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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When are people going to get educated about autism? Are they waiting until it happens to them? It is extremely troubling to hear, read or see the intolerance and ignorance by school officials, administrators, law enforcement and the general public. This disorder is rising to pandemic levels...it is not going away. Education, knowledge, training are all key in being able to determine between a stressed-related outburst and how to deal with it accordingly. Ignorance is not an option. It is just a sad day indeed when common sense and humanity for your fellow man is thrown out the window. It is understandable that many autistic people look "normal". Let me be the first to apologize for the autistic community, for not having some sort of disfigurement or marker to let others know they are different. May I just suggest the old phrase, "stop, look and listen"? If this is done, it would pretty much ring a few bells that quite possibly this individual could be suffering from this disorder. Wake up people! Educate, inform, scream it from the roof tops! Awareness and intolerance for ignorance is the only way we are going to be able to protect our loved ones suffering from autism and those out in the real world.
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