New Study Shows Vaccines Not To Blame For Autism

In a bit of good news, another set of studies shows vaccines don't have any relationship with developing autism in children.  In an article published in Medscape entitled Multiple Vaccines Safe, Not Linked to Autism, Paul Offit talks about an article recently published in the Journal of Pediatrics by Frank DeStefano of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, looking at the relationship between vaccines and autism. Offit finishes his article by saying that the cause of autism hasn't been clearly identified , but that vaccines are definitely not to blame.

Some critics will probably suspect Offit's motives for publicizing this study, especially since he is a strong proponent of vaccines. But as far as being a parent who wants to find real pragmatic solutions or eventually the actual cause of autism, I'd like as many dissenting opinions out there with their proponents working feverishly working to prove their own theory. If we want to find out the truth, we need to be open to any possibilities and let the people in the industry who have the resources to research it.

Temple Grandin Says Children with Autism Need to Work

It's always welcome news when people recognize that despite their condition, children with autism can (and should be) productive. In this piece from Irish Central, Dr Temple Grandin was highlighted for speaking about how Autism made it possible for her to excel in what she understood best. I fully understand what she means everytime I hear Matthew sing or play with toy drums. He has this innate ability for rhythm that he has had since age 2. Will he be a singer someday? Will he play the drums professionally in the future? It will be up to us parents to nurture the talents of children with autism to full bloom :-)

The Difference Pets Make in Children with ASD

 

It has long been the opinion that pets have a dramatic effect on children with different disorders that affect the human brain. Even for people who have met accidents that have injured their brains have benefited from the pets. More so for children just starting to open up to the world, as with young children with Autism.

So here I am sharing another article I've read that inspires me and gives me hope. Global Edmonton reports in the article "Service dog changes autistic girl's life" how one dog's adoption has made a difference in the life of a girl stricken with Autism. Alison Ainsworth, the little girl's mother also write and shares her story with the rest of the world through the website www.ifmydogcouldtalk.net. You can also show your support by buying her book to read about Emily's inspiring story.

Siblings and Autism

At times I worry about how my kids will handle autism. My eldest child has autism. His sister is 5 years younger. How will things turn out when they grow up? I constantly worry about how my girl's adolescent years will be, with her older brother's autism casting a shadow on her. Or who will take care of Matthew when I and my wife have grown old. Taking care of him will be a big responsibility to take on for one person, especially a younger sibling.

So I was actually pleasantly surprised to read this article from NorthJersey.com. I can understand how it is that most of the focus in on children with autism. I can relate with the feeling that it seems immediate family is greatly affected by it and it is fairly common for the parents to have support groups to help them deal with it. Siblings of children (or adults) with autism don't have the same support system. They deserve to have their own support groups too, because they have to deal with it with the same if not greater degree of difficulty as parents do. More so when it comes to growing adolescents who have the burden of trying to fit in with peers. Reading about Gabby Abramowitz striving to bring a message across through her research and through her organizing efforts make me feel hope that my children will manage on their own when the time comes.

It makes me smile when I see the little one hug and imitate her kuya. It fills my heart with joy when I see Matthew kiss the little girl on the head when they're playing. They will manage, I have hope.

iPods for ASP Cebu

JCI Philippines recently donated iPods to the Autism Society of the Philippines (ASP) chapter in Cebu. The iPods donated came with the Proloquo2Go software, an assistive technology software that works in devices such as the iPod. It's feature set is specifically designed to help people having difficulty talking to 'speak' through the software's interface. User's click on the icons and the softwares speaks for them through the device. This promising piece of technology will be specially helpful to people with Autism who are non-verbal.

If you not familiar with JCI Philippines, you may know them by their more popular and longstanding name. They used to be called the Philippine Jaycees. The Jaycees have been doing a lot of community work as far back as I can remember. I'm glad to see that they are participating in the cause to help people stricken with Autism. For the full news feature, you can go here: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/community/view/20100501-267477/Autism-Society-Cebu-gets-iPod-donation.

Autism Stereotypes Show How Misunderstood ASD Is

Aussie Channel Ten apologized for an autism joke stereotyping children with autism. British comedian Russell Kane was quoted as saying to the host of Good News Week that "We went at you like an autistic kid on a drum, we destroyed you". He was apparently talking about his team that won in a comedy fest contest.

Angered parents voiced their complaints about the comment made in the show that aired a couple of days ago. The TV station's website was flooded with upset comments. Complaints even reached Australia's Parliamentary secretary for disabilities, according to new sites news.com.au and TheDailyTelegraph.com.au.  Secretary Bill Shorten was quoted, "where it stereotypes vulnerable children it goes too far...What don’t they understand about making fun of a disabled kid?” Several concerned organizations condemned the comedian's irresponsible joke. Channel Ten's airing the pre-recorded show unedited was seen by many as irresponsible.

