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Tuscaloosa Teacher Values Autistic Students

Link: Teacher  At the start of her day at Sprayberry Education Center, Pam Miller pulls out picture cue cards for her students. Because seven of her eight students can't communicate verbally, Miller, the autism K-5 teacher at Sprayberry, relies on the picture cards and sign language to interpret her students' needs. This is Miller's second year at Sprayberry, but throughout her 18 years in teaching-previously she worked with special education students at Holt Elementary School-she has worked with a number of autistic children. "I love working with children with autism because everyone is so different," Miller said. "They all have such unique and wonderful personalities. There are no two that are the same. They're each a mystery, and you have to figure out what makes each one work." In teaching children with severe autism, Miller deals with students who may experience difficulty communicating, often exhibit repetitive behavior and can be easily upset by small changes in their environment. So, before she can teach her students their ABCs and 123s, Miller has to first learn about her students' lives and what makes them tick.

UT Grad Overcomes Substantial Learning Disabilities To Get Degree

Link: UT Grad  History major Clayton Tauscher is achieving his goal of getting a college degree, but he's had a long list of hurdles to overcome. Clayton was diagnosed with autism at 3 years old, then later ADHD, as well as other learning and speech disorders. "All the specialists and the people that we encountered said that Clayton would never get this far, and he's gotten this far, and I'm just incredibly proud of him," Clayton's father Karl Tauscher said. Clayton started going to the Pediatric Language Clinic on the UT campus, then worked his way through several different schools. He was among the first graduates at Grace Christian Academy in 2005. Clayton is now among GCA's first students to achieve a college degree.

Finding Mental Health Services a Frustrating Process For Families

Link: Full Article  Floods, tornadoes and his mother being killed in a car wreck. Those were the fears Carter Timmons recited when his doctor asked him what scared him. He was 7, an age when most little boys are more worried about the bogeyman than natural disasters or highway accidents. The incident was one of many that convinced Michelle and Curtis Timmons that something about their younger son was different. "We realized it was probably more than ADD," Michelle Timmons said. "There were little things that didn't make sense." Several years and medications later, Carter was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism characterized by social awkwardness and obsessions with specific topics.

Autism Training DVD for Police Officers

Link: FREE DVD This year SaharaCares produced a DVD that will be used to train police officers at training facilities and in regular pre-duty training sessions. The purpose of the DVD was to raise awareness of the rising prevalence of autism in our communities. It discusses ways to recognize the disability and gives constructive suggestions for dealing with people with autism. The DVD is being offer for free to any organization that can benefit from it.

"Brandon's Mom" - Autism Law Shows How Citizens, Legislators Can Work Together

Link: Autism Law  Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that my life would take me down this path. Growing up, I always dreamed that I would get married, career, two kids, dogs, the whole package. I was certainly not overly interested in politics. Everything changed the minute I had a child with autism. I have always been a fighter, and now I was fighting for something the meant more to me than words could ever describe, our son's future. Our oldest son, Brandon, was diagnosed with autism two years ago at age 3. We have seen firsthand the amazing progress he has made with appropriate therapies. We were fortunate in that we could pay for his therapies out of pocket because our insurance did not. Unfortunately, this is not the case for most Montana families. It seemed so fundamentally wrong that hard working Montanans who pay insurance premiums still could not help their children. I was determined to do something about it.

Senate Bill 234,"Brandon's Bill," which requires insurance companies to cover medically necessary therapies for children with autism passed the 61st Montana Legislature.

Autism Web Resource

Link: Neurodiversity.com   My name is Kathleen, and I live in northern New England. I've been married to my companion Dave for almost twenty-four years now; we're the parents of two teenagers, one with an autistic spectrum diagnosis, and also have other family members on the spectrum. My goal in developing this website is to increase goodwill and compassion in the world, and to help reduce suffering. I [also] seek to help increase the capability of educators and service providers to provide effective, respectful support for those on the autistic spectrum.

Neurodiversity's resource pages index material from a vast number of websites on autism, reflecting a wide range of information and perspectives. Visitors will also find links to many one-off articles with interesting and innovative content that you only find if you do deep searches.

Inside the Vaccine-and-Autism Scare

Link: Full Article  Early in Dr. Paul A. Offit's new book, "Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure," he describes a threatening letter he received from a man in Seattle. "I will hang you by you neck until you are dead!" it read. The FBI deemed the threat credible, assigning Offit a protective officer who, for the next few months, followed him "to and from lunch, a gun hanging at his side." He then recalls a suspicious phone call from a man who recited the names of Offit's two children and where they went to school: "His implication was clear. He knew where my children went to school." These days, the hospital he works in regularly screens his mail for suspicious packages. Offit is a baby doctor -- the chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The threats against him and his family have come from anti-vaccine crusaders who believe that vaccines cause autism. Offit has been targeted by them because he helped to develop a vaccine that prevents rotavirus, a serious gastrointestinal infection in children, and because he has been staunchly pro-vaccine in a time when there are many doubts about their safety. His book investigates the anti-vaccine movement and is a tough rebuttal against his critics, who call him "For Profit Offit" because he worked with drug companies to develop the rotavirus vaccine.

Autistic Boy Steals Car, Flies Cross-Country

Link: Full Article  Kenton Weaver is 13 years old, has no photo I.D. that his father knows of and lives with autism. None of that stopped the Boca Raton boy from stealing his father's car in the middle of the night Tuesday, cruising more than 20 miles to a Florida airport and hopping a couple of connecting flights to San Jose, Calif. "I really enjoyed it," Kenton told "Good Morning America" simply. "I talked to a few people." Kenton's mother, Kim Casey, lives just hours from the San Jose airport in Fresno, Calif., but the boy's father, Dean Weaver, suspects it wasn't the destination that lured the boy to the airport, but the journey. Kenton has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism often characterized by an unusual preoccupation with particular subjects. According to Dean, his son was fascinated by airplanes.

Researchers Pinpoint Genes Tied To Autism

Link: Autism Genes   Three studies published this week establish a link between genetics and autism. Scientists have long thought that there may be such a link, but this new research shows the strongest possibility yet. The studies looked at more than 12,000 people including those with autism and their families and found that many people with autism share genetic differences in the way that their brain cells communicate with each other. Two studies identified a gene region that may be responsible for up to 15 percent of autism cases. Another study found stretches of DNA that are missing or appear duplicated. Nonetheless, researchers say that the genes alone do not guarantee a diagnosis of autism and that environmental factors also likely contribute. “It moves the field of autism research significantly ahead,” says Philip R. Johnson, M.D., chief scientific officer at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where some of the research was conducted. “This discovery provides a starting point for translating biological knowledge into future autism treatments.”

Local Organization Provides Support To Adults Living With Autism

Link: Support  Jessica Wang once held a steady job in JP Morgan's cafeteria. But after the September 11th terrorist attacks, she was out of work. Living with Asperger's, a syndrome included in the range of autism spectrum disorder, she found it hard to find new employment for several years. "I was miserable that I had that learning disability," she recalled. "I kept blaming myself that there must be something wrong with me mentally." Wang says she was finally able to start turning things around with the help of Job Path, an organization with the mission of helping people with developmental disabilities find employment, educational opportunities, live independently. if they can, and become involved in their communities.