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Thieves steal autistic boy’s speaking device
Thieves steal autistic boy’s speaking device
July 13th, 2010
The Autism News | English
By Jake Whittenberg | KING5
BELLINGHAM, Wash. – What appeared to be a normal car break-in for Sean Jones turned out to be much worse. Not because of the damage, but what was stolen.
“This is really devastating”, said Jones.
A device used by his autistic son Sheamus, 9, was stolen from his car on July 4th. Sheamus has severe Non-Verbal Autism. In recent
months his parents were able to afford a device called a “Mini-Merc”. It’s similar to an IPad. Sheamus carried it with him as a way to speak.
months his parents were able to afford a device called a “Mini-Merc”. It’s similar to an IPad. Sheamus carried it with him as a way to speak.
“He would touch a picture on the screen and it would speak for him,” said Sheamus’ mother, Frances Eustis. “It took a long time to get him comfortable using it, so the time lost not using it is huge. He really struggles expressing what he wants.”
Sean is offering a reward for the return of the device. It’s expensive and difficult to replace.
“I’m not looking to press charges or get anyone in trouble,” he said. “I just want the thing back for Sheamus.”
“Just drop it off somewhere, just call anonymously and leave it so that he can have it back,” said Eustis.
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Evelyn Towry, 8-Year-Old Autistic Girl, Arrested and Handcuffed for Throwing Tantrum, Autistic Teen Jailed For Officer Assault
Autistic Man’s Family Sues Over Food Stamp Cuts
July 13th, 2010
The Autism News | English
ACLU Files Suit Against FSSA
INDIANAPOLIS — The family of an Indianapolis man with autism is suing the state’s social services agency, saying it illegally cuts grocery benefits it pays to developmentally disabled people enrolled in a Medicaid program based on how much they receive in food stamps.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed the lawsuit against the Family and Social Services Administration on behalf of 26-year-old Michael Dick last week in Marion County Superior Court, 6News’ Derrik Thomas reported.
Dick has been severely autistic since birth, is nonverbal and functions on the level of a 6- or 7-year-old, his family said.
He’s enrolled in Indiana’s Developmental Disabilities Waiver Program and receives food stamps from the federal government.
But his family claims that when the federal program increased its benefits by $1.25 a day in 2009, the state deducted that same amount from his living allowance.
“If he gets a cost of living increase in his food stamps, they decrease his residential living allowance, so he gets no benefit out of the cost of living increase,” said Steven Dick, Mike’s father and lawyer, who is co-chairing the case. “He’s allowed a grocery allowance of $6.57 a day, about $45 a week. That’s an extremely modest grocery allowance.”
The suit contends that federal law says food stamp benefits cannot be considered income.
FSSA spokesman Marcus Barlow called the lawsuit baseless, saying the agency has a responsibility to make sure taxpayer dollars are used in the best way possible.
“We have a finite amount of resources. We have a finite amount of money to spend on programs like this one,” he said. “We have to make sure that when someone has an increase, we can get that to someone else.”
The suit seeks class action status for others in the Developmental Disabilities Waiver program and asks a judge to stop counting food stamps as income.
Source: http://www.theindychannel.com/news/24246437/detail.html
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Tough time finding work for autistic Ohio adults
July 13th, 2010
The Autism News | English
By Rita Price | Dayton Daily News
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Her resume attracted plenty of attention.
Hospitals, technology companies and a major research organization indicated that Chelsea Ridenour — computer and math whiz, summa cum laude graduate of Capital University — looked good on paper. Some called for interviews.
And then, suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter that she is intelligent and dependable and tenacious. Ridenour can communicate with a computer in six languages, but she can’t chat her way through a face-to-face meeting with a stranger.
“People try to be nice. They’re not deliberately not nice,” the Hilliard resident said. “They just don’t understand.”
Ridenour is among a rising population of young adults whose coming-of-age stories are at best complicated and oftentimes heartbreaking. They are grown-ups with Asperger’s syndrome and other autism disorders, conditions that society seems to handle best when boys and girls are young and in school.
But Ridenour is 23. What she needs is a job.
“My pitch always has been, ‘There’s a buyer for every house. Why don’t we find the buyers for these kids who want to work?’” said Tom Fish of the Ohio State University Nisonger Center, a support and research institute for people with developmental disabilities.
“The challenge with people on the (autism) spectrum, of course, is social interaction,” he said. “People look at these kids and say, ‘Be more social.’ Well, they can’t.”
Many young people with Asperger’s syndrome, or “high-functioning” forms of autism, emerge from years of struggle, bullying and isolation in high school only to find that the adult world can be even more difficult. According to the Ohio Center for Autism and Low Incidence, national studies have found that only 6 percent to 14 percent of adults with autism are competitively employed.
Yet many possess normal — and in a lot of cases, superior — intellectual abilities.
The surge in autism diagnoses – the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the incidence at one in 110 American children – first was felt in education systems.
Now, families and government agencies are trying to chart the course to employment.
“We weren’t ready,” said Chris Filler, transition coordinator at the Ohio Center for Autism. “This wave of what used to be preschoolers with autism is moving on, and we’re really scrambling to meet that need.”
Families report frustration as they turn to agencies such as the Rehabilitation Services Commission of Ohio; its history is rooted in finding jobs for people with traditional disabilities: hearing loss, mobility problems and blindness, for example.
County boards of developmental disabilities serve some adults with autism, but those with mild forms such as Asperger’s might not qualify for services and the waivers that pay for them. Yet their “social dyslexia,” as some describe the condition, can be crippling in the work world.
Ellen Ridenour, Chelsea’s mother, said the family sought help from the commission’s Bureau of Vocational Services in 2008 but found that their caseworker knew little about Asperger’s syndrome. Although Chelsea had recently graduated from college with a 3.9 grade-point average, her family was told that she was “not competitively employable.”
Others have reported similar experiences.
“I don’t think they have any idea yet of the challenges of Asperger’s,” said Nancy Beu, a North Side woman whose 28-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, went through many difficult evaluations and interviews before getting a job at a YMCA.
“They don’t do well with job interviews. That’s overwhelming for them. Some of the case managers think, ‘They’re not employable.’ Well, most of these young people have wonderful skills. Elizabeth always proves herself.”
The commission’s administrator, Michael Rench, met with some families and told them the agency is working to improve training and find better ways to help clients with autism.
“We recognize the frustration,” he said.
But, at the same time, the commission remains obligated to serve the most-significantly disabled first. “If they have a master’s degree and drive a car, it can be hard to determine how they qualify for our services,” Rench said.
The commission served 860 Ohioans with autism last year. Officials say 122 cases were “successfully closed,” meaning that the workers maintained competitive employment for at least 90 days.
Filler said that’s often not long enough for a young adult with autism to adjust. She worries that traditional time frames and limited budgets allow cases to be closed before the workers attain stability.
National employment studies have found that, among recent high-school graduates with disabilities, those with autism have the highest job-retention rates after more than a year, Filler said. But two to six months into the job, they fare the worst.
Brian Cloppert had the ability. What he needed was someone to help him find a groove, to put abstract concepts into concrete terms.
“He’s a very bright young man, has a lot of knowledge, skill and capability,” said Pat Batdorf, an on-the-job training specialist at the Franklin County Board of Developmental Disabilities who works with Cloppert. “It’s just a matter of connecting the dots.”
For three years, Cloppert, a 27-year-old who has Asperger’s syndrome, has worked as a supply coordinator at the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital, where he handles inventory for four floors.