Stereotyping children with autism (or any child with any disability, for that matter) just shows how egotistical some people are. In this case it happens to be a celebrity. After the uproar, he'll probably just shrug it all off with a comment that he didn't mean it, make a press release and then go on like nothing happened. The press release by the TV station that aired the pre-recorded show unedited shows even more callousness. A spokesperson from the station was quoted as saying the network is a strong supporter of autism awareness, and that they pledged to increase community service announcements for one organization working for the cause of autism. The sad truth is their pronouncement sounds like a convenient excuse so they could slither away unharmed after saying sorry and making amends by bribing people with their 'goodwill'. Jokes like these and half-hearted efforts by those who tolerate them make the impression that it's 'acceptable' for people to joke about disabilities. And it just shows how misinformed most people are about autism and how terribly heartless they can be.

Educating Children with Autism- NC School Sets Example

There's this great feature from WFMY News 2 about the progress of children with autism in a regular school. The story features Sam Johnson and Brightwood Elementary of North Carolina. It's a success story each parent with a child that has autism aspires to happen where they are. One is more support in regular schools for programs especially designed for children with autism. The other is an advocacy of parents that are being acted on by school boards.

Setting aside teaching resource for children with autism can be expensive. Teachers have to be equipped with proper training and teacher-student ratio has to be low enough so they could really focus on each child. They also need separate classrooms so these children can work with their teachers in environment that's free of distractions.

For more information on Sam's story and his school, please go to
http://www.digtriad.com/news/education/article.aspx?storyid=140683&catid
=164 and watch the video.

Playgroups Help Up Social Skills -Aussie Study

Playgroup Australia is about to publish research study that sought to prove that playgroups improve socialization skills of children with autism. The report is based on interviews of over 40 families that participated in Playgroup's PlayConnect program. Over 4-of-5 have confirmed the program has had an impact on their children's development. PlayConnect's program brings together children with autism so they could play and socialize in a safe environment. Parents also benefit as they get a chance to interact with other parents in a support group environment.

Karen Merange, Playgroup Australia's Executive Officer, looks forward to the program's continued expansion. “We are delighted that the research will confirm great outcomes from these groups for the families involved. We bring parents together for networking and information-sharing, and show them how to use play-based learning specific to a child with ASD. It is clearly making a big difference to people’s lives," Merange said. Playgroup aims to have 150 of these groups all over Australia by 2011.

The original announcement can be found here: http://www.playgroupaustralia.com.au/index.cfm?objectid=94378DED-E7F2-2F96-30864044DA4E9776

Online Autism Conference

My wife emailed me about this online virtual conference and I'd like to share it with you.  MomsFightingAutism.com organized this conference for April 10-11, dubbed Things to Know About Autism. There will be 16 speakers who will give a variety of talks on a range of topics including new therapies, education and autism awareness.

Talking for the keynote on April 10 Temple Grandin. Dr. Grandin is a noted autistic who is an accomplished author and a valued resource speaker of the Autism community. Her works include books like The Way I See It and Thinking In Pictures: My Life With Autism. She will be talking on Teaching Through Specific Examples and The Importance of Sensory Processing Disorder. Dr. Grandin will also be sharing about her successes in life despite her autism. Dr. Grandin's life had been featured recently in an HBO film, with Clare Danes playing her.

The keynote for April 11 will be by Jeremy Sicile-Kira. He will be presenting Learning With Autism: A Personal Viewpoint, mostly about his personal experiences and therapies that had helped him. Jeremy was featured in the MTV show True Life's "I have Autism" feature. Jeremy's mother, Chantal Sicile-Kira, is also an accomplished author who's penned several books on Autism and her experiences as a parent.

To participate in the virtual conference, register at
http://www.momsfightingautism.com/virtual-autism-conference/register/. The same page also hosts a short video on what participants can expect from the speakers in the conference.

In addition, you can also download 2 free webinar episodes, Autism 101 and Effective IEP Strategies, if you sign up for the Moms Fighting Autism newsletter.

The Beginnings of Summer

Tomorrow is the last day of this school year for Matthew. They're having a party of sorts which will double as a recognition day. Since they're a small school, organizing small events like that is much more appropriate than renting a large space and doing formal recognition programs.

In a bit of good news, he will be joining a class of regular kids this summer. His teachers have seen enough improvement that they recommended it. His learning has picked up and according to his teachers bringing him back to an environment with regular kids might help speed that up more. They also want to get him to become more social by interacting with regular kids.

