components of the veterans' community, including veterans, family members, active-duty personnel, reservists, members of the National Guard, employers, service providers, and the community at large.