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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.

Early humans may have cared for disabled young

Link: Disabled Child's Skull A recently unearthed ancient human skull shows signs of a disorder that might have caused mental retardation. This offers the earliest evidence that ancestors of Homo sapiens did not abandon young with severe birth defects. The 500,000-year-old skeleton belonged to a five to 12-year-old child who suffered from craniosynostosis. The rare congenital condition occurs when two of the flat bones that make up the skull fuse together along their margins (sutures) too early during fetal development, hindering brain growth.

nytimes.com: Insurers Ease Stance on Pre-Existing Conditions

Link: nytimes.com
WASHINGTON —The health insurance industry said Tuesday that it was willing to end the practice of charging higher premiums to sick people if Congress adopted a comprehensive plan that provided coverage to all Americans.

cnn.com: Group: U.S. gets D for adult mental health care

Link: cnn.com
Three years ago, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) gave the United States a D for its mental health care system for adults. The new report, it said, shows only marginal progress -- not enough to warrant a better grade.

newsobserver.com: Obama backs teacher merit pay, charter schools

Link: newsobserver.com
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama called for tying teachers' pay to students' performance and expanding innovative charter schools Tuesday, embracing ideas that have provoked hostility from members of teachers unions. He also suggested longer school days - and years - to help America's kids compete in the world.

disabilityscoop.com: Calif. Agency Tells Insurers To Skip On Behavior Therapy

Link: disabilityscoop.com
The California Department of Managed Health Care spelled out the obligations in a letter to insurance providers in the state. It’s a win for insurers who have been arguing that behavior therapy, such as applied behavioral analysis (ABA), is an educational obligation rather than a medical one.

detnews.com: Blue Cross ordered to defend stance on autism therapy coverage

Link: detnews.com
DETROIT -- A U.S. District Court magistrate has ordered Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to produce documents to support its claim that a certain type of behavioral therapy for children with autism is experimental, and therefore ineligible for coverage.

billingsgazette.net: House backs K-12 distance learning

Link: billingsgazette.net
HELENA - State lawmakers have endorsed a measure to create a new distance learning program that would give students in every school district virtual access to both basic and advanced classes.

amestrib.com: Youngster’s disease becomes teachable moment at school

Link: amestrib.com
GILBERT — Like most kids in his Gilbert Elementary School kindergarten class, Christian “C.J.” Lundvall didn’t like the idea of wearing snow pants and a pair of boots during recess Thursday, as temperatures crept toward 70 degrees.

 So, when he came into teacher Leslee Jordan’s classroom from the balmy outdoors, he asked if he could take the pants off.

 That was OK as long as the playground supervisor didn’t mind, Jordan replied.

 But then, C.J. asked for some additional help: His insulin pump needed repositioning.

 For the youngster, who will celebrate his sixth birthday March 24, the pump has become a fact of life, as have the multiple daily pin-prick blood tests that he self-administers, usually along the outside of his toes.

freep.com: Research copyright bill would end free health info

Link: freep.com
Like many parents of children with a chronic illness, Sally Nantais of Wyandotte invests a lot of time looking into ways to help her 17-year-old son, Austin, battle Fragile X Syndrome.