“Of all the jobs I’ve trained in 25 years, this is probably the most complicated,” Batdorf said. “But he’s doing great.”
Cloppert’s family agrees that he is fortunate to have long-term job coaching, which isn’t easy to come by. And not everyone who gets the help is happy to land jobs that seem below their abilities.
“We have one man who has a master’s degree, and right now, he’s doing some janitorial work,” said Claudia Ross, the board’s employment-services director. “He’s not happy, and we know it; but socially, he’s so unskilled.”
Filler and others see some solutions in earlier job planning — in middle school, not after high school or college — and by helping employers understand the strengths of many people with autism.
“Small-business owners,” Rench said, “can make adaptations quicker than a corporation. They’re more than willing to tolerate the quirkiness.”
Chelsea had to leave one promising job because she was required to work on the help desk. “If they’d let her do programming, she’d be great,” said her dad, Rick Ridenour. “But the help desk? She’s phone-phobic.”
His wife said she hopes the lessons learned by her family can help others understand that academic success isn’t enough of a base to build on. She wishes that Chelsea had had earlier work experience and support.
“We didn’t think we’d have to do all this,” Ellen Ridenour said. “We thought employers would be looking for skills, not the ability to socialize around the water cooler.”
Chelsea recently learned that she is eligible, at least temporarily, for some job help from the developmental disabilities board, and she might try an internship for math- and science-skilled adults with disabilities.
She’s trying to forget the person who, after a strained conversation about employment, “decided that I didn’t really want a job.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
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Easier and earlier diagnoses of autism
July 13th, 2010
The Autism News | English
The University of Calgary may have found a way to make an easier autism diagnoses.
By CTV – Calgary
The University of Calgary may have found a way to make an easier autism diagnoses.
The researchers are interested in how children with autism develop language skills, and if there’s some markers that parents and doctors could look for that would help in making a diagnosis.
Two-year-old John Beaven has autism.
He was at a higher risk because his older brother has the disorder.
John’s parents have enrolled their youngest son in a study of siblings so researchers can see how language develops in kids with autism, and perhaps find an easier and earlier way of diagnosing the disease.
Earlier diagnosis means earlier intervention.
If you are interested in learning more about this study or participating in it please contact The Speech Lab.
They are looking for new participants, specifically families who have an older child already diagnosed with autism and a younger sibling between the ages of two months and two year.
Please call 403-220-2444 or go to:
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Autistic Teen Jailed For Officer Assault
July 13th, 2010
The Autism News | English
By Stacey Cohan | My FOX D.C.
Mother Reaches Out Through Blog
STAFFORD, Va. – An 18-year-old autistic man sits in the Rappohannock County Jail and his mother is fighting for his release.
Reginald Latson is charged with assaulting a police officer.
Latson’s mother is on a mission to free her son and has launched an internet campaign that is drawing national interest.
The local NAACP is helping, even though the issue isn’t color of the man’s skin.
From the time he was small, Reginald “Neli” Latson’s mom knew he was different.
She knew from the small things, from teaching a child how to tie his shoes to eating with a spoon, but it took years of frustration and special education to get a hard diagnosis-autism, specifically Aspergers Syndrome.
“That brought me to tears because I realized for the first time…this was my son,” said mom Lisa Alexander.
With help, she says Neli improved.
He often walked to the local library which he loved, but on May 24, someone called police to report a suspicious man with a gun outside the library.
When police arrived, Neli had left but a high school resource officer nearby found him.
What happened next landed Neli in jail.
This is what he told his mom while he was being questioned.
“He said ‘I was attacked, I didn’t mean for this to happen’ then the phone went dead,” said Alexander.
The Stafford sheriff’s office says Neli was violent; the officer used pepper spray. Neli stole it, used it and broke the officers’ ankle.
No gun ever was found.
His mother says she doesn’t know exactly what happened, but she says nearly two months in custody is too long for her autistic son.
“I’m terrified,” said Alexander. “He was in Western State for a while, he’s very confused.
He doesn’t know why all this is happening to him.”
He doesn’t know why all this is happening to him.”
“I was there at the hearing,” said Melvin Allen Sr. of NAACP. “They told him he could not afford an attorney one would be appointed. He couldn’t understand what they meant.”
Shortly after his arrest, the court moved Neli to Western State Mental Hospital which is where a video was made for his mom’s internet campaign to win his freedom.
After the video hit YouTube, Neli was taken out of the hospital and put back in jail.
The Stafford Sheriff’s Office declined an interview but says, “when this case goes to court, it will become abundantly clear that not only did the deputy who was assaulted act in a completely professional an appropriate manner, but all law enforcement involved acted in a professional and appropriate manner.”
According to the national organization ” Autism Speaks ,” conflicts between autistic individuals and law enforcement has become so problematic that there is an education program already underway to training officers to deal with autistic persons.
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Evelyn Towry, 8-Year-Old Autistic Girl, Arrested and Handcuffed for Throwing Tantrum
July 13th, 2010
The Autism News | English
By Caleb Hannan | Seattle Weekly – Blogs
Little 8-year-old Evelyn Towry just wanted to be able to go to the party like all the other kids. But for some reason, a teacher at the Boise third-grader’s elementary school wouldn’t let her while she was wearing her favorite sweatshirt, a hoodie that her mom had sewn cow ears on to look like a cartoon character. Instead, the teacher put Evelyn in a classroom and asked two staffers to watch her and make sure she didn’t leave.
This wasn’t cool with Evelyn. She tried to leave the room but staffers blocked her path. And it was then that her parents say their daughter — who has Asperger’s, a high-functioning form of autism — freaked out.
According to the staffers, Evelyn spit on and “inappropriately touched” her two guards. Probably the kind of behavior that happens every day in schools all across the country. And likely not to leave a mark unless the kid happens to be the daughter of an NFL lineman which, based on these pictures, she is not.
But the panicked flailing of a scared little girl was apparently too much for the grown-ups to handle on this day. As the school’s principal called police and asked to have Evelyn arrested on suspicion of battery.
The cops, presumably not possessing a single critical-thinking bone in their bodies, went along with the administrator’s wacky demand, patting and frisking Evelyn before putting her in what we can only imagine were kiddie-sized handcuffs
A prosecutor wisely refused to press charges. And Evelyn was released to her parents before having to spend too much time in the county’s juvenile lockup.
They’re now suing the school district and the sheriff’s department for violating the Americans With Disabilities Act. But really, it’d be just as accurate to say they’re suing for a lack of common sense.
Evelyn Towry’s tantrums are apparently so fearsome it takes a deputy and handcuffs to restrain her.
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Students, meet your new teacher, Mr. Robot ,Idaho parents sue over 8-year-old’s school arrest, Holding your breath and testing the limits of autism
Students, meet your new teacher, Mr. Robot
The Autism News | English
By Benedict Carey And John Markoff | NDTV
Los Angeles: The boy, a dark-haired 6-year-old, is playing with a new companion.
The two hit it off quickly — unusual for the 6-year-old, who has autism — and the boy is imitating his playmate’s every move, now nodding his head, now raising his arms.
“Like Simon Says,” says the autistic boy’s mother, seated next to him on the floor.
Yet soon he begins to withdraw; in a video of the session, he covers his ears and slumps against the wall.
But the companion, a three-foot-tall robot being tested at the University of Southern California, maintains eye contact and performs another move, raising one arm up high.
Up goes the boy’s arm — and now he is smiling at the machine.
In a handful of laboratories around the world, computer scientists are developing robots like this one: highly programmed machines that can engage people and teach them simple skills, including household tasks, vocabulary or, as in the case of the boy, playing, elementary imitation and taking turns.