Although Matthew is 7, he will be joining a pre-school class. The same teachers will be teaching though. When he was in a Prep class at his previous school, he had one kid he liked to hang out with, but was never with friends that he talked or played with. In the past year that has changed somewhat. He now plays with other kids, though not at the social level of play that kids his age are at. He now tries to start conversations, although to someone who doesn't know him all too well, it may be confusing. He still refers to himself in the third person at times, or asks a question when what he wants is for you to ask him that question. He repeats often-used phrases but never really says things in his own words. These are quirks in conversation that  a person not living with him or teaching him would find odd or difficult to deal with.

We are hopeful though that getting him in a class of regular kids will help him improve his social skills. At this age, that is one thing that we need to concentrate on. We are past the critical point, 7-years old. From here on, we are working to teach him skills so he can start doing things on his own.

Matthew's Computer

Last Sunday, the wife and I went out to buy a computer table. I've been planning to revive an old Dell I had laying around and repurposing it to be an all-around computer for the kids. My son has simple needs. He has great fun playing the games included in Child's Play and Gcompris. Well the wife and I ended up buying a cheap computer table from Saver's Mall in Balibago.

After I got home, I immediately started working on the machine. I had a little trouble getting it to work but I eventually managed to get it booting again. After I got it working I tried a live linux distribution. These have an advantage over installed versions, since an operating system running from a CD can't be modified like one that is installed. I tried Fedora 12 Games, but it was just too slow. I tried another linux distribution, called Linux Mint 8. It booted a lot more faster than Fedora, but it still took 8-10 minutes. I could just imagine my son jumping in anticipation only to get tired before the machine had fully booted. He's a little hyper over waiting time and jumps excitedly at times. I tried another one called  DreamLinux. I had been able to run 3.1 before on this same machine and it worked okay. DreamLinux didn't have any games on the Live version so I had to install it. I used the latest version,  DreamLinux 3.5. The computer was having problems booting into it so I gave it a rest.

The next few days I spent trying all sorts of tinkering on the computer to make it work. I decided to try an old Edubuntu CD from 2006 that I had lying around. for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Edubuntu is a version of Ubuntu that is packaged with educational software with games and applications for both educators and students. Good thing is it's packaged with games even for pre-schoolers. I have to download them though because these were optional applications.

I finally had it booting but I was disappointed becaused it had too few games that would suit Matthew. The problem is the servers for this older version are already outdated so I wouldn't be able to download more games even if I wanted to. I'm now downloading the latest DVD version of Edubuntu, plan to install it, test it and download more games if there aren't that many on there by default. Wish me luck :-)

Balloon Fun For Matthew

Last Valentine's Day, the whole family flocked to the last Day of the 15th Hot Air Balloon Festival in Clark. We woke up real early and I was just relieved that the kids weren't as grumpy as I had anticipated. Matthew had a lot of fun watching the balloons inflate and then fly. Even more so when the balloons took on different shapes and sizes.

I was half-expecting he'd be afraid of the balloons. I was delighted that he liked them even if the things looked so gigantic up close. He told me with all enthusiasm that this balloon was 'Ketchup' when I pointed it out:

The Pilseners won't be too happy about that I bet. It was still great fun for him, even if we only stayed for 2 hours.

The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun

When it came to activities for our child, we used to turn to therapists and doctors for everything. Most of the activities that we had for Matthew were usually limited to what he also performed in therapy sessions and speech therapy. We've reached a point however that when activities are repeated too often, Matthew becomes less enthusiastic and less compliant. Tantrums aren't too far away if you force him to do activities that he feels he has already done well in the past.

Good thing my wife was able to spot a copy of The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun, Revised Edition: Activities for Kids with Sensory Processing Disorder at National Bookstore. And it was on sale at the time! Every September, National Bookstore has a half price sale for a lot of their stock. This is a yearly book event that I actually look forward to.

Anyway, back to the book. The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun is just full of activites that you can use to help you child get better with certain skills. Like one activity that we have Matthew do to make him cooperate with the next activities. We have him blow balls of cotton across the floor using a cut piece of straw. The blowing helps Matthew develop the muscles used for speech. He also has to move while he is on his hands and knees for this activity and that improves his tactile sense. Another activity we got from the books was marble trails. It's painting with marbles! Using marbles dipped in paint, Matthew can create a 'painting' by rolling around the marble in a pan lined with paper. He can use different colors, using a marble from each of the paints.

The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun has already helped us, and we haven't even gone through a fourth of the games in it. It will surely be useful still in the future. If you want to buy a copy, The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun is available in Amazon for just US$10. I am sure it will be a great resource for any parent, therapist and care provider of children with sensory disorders.