So far, the teaching has been very basic, delivered mostly in experimental settings, and the robots are still works in progress, a hackers’ gallery of moving parts that, like mechanical savants, each do some things well at the expense of others.
Yet the most advanced models are fully autonomous, guided by artificial intelligence software like motion tracking and speech recognition, which can make them just engaging enough to rival humans at some teaching tasks.
Researchers say the pace of innovation is such that these machines should begin to learn as they teach, becoming the sort of infinitely patient, highly informed instructors that would be effective in subjects like foreign language or in repetitive therapies used to treat developmental problems like autism.
Several countries have been testing teaching machines in classrooms. South Korea, known for its enthusiasm for technology, is “hiring” hundreds of robots as teacher aides and classroom playmates and is experimenting with robots that would teach English.
Already, these advances have stirred dystopian visions, along with the sort of ethical debate usually confined to science fiction. “I worry that if kids grow up being taught by robots and viewing technology as the instructor,” said Mitchel Resnick, head of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “they will see it as the master.”
Most computer scientists reply that they have neither the intention, nor the ability, to replace human teachers. The great hope for robots, said Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington, “is that with the right kind of technology at a critical period in a child’s development, they could supplement learning in the classroom.”
Lessons From RUBI
“Kenka,” says a childlike voice. “Ken-ka.”
Standing on a polka-dot carpet at a preschool on the campus of the University of California, San Diego, a robot named RUBI is teaching Finnish to a 3-year-old boy.
RUBI looks like a desktop computer come to life: its screen-torso, mounted on a pair of shoes, sprouts mechanical arms and a lunchbox-size head, fitted with video cameras, a microphone and voice capability. RUBI wears a bandanna around its neck and a fixed happy-face smile, below a pair of large, plastic eyes.
It picks up a white sneaker and says kenka, the Finnish word for shoe, before returning it to the floor. “Feel it; I’m a kenka.”
In a video of this exchange, the boy picks up the sneaker, says “kenka, kenka” — and holds up the shoe for the robot to see.
In person they are not remotely humanlike, most of today’s social robots. Some speak well, others not at all. Some move on two legs, others on wheels. Many look like escapees from the Island of Misfit Toys.
They make for very curious company. The University of Southern California robot used with autistic children tracks a person throughout a room, approaching indirectly and pulling up just short of personal space, like a cautious child hoping to join a playground game.
The machine’s only words are exclamations (“Uh huh” for those drawing near; “Awww” for those moving away). Still, it’s hard to shake the sense that some living thing is close by. That sensation, however vague, is enough to facilitate a real exchange of information, researchers say.
In the San Diego classroom where RUBI has taught Finnish, researchers are finding that the robot enables preschool children to score significantly better on tests, compared with less interactive learning, as from tapes.
Preliminary results suggest that these students “do about as well as learning from a human teacher,” said Javier Movellan, director of the Machine Perception Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego. “Social interaction is apparently a very important component of learning at this age.”
Like any new kid in class, RUBI took some time to find a niche. Children swarmed the robot when it first joined the classroom: instant popularity. But by the end of the day, a couple of boys had yanked off its arms.
“The problem with autonomous machines is that people are so unpredictable, especially children,” said Corinna E. Lathan, chief executive of AnthroTronix, a Maryland company that makes a remotely controlled robot, CosmoBot, to assist in therapy with developmentally delayed children. “It’s impossible to anticipate everything that can happen.”
The RUBI team hit upon a solution one part mechanical and two parts psychological. The engineers programmed RUBI to cry when its arms were pulled. Its young playmates quickly backed off at the sound.
If the sobbing continued, the children usually shifted gears and came forward — to deliver a hug.
Re-armed and newly sensitive, RUBI was ready to test as a teacher. In a paper published last year, researchers from the University of California, San Diego, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Joensuu in Finland found that the robot significantly improved the vocabulary of nine toddlers.
After testing the youngsters’ knowledge of 20 words and introducing them to the robot, the researchers left RUBI to operate on its own. The robot showed images on its screen and instructed children to associate them with words.
After 12 weeks, the children’s knowledge of the 10 words taught by RUBI increased significantly, while their knowledge of 10 control words did not. “The effect was relatively large, a reduction in errors of more than 25 percent,” the authors concluded.
Researchers in social robotics — a branch of computer science devoted to enhancing communication between humans and machines — at Honda Labs in Mountain View, Calif., have found a similar result with their robot, a three-foot character called Asimo, which looks like a miniature astronaut. In one 20-minute session the machine taught grade-school students how to set a table — improving their accuracy by about 25 percent, a recent study found.
At the University of Southern California, researchers have had their robot, Bandit, interact with children with autism. In a pilot study, four children with the diagnosis spent about 30 minutes with this robot when it was programmed to be socially engaging and another half-hour when it behaved randomly, more like a toy. The results are still preliminary, said David Feil-Seifer, who ran the study, but suggest that the children spoke more often and spent more time in direct interaction when the robot was responsive, compared with when it acted randomly.
Making the Connection
Making the Connection
In a lab at the University of Washington, Morphy, a pint-size robot, catches the eye of an infant girl and turns to look at a toy.
No luck; the girl does not follow its gaze, as she would a human’s.
In a video the researchers made of the experiment, the girl next sees the robot “waving” to an adult. Now she’s interested; the sight of the machine interacting registers it as a social being in the young brain. She begins to track what the robot is looking at, to the right, the left, down. The machine has elicited what scientists call gaze-following, an essential first step of social exchange.
“Before they have language, infants pay attention to what I call informational hotspots,” where their mother or father is looking, said Andrew N. Meltzoff, a psychologist who is co-director of university’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences. This, he said, is how learning begins.
This basic finding, to be published later this year, is one of dozens from a field called affective computing that is helping scientists discover exactly which features of a robot make it most convincingly “real” as a social partner, a helper, a teacher.
“It turns out that making a robot more closely resemble a human doesn’t get you better social interactions,” said Terrence J. Sejnowski, a neuroscientist at University of California, San Diego. The more humanlike machines look, the more creepy they can seem.
The machine’s behavior is what matters, Dr. Sejnowski said. And very subtle elements can make a big difference.
The timing of a robot’s responses is one. The San Diego researchers found that if RUBI reacted to a child’s expression or comment too fast, it threw off the interaction; the same happened if the response was too slow. But if the robot reacted within about a second and a half, child and machine were smoothly in sync.
Physical rhythm is crucial. In recent experiments at a day care center in Japan, researchers have shown that having a robot simply bob or shake at the same rhythm a child is rocking or moving can quickly engage even very fearful children with autism.
“The child begins to notice something in that synchronous behavior and open up,” said Marek Michalowski of Carnegie Mellon University, who collaborated on the studies. Once that happens, he said, “you can piggyback social behaviors onto the interaction, like eye contact, joint attention, turn taking, things these kids have trouble with.”
One way to begin this process is to have a child mimic the physical movements of a robot and vice versa. In a continuing study financed by the National Institutes of Health, scientists at the University of Connecticut are conducting therapy sessions for children with autism using a French robot called Nao, a two-foot humanoid that looks like an elegant Transformer toy. The robot, remotely controlled by a therapist, demonstrates martial arts kicks and chops and urges the child to follow suit; then it encourages the child to lead.
“I just love robots, and I know this is therapy, but I don’t know — I think it’s just fun,” said Sam, an 8-year-old from New Haven with Asperger’s syndrome, who recently engaged in the therapy.
This simple mimicry seems to build a kind of trust, and increase sociability, said Anjana Bhat, an assistant professor in the department of education who is directing the experiment. “Social interactions are so dependent on whether someone is in sync with you,” Dr. Bhat said. “You walk fast, they walk fast; you go slowly, they go slowly — and soon you are interacting, and maybe you are learning.”
Personality matters, too, on both sides. In their studies with Asimo, the Honda robot, researchers have found that when the robot teacher is “cooperative” (“I am going to put the water glass here; do you think you can help me by placing the water glass on the same place on your side?”), children 4 to 6 did much better than when Asimo lectured them, or allowed them to direct themselves (“place the cup and saucer anywhere you like”). The teaching approach made less difference with students ages 7 to 10.
“The fact is that children’s reactions to a robot may vary widely, by age and by individual,” said Sandra Okita, a Columbia University researcher and co-author of the study.
If robots are to be truly effective guides, in short, they will have to do what any good teacher does: learn from students when a lesson is taking hold and when it is falling flat.
Learning From Humans
“Do you have any questions, Simon?”
On a recent Monday afternoon, Crystal Chao, a graduate student in robotics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, was teaching a five-foot robot named Simon to put away toys. She had given some instructions — the flower goes in the red bin, the block in the blue bin — and Simon had correctly put away several of these objects. But now the robot was stumped, its doughboy head tipped forward, its fawn eyes blinking at a green toy water sprinkler.
Dr. Chao repeated her query, perhaps the most fundamental in all of education: Do you have any questions?
“Let me see,” said Simon, in a childlike machine voice, reaching to pick up the sprinkler. “Can you tell me where this goes?”
“In the green bin,” came the answer.
Simon nodded, dropping it in that bin.
“Makes sense,” the robot said.
In addition to tracking motion and recognizing language, Simon accumulates knowledge through experience.
Just as humans can learn from machines, machines can learn from humans, said Andrea Thomaz, an assistant professor of interactive computing at Georgia Tech who directs the project. For instance, she said, scientists could equip a machine to understand the nonverbal cues that signal “I’m confused” or “I have a question” — giving it some ability to monitor how its lesson is being received.
To ask, as Dr. Chao did: Do you have any questions?
This ability to monitor and learn from experience is the next great frontier for social robotics — and it probably depends, in large part, on unraveling the secrets of how the human brain accumulates information during infancy.
In San Diego, researchers are trying to develop a human-looking robot with sensors that approximate the complexity of a year-old infant’s abilities to feel, see and hear. Babies learn, seemingly effortlessly, by experimenting, by mimicking, by moving their limbs. Could a machine with sufficient artificial intelligence do the same? And what kind of learning systems would be sufficient?
The research group has bought a $70,000 robot, built by a Japanese company, that is controlled by a pneumatic pressure system that will act as its senses, in effect helping it map out the environment by “feeling” in addition to “seeing” with embedded cameras. And that is the easy part.
The much steeper challenge is to program the machine to explore, as infants do, and build on moment-to-moment experience. Ideally its knowledge will be cumulative, not only recalling the layout of a room or a house, but using that stored knowledge to make educated guesses about a new room.
The researchers are shooting for nothing less than capturing the foundation of human learning — or, at least, its artificial intelligence equivalent. If robots can learn to learn, on their own and without instruction, they can in principle make the kind of teachers that are responsive to the needs of a class, even an individual child.
Parents and educators would certainly have questions about robots’ effectiveness as teachers, as well as ethical concerns about potential harm they might do. But if social robots take off in the way other computing technologies have, parents may have more pointed ones: Does this robot really “get” my child? Is its teaching style right for my son’s needs, my daughter’s talents?
That is, the very questions they would ask about any teacher.
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5 year-old hit-and-run victim released from hospital
The Autism News | English
By KARE 11
ST. PAUL– It would not be a stretch to call the recovery ‘miraculous’.
Five-year-old Godswill Udoh is home after spending four days in the hospital recovering from a hit and run in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood.
It happened Thursday night just before 6:30 p.m. at the intersection of Marion and Thomas Avenues.
“The impact knocked the child onto the hood of the car. The child struck the windshield went over the car and landed in the street behind it,” says Sgt. Pete Crum with the St. Paul Police Department.
Godswill spent the weekend at Gillette Children’s Hospital, recovering from bumps, bruises, and trauma to his head.
His parents say Godswill has autism, and somehow managed to climb out the window of their ground floor apartment and into the busy intersection.
Police describe the vehicle as an older model car, possibly a Honda Civic. It was red or maroon in color with gray trim around the bottom. The car had a small spoiler and large exhaust pipe. There was damage to the passenger side headlight.
If you know anything about this hit and run, call St. Paul Police.
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Idaho parents sue over 8-year-old’s school arrest
The Autism News | English
By Rebecca Boone | The Alva Review-Courriel/Newsgram
BOISE, Idaho — The parents of an 8-year-old autistic girl who was arrested at her northern Idaho elementary school are suing the school district and the sheriff’s department in federal court, contending the agencies violated the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Spring Towry and Charles Towry, along with their daughter, Evelyn, filed the lawsuit Friday in Idaho’s U.S. District Court against the Lake Pend Oreille School District and the Bonner County Sheriff’s Department.
The family claims the district discriminated against Evelyn because of her disability, and that the school failed to make reasonable modifications so she could access to school services and facilities. They are asking for unspecified monetary damages.
“The school district denies any wrongdoing in this case and feels that in accordance with various precedents set forth in state and federal law, the school will ultimately be vindicated,” said Brian Julian, the attorney for the school district. The attorney representing the Bonner County sheriff’s department did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.
The case arose Jan. 9, 2009, when the Kootenai Elementary School third-grader was arrested, handcuffed and taken to the county’s juvenile lockup on suspicion of battery. School staffers said Evelyn had spit on and inappropriately touched two instructors. The child was later released to her parents, and the prosecutor’s office dropped the charge against her.
After the incident, Charles Towry said his daughter has Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. He said that on the day of the altercation, she was wearing a hooded sweatshirt her mother had decorated with sewn-on ears to look like an animated cow character from the movie “Barnyard.” She wasn’t allowed into a school party because of the sweatshirt, although the lawsuit didn’t explain why.
Evelyn was placed in a separate classroom instead, Towry said, and when she tried to leave, staffers restrained her. Towry said that caused the girl to panic and react violently.
According to the lawsuit, Evelyn’s teacher, Louise Zumuda, and her principal, Betsy Walker, called police and asked to have her arrested and charged “because they felt they were not getting their point across” to the child and her parents after creating a plan to address behavioral issues. The Towrys say two deputies arrested, handcuffed and patted down Evelyn, refusing Spring Towry’s request that they release the child to her.
That caused the family severe emotional distress, the Towrys contend.
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Holding your breath and testing the limits of autism
The Autism News | English
By Susan Senator | The Sydney Morning Herald
A bike ride led to new understanding between mother and son.
On holiday in Cape Cod last weekend, I decided to ride my bike into the next town. As I gathered my helmet, phone and water bottle, I saw my adult son, Nat, was watching me. I knew he would come along for the ride if I asked him, but I hesitated.
Nat has fairly severe autism. Like so many of his skills, his cycling ability is erratic. He knows how to brake, but he does not know how to shift gears. He obeys traffic signals but is foggy about the more subtle, human signals. Or he seems foggy – I have never been able to test this definitively. But then, how do you test something that could endanger him or others? Hang back and see if he stops and looks both ways at a small side street with no stop light?
What about the other bikers, families and dogs along the way, all of whom he would have to navigate carefully? How do you catch someone before he hurts himself if you’re also on a bike?