Matt Turns 7

Today we had a party for Matt. As with any sort of event that we have to accommodate Matt in, we had to make sure the party would be enjoyable for his special needs. We also wanted to make it meaningful. The party had to be short, no more that an hour and a half at most. We also had to have some sort of way to divert his attention away from the music being played on loudspeakers. He actually loves music, but wants to always be in control of what's playing. We've often had to watch him and warn him beforehand at parties not to "turn off the CD". He often gets away with it anyway and that manages to upset some party hosts. And then we wanted the celebration to be meaningful. So key things were that it had to be short, meaningful and the music had to be something he wouldn't want to "turn off".

As a way of accomplishing what we set out to do, we invited kids from the Children's Joy Foundation. We set it up so that guests were informed ahead of time that instead of gifts for our son, they should bring along any donations they would have. We wanted to give these kids a good time and at the same time we promoted their particular organization.

They did share a wonderful gift for Matt. They played songs for Matt, live! Matt had no way to "turn off" the music. He sat attentively while watching these kids perform. In a very rare moment, he behaved so calmly.

Overall, the party was a success. We were able to gather about 10 small bags of clothes and school supplies. A few friends also shared cash for the kids. There were also a few guests who asked if they could have the kids perform at their events as well. So we were able to make it enjoyable for Matt and at the same time meaningful. It was moving to see smiles on these kids' faces. It felt like we were making a big difference, even if just for a day.

Key Dates in Autism History

If you'd like to see a timeline about autism, the Washington Post published an article about the Key Dates in Autism History. I also included this in my Del.icio.us bookmarks. I hope you find this useful.

Autism Is Also A Class Issue

As I read an article published in PSL Website, I found myself nodding as I went. I can definitely understand how frustrating the costs can be. For our situations, therapy costs account for roughly 15% of my salary. Though I may be seen as fortunate by some, It still takes a toll on the budget.

Parents in the US have it better in terms of research and advances. They also bear the brunt of higher therapy costs. In the Philippines, or at least where I live, the costs are a whole lot lower. I expect to have spent around 37,000 pesos this year for therapy costs alone. We are fortunate that we started therapy at the time that we did. Booking therapists is getting to be a frustrating affair for parents who been asking schedules lately. The waiting lists seemed to have increase exponentially during the last few months. We already have our slot and we are sticking to it. We can't change schedules now unless the therapists have free slots. The demand in our area is that big. As the months roll by, more children are seeking treatment.

I can just imagine how hard it would be for parents who earn less than I do. It would be difficult enough for them to get a slot for therapy. They also have to contend with the costs.

Web Browser for Children With Autism

One of the things that has always amazed me in the open source development circles is the rise of grassroots developed applications. Users who are capable of programming often develop applications because they need them to do specific tasks and behave the way they want them to. They then share them to others so these apps can be debugged or improved.

Another source of great software applications would be individuals who want to create something for their loved ones or for causes. One such piece of software would be the Zac Browser. It was created by a grandfather who wanted to help a grandchild with autism browse the web safely and independently. The Zac Browser helps autistic kids focus their attention by using a simplified interface. It protects them as well by limiting their exposure to inappropriate content, filtering out any violent of otherwise disturbing content. The sites have been pre-selected by the developer and is updated regularly. The best part of it is that it is free to anyone who would want to try it.

I discovered this little gem while browsing for news about autism. AP featured it in a news article. I posted a video featuring the Zac Browser below:





The Zac Browser can be downloaded as an installer package or a "just run" no-install package. It works with Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows ME and Windows 98.

Pre-Term, Low Birth Weight Girls Face Higher Autism Risk

Found news links that all point to research that indicates the autism risk in pre-term and low birth weight baby girls is greater:

• Autism Risk Higher For Preterm And Low Birthweight Girls
• Low Birthweight Linked to Autism
• Study Links Low Birth Weight To Autism on Eve Of March On Washington
• Low Birth Weight, Premature Delivery May Increase Autism Risk in Girls

Therapeutic Vest Promises Relief

Children and adults may soon find anxiety relief in the form of "portable hugs" if inventor Brian Mullen finds success in selling his Therapeutic Vest. The vest, which can also be used by adults suffering from mental illness, delivers a “portable hug” called deep pressure touch stimulation (DPTS). Deep pressure stimulation was proven in several trials to increase attention to tasks and reduce anxiety and harmful behaviors by providing different sensory stimuli. Mullen recently won grant money worth $50,000 when he won in the UMass Amherst Technology Innovation Challenge.

For more details, you can read the Science Daily news article here: Therapeutic Vest Will Help Children With Autism, ADHD, Anxiety.

Autism Test Can Screen 6-month Old Babies

North American researchers reveal that their studies have proven that autism could be detected as in children as you as 6 months. Detection this early on can equip parents with the knowledge they need to deal with autism and it's effects. Early intervention also helps the child adjust better as they grow up.

The telegraph reports on the results here: Tests can spot autism early, claim scientists.