The answer is: You don’t. I know because I’ve tried.
When Nat learnt how to ride, at age seven, he was merely going back and forth on our street, bookended by my husband, Ned, and my father. When they finally decided to step aside and see how Nat did, he took off – all the way around the block. There was some shouting and then screaming for him to stop and come back, but he kept going.
There was no time to get my bike, so I took off after him on foot. I ran fast, following him in time to watch him go around the first corner just right and stay on the footpath. But soon he pedalled out of sight, turning the second corner. I realised then, as I felt that leaden, incapacitating fear that our bodies seem to reserve for our children, that my son was, for the next moments, on his own, and that I had no idea what he would do.
In all his seven years, Nat had never once been on his own – in any way. We just did not know how to find out if he would be OK. A normally developing child can give signals of what he can and cannot do, of what he wonders about and what confuses him.
Nat could not do those things. I knew all this and yet as I rushed back to our home, where I hoped he would end up, I felt a flicker of something other than fear. A rebellious voice in me challenged: Why wouldn’t he be OK? He knows how to ride and where to go. And when I reached our driveway, Ned voiced the very same point; he reminded me that even though this was terrifying, there was no reason to think that Nat would not continue around the third corner and come back on his own. He called it a ”calculated risk”. I knew what he meant. I had just never thought to apply the concept to Nat.
I waited and watched for Nat, hoping Ned was right. A few seconds later, Nat rounded the corner and pedalled towards us, with perfect biker’s form, steering, braking and stopping right where he should.
He was grinning with excitement and delight. He knew, even without the words to express it, that he had accomplished something.
I felt I had accomplished something too, in this moment of letting go. It was the first time I understood that Nat could grow and develop away from me, and on his terms. It is a lesson I have had to learn again and again because each time there is risk involved.
So I took Nat with me the other day on my holiday bike ride – reluctantly, of course, because my old fears cling to me like a sweaty T-shirt. But he wanted to go with me, so how could I say no? Once we started riding, the spectre of little mischievous Nat evaporated, replaced by the reality of solid, stolid grown-up Nat. Nat who pedals slowly and steadily; who still doesn’t talk much and certainly doesn’t allow you to know his thoughts. Nat who doesn’t walk his bike or stand on the pedals but just presses harder. This is the man he has grown into, dogged and competent, still limited in many ways by his autism – but more so by how we all underestimate him. Especially me.
I thought about that while riding behind him. But mostly I just breathed, a little more tense than I probably needed to be, watching out for him from a few metres back, while he chugged along, his yellow shirt lifting in the breeze like a sail.
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Evolution determines infant brain growth
The Autism News | English
Research suggest that certain regions of the brain might develop more quickly in young infants for evolutionary reasons.
By Cosmos
WASHINGTON: The parts of the human brain that grow the most during infancy and childhood are nearly identical to the brain regions that have changed the most when humans are compared to primates, a recent study has shown.
Researchers made the discovery as they conducted a study to try to better understand abnormal brain development in premature babies and assess the long-term effects of premature birth on brain development.
The number of babies born before term in the United States has risen steadily to reach 12% of all births, said Terrie Inder from Washington University in St Louis and lead author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Disorders due to brain structure
Babies born prematurely face a greater risk of having learning disabilities, attention deficits, behavioral problems and cognitive impairments, according to the researchers.
“This study and the data that we’re gathering now could provide us with very powerful tools for understanding what goes wrong structurally in a wide range of childhood disorders,” Inder said.
The researchers hope to gain insight into the after-effects of premature birth and even conditions such as autism, attention-deficit disorder or reading disabilities, they said.
Uneven growth points to evolution
The researchers used a technique called surface reconstruction to compare regions and structures in different brains.
In analysing the brain scans of 12 full-term babies and comparing them to the scans of 12 healthy young adults, the researchers found that the cerebral cortex – the wrinkled area on the surface of the brain responsible for higher mental functions – grew unevenly.
A quarter to a third of the cortex expanded around twice as much as other cortical areas during normal development.
The findings reveal “evolution’s imprint on the human brain” because the rapidly developing parts of the brain are also those that differ most when the human brain is compared to primates’.
Gaining the upper hand
High-growth regions have been linked to advanced mental functions such as language and reasoning and traits that make humans uniquely human.
Previous studies have shown that many of the brain’s high-growth regions “are expanded in humans as a result of recent evolutionary changes that made the human brain much larger than that of any other primate,” said David Van Essen, one of the study’s authors.
Brain growth dictated by early needs
Van Essen, who developed the surface reconstruction technique used to scan the brain regions, speculated that the full physical growth of the rapid-growth regions may be delayed somewhat to allow them to be shaped by early life experiences.
Inder hypothesised that certain regions of the brain might develop more quickly in young infants for evolutionary reasons.
For instance, the part of the brain responsible for vision, which is necessary to allow a baby to bond with his mother during nursing, develops early, while brain functions less important early in life come later.
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Mother Sentenced To Four Years For Starving Daughter To Death
The Autism News | English
By Scott Theisen | KSAX-TV
A Sandstone woman will go to prison for starving her disabled daughter to death.
Ludusky Sue Hotchkiss was sentenced to four years in prison for manslaughter. She pleaded guilty in a plea deal with prosecutors in May. Two lesser charges were dismissed.
Prosecutors say her 10-year-old daughter, Lakesha Victor, was just 31 pounds when she died of malnutrition, dehydration and pneumonia in 2006.
The girl had cerebral palsy, autism, a seizure disorder and ate through a feeding tube.
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Authorities search for 5-year old abducted at gunpoint
Authorities believe the people responsible are the child's own mother, Elizabeth Denman, a convicted felon, and her new boyfriend, Mark Cochran, a registered sex offender.
Devon Denman was last seen wearing a black and blue shirt and camouflage sweatpants.
His aunt, Jennifer Wilson says, "He's four. Actually five, today is his birthday. And he's running around with convicted felons on his birthday and not with his dad where he should be."
The child's father was just awarded custody last week. Elizabeth Denman's family thinks this was the trigger.
Wilson says, "I think she's not happy with the fact that paul got full custody and she wants him. And she's going to take whatever she wants whether it's good for the baby or not."
Elizabeth Denman was known as Liz Lehmann when she was growing up in the Hazelwood/Florissant area. Her family is speaking out because they had thought she might bring her son here. They say she has a history of substance abuse, and might be unable to properly care for him.
Her brother, Matt Lehmann says, "I don't think she would do anything to him intentionally to hurt him, but I don't think she would create a situation or an environment where something's not going to happen."
Authorities say the suspects ditched the Cavalier they were driving and are now in a black 1997 Lincoln, four-door, with the Missouri license plate KEO R9P.
Lehmann says, "There's a rumor that they might be going to Texas because Mark Cochran has family."
In fact, the family tells us late Sunday, someone broke into Cochran's stepfather's house in Oklahoma taking guns and money. They're unsure where the couple will end up. And while Devon is in his mother's hands, they say they fear for his safety.
Wilson says, "He doesn't know how to call anybody for help, he just doesn't. He needs somebody else to speak for him. And he is more important than her right now."
Anyone with information should call the Miller County Sheriff's Department at 573-369-2341 or they can call 911.
if you find me you won a small prize and game over for you call 540-975-1917 immediately
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Research News How Drug Interferes With Neuronal Cell Function Discovered in York U Autism-Related Study,Temple Grandin HBO Movie Receives 15 Emmy Nominations,Africa: Child-witchcraft or Autism symptoms?
Temple Grandin HBO Movie Receives 15 Emmy Nominations
July 9th, 2010
The Autism News | English
By Jim Beers | Colorado State University
FORT COLLINS – An HBO movie, which aired last February, illustrating the life story of Temple Grandin, Colorado State University animal scientist and renowned animal behaviorist has received 15 Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Entitled “Temple Grandin,” the film chronicles her perseverance while struggling with autism.
Among the nominations that the film received are those for Best Made for Television Movie, Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie (Claire Danes), Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie (David Strathairn), Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie (Julia Ormond and Catherine O’Hara) and Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special (Mick Jackson).
Grandin is a high-functioning autistic person who is a renowned designer of humane animal-handling facilities, work she’s primarily accomplished while a CSU faculty member. The movie depicts Grandin’s life as a child, during her high school years, and follows her during the 1970’s as she begins her career in her chosen field of food-animal welfare and designing equipment to help make their lives less stressful. The film delivers messages about autism and treating animals humanely.
Grandin’s ability to see pictures in her head and her understanding that cows mainly experience their world as visual stimuli has enabled her to design livestock facilities that treat cattle more humanely.
A professor in Colorado State’s Department of Animal Sciences, Grandin teaches courses on livestock behavior and facility design. She regularly consults with the livestock industry on design, livestock handling and animal welfare. Facilities she has designed are located in the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and other countries around the world. In North America, almost half of the cattle are handled in a center track restrainer system that she designed for meat plants. Curved chute and race systems she has designed for cattle are used extensively throughout the livestock industry.
Grandin has published several books on the humane treatment of animals and on a better understanding of autism. Her 1995 autobiography “Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism” is the basis for the HBO movie. She’s also the author of “Animals in Transition: Understanding the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior,” a New York Times best seller published in 2005, and last year’s “Animals Make Us Human”.
Grandin’s writings on the flight zone and other principals of grazing animal behavior have helped to reduce stress during animal handling. She developed an objective scoring system for the assessment of handling cattle and pigs at meat plants. This scoring system is being used by many large corporations to improve animal welfare.
Other Emmy nominations for the movie “Temple Grandin” include:
• Outstanding Art Direction For A Miniseries Or Movie
• Outstanding Casting For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special
• Outstanding Hairstyling For A Miniseries Or A Movie
• Outstanding Main Title Design
• Outstanding Makeup For A Miniseries Or A Movie
• Outstanding Music Composition For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special – (Original Dramatic Score)
• Outstanding Sound Editing For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special
• Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special
• Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing For A Miniseries Or A Movie
• Outstanding Art Direction For A Miniseries Or Movie
• Outstanding Casting For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special
• Outstanding Hairstyling For A Miniseries Or A Movie
• Outstanding Main Title Design
• Outstanding Makeup For A Miniseries Or A Movie
• Outstanding Music Composition For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special – (Original Dramatic Score)
• Outstanding Sound Editing For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special
• Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special
• Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing For A Miniseries Or A Movie
The 62nd annual Primetime Emmy Awards will be held Aug. 29 and broadcast on NBC.
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Research News How Drug Interferes With Neuronal Cell Function Discovered in York U Autism-Related Study
July 9th, 2010
The Autism News | English
By Kathy Jones | MED India – Networking For Health
The mechanism behind how the drug misoprostol, which has been linked to neurodevelopmental defects associated with autism, interferes with neuronal cell function has been shown in a new study by York University study.
It is an important finding because misoprostol is similar in structure to naturally-occurring prostaglandins, which are the key signaling molecules produced by fatty acids in the brain.
Past clinical studies have shown an association between misoprostol and severe neurodevelopmental defects including autism symptoms. Those studies looked at cases in Brazil in which women misused the drug early in pregnancy in unsuccessful attempts to terminate their pregnancies.
The York study examined mouse neuronal cells to discover how the drug actually interferes at a molecular level with prostaglandins, which are important for development and communication of cells in the brain.
“Early in the first trimester of pregnancy, neuronal cells reach out to communicate with one another,” says Dorota Crawford, an assistant professor in the School of Kinesiology & Health Science in York’s Faculty of Health. “Our study shows that misoprostol interferes with this process by increasing the level of calcium ions in neuronal extensions, which reduces the number and length of these extensions. It prevents the cells from communicating with each other. If changes in prostaglandin level alter the development or differentiation of cells, it may have a physiological impact.”
Crawford and Javaneh Tamiji, who undertook the research for her master’s thesis in the Neuroscience Graduate Diploma Program at York, co-authored a study published online in the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications: “Prostaglandin E2 and misoprostol induce neurite retraction in Neuro-2a cells.”
There is no indication that women in Canada are misusing misoprostol to terminate pregnancies, and in fact the drug is used safely for other purposes such as treatment and prevention of gastrointestinal ulcers. However, during early neuronal development the drug misoprostol or other environmental factors such as infections or inflammations, which can also increase the level of prostaglandins, may interfere with normal brain function, says Crawford.
Crawford and Tamiji focused on the drug misoprostol because they had evidence from the clinical studies of the neurotoxic effects of the drug. They used misoprostol and the naturally occurring prostaglandins side by side in their study and found that both compounds produced the same effects on neuronal cell function.
The study shows that misoprostol interferes with the prostaglandin pathway in a dose-dependent manner – in other words, the higher the dose, the greater the problems created.
“What that indicates to us is whether it is infection that will activate it, or whether it is the drug, it will cause the same effect,” says Crawford.
Now that it has been shown that misoprostol affects interaction between cells, the next step will be to do animal studies on mice to examine the physiological impacts on particular parts of the brain, she says.
Crawford’s lab is one of very few in the world that has adopted a multidisciplinary approach to the study of autism spectrum disorders, using molecular techniques to understand the link between causative biological factors (genes and environment) and the behavioural expression.
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Africa: Child-witchcraft or Autism symptoms?
July 9th, 2010
The Autism News | English
By Konye Obaji Ori | Afrik-News
Across Sub-Sahara Africa, children from underprivileged backgrounds who sometimes exhibit symptoms of Autism, are often labeled as witches or wizards, and victimized – poisoned, drowned, hacked to death with machetes or buried alive in an attempt to deliver their soul from the snare of the ‘devil’.
Autism, according to the U.S. autism science and advocacy organization Autism Speaks, is a “complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and affects a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others”. But in countries like Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda, many churches organize fellowships and revival meetings to cast out the demons of witchcraft in children who exhibit such characteristics.
While witch hunting is considered a thing of the past in the entire western world, the practice remains a reality in Africa. A lack of scientific analysis or understanding of certain anomalies in children has perpetuated the belief in such superstitions as child-witchcraft.
The children, often accused of witchcraft or wizardry and victimized, exhibit uncommon physical, mental, social and behavioral characteristics which may include acting up with intense tantrums, showing aggression to others or themselves, stubborn, preferring solitary or ritualistic play, do not startle at loud noises, and often refer to themselves in third person. In some cases even children who exhibit signs of physical ailments like allergies, asthma, epilepsy, digestive disorders, persistent viral infections, feeding disorders, sensory integration dysfunction, sleeping disorders, etc, tend to find themselves doubly penalized by a society they helplessly depend upon for their existence.
But these characteristics, medically considered as symptoms of autism, are traditionally seen as unusual by some rural communities across Africa. Usually, illiterate parents, guardians and sometimes neighbors readily accept witchcraft as an explanation for extraordinary events. An act that shapes the future of autistic and underprivileged African children. And responsibility, more often than not, may be leveled at the whimsical pronouncements of powerful religious leaders at extremist churches where Christianity and traditional beliefs have usually combined to produce an entrenched belief in witchcraft.
The belief in witchcraft is predominant amongst the underprivileged rural class, and it holds that child-witches bring destruction, waste, hardship, disease and death to their families. Other identified symptoms that worsen the plight of the so-called child-witches are crying and screaming in the night, hallucinations which sometimes arise from a high fever or other illness involving a fever, and worsening health – symptoms that can be found among many children in an impoverished region with poor health care.
In November 28, 2008, the telegraph.co.uk reported the story of Mary, a five-year-old girl who was driven into the streets by her father, after the local priest denounced her as a witch and blamed her “evil powers” for causing her mother’s death.
Ostracized, vulnerable and frightened, Mary wandered the streets in south-eastern Nigeria, struggling to stay alive. According to the report, Mary was found by a British charity worker and today lives at a refuge in Akwa Ibom province with 150 other children who have been accused of being withdrawn, hardly responding to eye contact or smiles, treating others as if they were objects, preferring to spend time alone, rather than with others, and showing a lack of empathy.
Although attitudes are changing across Africa, many still believe that children like Mary who are often branded child-witches organize nocturnal meetings in the seas, oceans and forests where they feast on human blood, flesh or fetuses, and inflict harm or undermine the progress of people especially their family members.
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Help for a guy named Jerry and maybe a few others
July 9th, 2010
The Autism News | English
By Laurie Roberts | AZCentral
If you were anywhere near north Tempe around mid morning Friday, you might have noticed a brief uptick in the temperature. I think it was the glow from Jerry Fischer’s face.
Jerry, you see, had just heard that he’s going back to work and his smile was enough to warm even the coldest heart at the Arizona Legislature where our leaders this year were forced to make “tough choices”.
Unfortunately, one of those tough choices was Jerry and 700 others who like him have mental disabilities. In order to save $3.7 million, the state cut them loose.
Jerry, 51, has Down syndrome and lives with his brother Jack Florez in Glendale. For 11 years, Jerry has gone to VALLEYLIFE, formerly the Valley of the Sun School and Habilitation Center, where he participated in a vocational program supported by state tax dollars.
Though there is a lot that Jerry can’t do, there is a fair amount that he can do and with VALLEYLIFE’s help, he’s been able to go to work and earn a paycheck and feel like he has something to offer the world.
But when the state budget went down the drain, it took with it some of those least able to swim against the current: Mentally ill people and poor children and people like Jerry.
Suddenly last week, there was no place for him to go each morning and though the state of Arizona deems him able to go it alone, those who know him or someone like him know better.
People like Aidan and Karie Warrington. Aidan runs Alliance Refuse Trucks, a Tempe company that buys and rebuilds garbage trucks and sells them to cities across the country. Life has been good to the Warringtons and they count among their greatest treasures their 12-year-old son Dylan, who has autism.
They understand both the burden and the blessing that comes with someone like Jerry. They understand, too, that the state is broke and that they are exceedingly blessed and that with those blessings come obligations.
“It’s not just up to government to do something,” Aidan said. “It’s time for other people to step up and do our share.”
And so he and Karie have pledged to underwrite Jerry’s participation in the VALLEYLIFE program. Their $900-a-month contribution will allow Jerry to continue working and going to “school,” as he calls the accompanying enrichment program.
Jerry went to Aidan’s work yard in Tempe on Friday to meet the man responsible for tossing him a lifeline. His smile said it all.
“It’s better out working,” he told me. “Yeah. I’ll get a paycheck.”
For his brother Jack, it’s less about a paycheck than about the relief of knowing that Jerry will be taken care of during the day and have something to do, which every human being craves.
“You did Jerry a miracle,” he tells me.
Of course, what he really meant is that Aidan and Karie did Jerry a miracle, and here’s where the rest of us come in.
There are plenty more miracles to be done, both at VALLEYLIFE and at centers that serve the disabled all over this state. In addition to Jerry, 16 others at VALLEYLIFE have lost funding, including a man named Michael.
Unlike Jerry, Michael doesn’t have any family. He lives alone and gets by somehow, despite being both mentally disabled and deaf. His only outlet is VALLEYLIFE’s sheltered workshop but the state cut him off on May 31.
Margaret Stephens-Reed, who manages vocational services, doesn’t know what’ll happen to Michael and the others. VALLEYLIFE is doing what it can but commitment can only take you so far without cash.
Ron and Kerrie Simpson understand that. They are former Arizonans, now living in the Snoqualmie Valley in Washington, where they run the David and Minnie Meyerson Foundation, which helps people with disabilities. After reading Jerry’s story on Wednesday, they pledged nearly $10,000, so that four people will be able to attend VALLEYLIFE’s three-hour-a-day enrichment program for the coming year.
“I’m hoping that others will get the message that helping even one person not only shows how important the individual is but lets the families know that they are not alone,” Ron told me.
If you’d like to help, too, call Margaret at VALLEYLIFE at 602-331-2414 or e-mail her at mreed@valleylifeaz.org. You may not have $10,000 but it costs just $10 to sponsor an afternoon in the enrichment program.
There are plenty of Jerrys out there, people hit hard by a state budget that for them was once a lifesaver. This state may no longer be able to help them but I’m guessing this state’s residents won’t let them down.
“It’s just nice,” Aidan said, “to go home everyday and feel that you’ve done something and achieved something and given something.”
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Is Sitting While Autistic a Crime?
July 9th, 2010
The Autism News | English
Latson is currently in a state-run psychiatric facility after being arrested for assault.
By Claudia Kalb | Newsweek
Law-enforcement officials often misinterpret the language and behavior of people on the autism spectrum, with serious consequences. One activist hopes to change that.
In late May, Clifford Grevemberg had a traumatic encounter with the police. Grevemberg, 18, was standing outside the Rock House Bar and Grill in Tybee Island, Ga., waiting for his brother to pick up some cheeseburgers when he was approached by officers, Tasered, and arrested for disorderly conduct. A police-department report posted by the Savannah Morning News says Grevemberg was “staggering back and forth and appeared to be either intoxicated or on something.” By the time his brother came out of the restaurant, Grevemberg was handcuffed and bleeding with a broken tooth. Only then did police receive the critical information they’d been missing: Clifford Grevemberg is autistic.
Three days later, and several hundred miles to the north, the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia had its own disturbing clash with autism. After receiving a call about a “suspicious male, possibly in possession of a gun,” sitting on the grass outside an elementary-school library, officers confronted Reginald Latson, 18, who is African-American and has Asperger’s disorder. Latson wound up being charged with assault and battery after he “proceeded to attack and assault the deputy,” according to a police report. No gun was ever found. Details of the incident are complex and still evolving, but the preliminary reports were enough to gain attention from members of the autistic community who worry their children could be next. In the words of one mother, this story is “my nightmare.”
Law enforcement and autism are a volatile mix, and not an uncommon one. “It happens quite regularly, unfortunately,” says Lee Grossman, president of the Autism Society, a grassroots organization based in Bethesda, Md. Decades ago, people with autism and other developmental disorders tended to land in institutions, where they had little interaction with anybody other than family members and staff. Today, autistic children and adults live with their families, go to local schools and, in some cases, get jobs in their communities. The unfortunate downside to this independence, says Grossman, is that “many more individuals on the spectrum are having run-ins with the police department and others, and it’s generally not a very positive experience.”
Autism is a diverse condition, but it is characterized by behaviors—repetitive movements, poor eye contact, sensitivity to lights and noise—that can be misinterpreted as unusual and even disrespectful. Even innocent behaviors can be come off as malicious. Grossman tells the story of an autistic man who loved to ride the bus. One day, he started staring at a female passenger. “She told him to stop, he wouldn’t, and it got uglier and uglier,” says Grossman. Ultimately, the police were called. The man’s crime turned out to be an autistic trait: fixation on a single object. In this case, the man was fascinated by the woman’s dangling earring.
One of autism’s defining features is the inability to process even the most mundane social interactions. When police are involved, an autistic person’s anxiety level is likely to spike, triggering unnerving mannerisms or behaviors. The person may say nothing at all, appearing to ignore an officer’s commands. Or he may repeat back what somebody says to him, a form of communication medically known as echolalia. “You can imagine if a police officer comes up and says, ‘What’s your name?’ and the kid’s response is, ‘What’s your name?’ the police will figure he’s a smart aleck or he’s on drugs,” says Grossman. “Usually, the situation goes downhill from there.”
Dennis Debbaudt, author of Autism, Advocates and Law Enforcement Professionals, is trying to stop the misunderstanding before it happens. Debbaudt, the father of a young man with autism, has conducted autism training sessions for law enforcement for the last 15 years. Today, he says, “I’ve never been busier.”
It was an incident with his son more than 20 years ago that triggered Debbaudt’s interest in educating police. When he couldn’t get a toy he wanted at the mall, his son, who was about 5 or 6 at the time, had a full-fledged meltdown. “He fell to the floor, he was lying face up, his back arched, red-faced, teary-eyed and screaming,” Debbaudt says. “When I bent over to pick him up, he was kicking and trying to scratch me.” Debbaudt managed to carry his son out of the store, but was then surrounded by mall police responding to a report of a possible child abduction. Public misperceptions about his son’s autism and the chaos that ensued made Debbaudt determined to raise awareness. “I wanted to get material about autism to the police,” says Debbaudt, “and I learned there wasn’t any.”
When Debbaudt started his training sessions in 1995, only a handful of audience members even knew about autism. “Now I can’t even ask that question because everybody has heard of it,” he says. But that doesn’t translate to understanding. In his sessions, Debbaudt outlines the communication challenges law enforcement will likely face. He encourages officers to speak softly in clear and simple terms (avoiding idioms like “Are you pulling my leg?”) and to project calming body language, like keeping hands low rather than raised. Sensory overloads can cause autistic people to become aggressive or to flee, so flashing lights and sirens should be minimized or turned off if it’s safe to do so. Ideally, officers should keep a safe distance and keep the pace slow, giving the person time and space to calm himself down.
Brent Stevenson, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Chiefs of Police, brought Debbaudt in to educate his members in June. The high-profile shooting death of a mentally disabled 21-year-old Arkansas man in 2006 (the officer told a judge that “I mistook this young man’s actions as threatening toward me and the other officers, and I made the mistake of acting on this misunderstanding”) spotlighted the need for more education about cognitive and developmental disorders. Because autism can be difficult to recognize, says Stevenson, “the more training you have, the better chance officers have of being able to deal with the situation at hand.”
Victoria Barkley Robinett, an instructor at the Law Enforcement Training Academy at Black River Technical College in Pocahontas, Ark., attended Debbaudt’s session and plans to teach her recruits what she learned. One thing Debbaudt stresses is the benefit of disclosure: if police know ahead of time that the person they’re dealing with is autistic, they can adjust their behavior accordingly. He urges law enforcers to consider creating a voluntary 911 registry that would allow people with autism or their families to provide essential information, including a digital photograph, so police would know who they are and where they live. Law-enforcement departments in California and New Hampshire have instituted registration programs, and Robinett says she plans to suggest it to police chiefs in her state. “To go to a cold call with an autistic person and not have a clue could escalate a situation,” she says. “There’s no need for that.”
Had Georgia police known about Clifford Grevemberg’s diagnosis before their encounter, they might have acted differently. Since the incident, local police officers have attended an educational session on autism. But that won’t resolve what happened to Grevemberg. In June, he and his mother filed a lawsuit against the city.
Source: http://www.newsweek-interactive.com/2010/07/08/is-sitting-while-autistic-a-crime.html?from=rss
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Warrants Served After Child Left on Hot Richmond School Bus
July 9th, 2010
The Autism News | English
Richmond police arrested 60-year-old school bus monitor Irene Jenkins of Richmond. She is charged with one count of felony child endangerment. Her arrest comes after a child was found alone on a Richmond school bus.
Richmond police officers arrested 43-year-old school bus driver Alvin Matthews of Hopewell. He is charged with felony child endangerment after a child was found alone on the school bus.
By Sandi Cauley | CBS 6 Richmond, VA
Commonwealth’s Attorney says warrants for felony child neglect were issued for both bus driver and bus monitor.
RICHMOND – Richmond prosecutors are charging two people connected to the case involving a five year old boy who was accidentally left on a hot city school bus for more than an hour Tuesday morning.
The mother of the young boy says the arrests should have come Tuesday. She claims her son is now scared to get on the school bus in the morning because of the incident. Tiara Butler says she cannot understand how the bus driver and bus monitor neglected to see her autistic son when they parked the bus at the bus depot just moments after dropping off several children at Summer Hill Elementary School for the Pre-K summer program. Butler says, “I was mad because he can’t speak for himself and when they found him he was on the back of the bus. I was like how can he be left on the bus when she (the bus monitor) puts him in the seatbelt.”
It was the young boy’s faint cries that alerted another bus driver who immediately called 9-1-1 as temperatures were already close to 100 degrees outside that morning. The bus was not running and all windows were up.
An investigation by school personnel, police, and the commonwealth’s attorney shows protocol was not properly followed. Prosecutors have charged the bus monitor, 60 year old Irene Jenkins, and the substitute bus driver, 43 year old Alvin Matthews, with felony child neglect.
John Harper, a close friend of the bus driver, says Matthews would have never done anything to put a child in harms way by ignoring protocol. “He thought everything checked out and that was it…he’s a very nice guy, he has no type of criminal record.” Harper says Matthews was hoping to secure a permanent position with Richmond Public Schools and had an impeccable driving record.
Tiara Butler says the bus driver and monitor should have known proper protocol. She says she doesn’t believe the felony charges are too harsh. “My son could have died if no one was in that parking lot, he could have died. He could have had an asthma attack, anything could have happened. They should be thankful they got what they got.”
Earlier Post
According to Richmond Commonwealth’s attorney, Mike Herring, warrants have been issued and will be served on the school bus driver and bus monitor accused of leaving a 5-year-old boy on a Richmond city school bus this week.
Herring says both are charged with felony child neglect. The substitute bus driver is 43-year-old Alvin Matthews. The bus monitor is listed as 60-year-old Irene Jenkins.
The child who was attending summer school at Summer Hill Elementary School off Jeff Davis Highway in South Richmond, was forgotten and left on a school bus Tuesday morning. Another bus driver apparently heard the child’s cries coming from the bus parked in the school bus depot and discovered the child.
The child was rushed to Chippenham Medical Center and was treated for heat exhaustion and released.
Richmond Public School Spokeswoman Felicia Cosby tells CBS 6 the child was discovered at 10:45 Tuesday morning and had been on the bus close to an hour.
CBS 6 Chief Meteorologist Zach Daniel says the temperature was between 86 and 95 degrees during the time period in which the child was on the bus.
When the case first surfaced, Richmond police said they were not going to press charges and were not investigating because this was a school personnel matter. On Wednesday, Herring told reporters that he was going to review the police investigation and determine whether or not charges need to be brought forward.
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