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Monday, September 27, 2010

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Monday, September 13, 2010

The Autistic Journalist

The Autistic Journalist

Using words to explain the mind

Autism finds its way to the gaming world


Courtesy Bioware/Electronic Arts
Note: This post discusses possible spoilers, so if you’re interested in playing and haven’t completed the mission I talk about, you may want to put off reading this.
Autism has been explored in the fictional and real environments on television and film, but Bioware and Electronic Arts may be the first to include the spectrum in the gaming world.
The game happens to be Mass Effect 2, the second of a three-part space opera trilogy and a huge critical and financial success (the series is most comparable to the Star Wars saga). Bioware is supplying a lot of content for download in between releases of this game and the upcoming Mass Effect 3, which is standard for many PC games today. As such, the mission where autism comes into play must be purchased separately from the game through Bioware’s Mass Effect 2 site. Titled Project Overlord, the protagonist Commander Shepard is asked by Dr. Gavin Archer to stop a rogue VI from possibly wreaking havoc in the galaxy, as the VI can interact with and control most synthetics (ships and/or robots).
As Shepard (the player) progresses through the mission, he/she gains access to data files detailing the creation of the VI that went rogue. Shepard discovers Archer wasn’t totally upfront with his information: Archer was the lead researcher in the project and used his autistic brother, David, as a test subject to integrate with the geth, a technological race of AI robots. Shepard learns that Archer saw David’s condition as a handicap until he sees his autistic mind as useful because of his supreme mathematical skills. Before integrating David with the geth, Archer says David’s mind is as alien as an actual alien, but he still must use him in the experiment. Shepard eventually destroys the rogue VI program and finds David in the VI core, begging for mercy. Shepard then has a choice regarding David’s fate, although the influence of that choice may have little effect in Mass Effect 3 (decisions made in the first two games could influence what happens in the third).
Not even the hard-hitting social justice Star Trek franchise has touched on the autism spectrum, so Bioware at least deserves credit for its implementation of the disorder in a mission plot. Even in a futuristic sci-fi world, players who have some understanding of what autism is should find parallels with older representations of autism in fiction. The character of Charlie Babbitt in Rain Man had a difficult time accepting his brother as an equal and used Raymond’s mathematical abilities to his own advantage to win a large sum of money in blackjack (although the money won was used to pay off debts). Loosely applied, the Project Overlord mission represents what some neurotypical people see with autistic people: an alien mind that’s difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend.
Nonetheless, the plot is quite dark and it’s obvious that several moral breaches were made in the experiment, with David’s pleas for help clearly indicating that autistic people do express emotion. While Mass Effect 2 isn’t as gory as other M-rated games, the mature theme in this mission and throughout the game isn’t for the kids.
What this mission will accomplish outside of the game for ME2 fans is unclear. Chances are they won’t be too meticulous about it since completing the primary storyline and achieving desirable results can take about 24 hours of play time (there’s plenty of dialogue among the characters). A more intriguing question is if more games include autism as a plot device. Video games can bring us to very realistic worlds now thanks to improvements in graphics, while story elements have also expanded for the same reason. I’ll be surprised if a game is ever released where a player could use powers from an autistic protagonist, but I don’t believe Mass Effect 2 will be the only time we see autism in gaming.

Friday, August 27, 2010

AUTISTIC BOY SAVED FROM DROWNING

great_news



Gordon Penner, a boat captain with Splash Dash tours, helped rescue an autistic teenage boy after he apparently jumped into the Red River Tuesday morning.

By Jillian Austin | CNews
WINNIPEG – A teenage boy is recovering in hospital after being pulled from the Red River in a dramatic water rescue Tuesday morning.
Staff from Splash Dash boat tours noticed the boy in the water at The Forks near the main docks and called 911 before setting out on the water around 10:30 a.m.
“An autistic boy jumped into the water … off the walkway,” said Gord Cartwright, owner of Splash Dash tours. “Our staff noticed what had happened and they put a boat into the water to do a rescue.”
Captain Gordon Penner set out immediately to help the boy, along with Barry Horan who was out for a morning run along the Red River.
Witnesses estimated the boy looked to be 15 or 16 years old.
The boy did not take hold of the life preservers or hooks that rescuers were tossing to him.
Eventually Horan and a member of the Winnipeg Police Service jumped in the water and successfully pulled him onto the boat.
The entire ordeal took about 15 minutes. Police say the boy is doing fine and is in “good spirits.”
Source: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/08/24/15127696.html
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# Overcoming autism helped me realise I can do anything


great_news



Thomas Mitchell’s parents were told their autistic son would never walk or talk. Now aged 14, Thomas told Clare Hutchinson how he exceeded all expectations…

The Autism News

By Clare Hutchinson | WalesOnline
FOR someone who was never supposed to be able to walk or talk, 14-year-old Thomas Mitchell is surprisingly eloquent.
Sitting in the front room of his family home in Caerphilly with his parents and three sisters by his side, Thomas explained what it is like to grow up with autism and his constant battle to stay in control.
“When I was younger I couldn’t control it at all,” said the Doctor Who fan, who is starting his GCSE courses next week.
“If there was a loud noise or I was in a crowded place I would hate it. Traffic jams were the worst.”
The term autism covers a wide range of conditions including Autism Spectrum Disorder, Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism.
Autism is a lifelong disabling condition affecting one in 100 people in the UK, yet many have little idea what it is.
All forms of autism are characterised by difficulty in social communication, interaction and imagination – meaning someone with autism can find it hard to understand, for example, body language, sarcasm or the unwritten rules of personal space.
Thomas was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder when he was three, after his parents Sally, 40, and Stephen, 45, noticed he was developing more slowly than his older sister Megan, now 16.
Sally, a former nurse who at the time of Thomas’ diagnosis was also struggling to cope with a spinal injury that left her having to use a wheelchair, said: “My brothers had some speech and language issues so I was a bit clued up and I already had half an eye open for it.
“When Thomas reached three and was still not speaking we took him to Ystrad Mynach Hospital, where he was diagnosed with autism.”
At the time autism was so misunderstood the doctors painted Sally and Stephen a picture of a child who would never walk or talk.
“We were told not to expect anything academically, but it was wrong of them to say that because, really, they had no idea what to expect,” said Sally.
“Every child with autism is different and you never know how it will affect them – that is the message I would like to get across to parents who might be in the same place as we were all those years ago.”
After his diagnosis, help for Thomas came quickly and, aged four, he was sent to a small specialist unit at a school in Newbridge, near Blackwood.
“They spent all the time in the first year teaching them how to sit still,” said Sally, who explained that her son was soon able to walk and talk with relative ease.
From there, Thomas went to secondary school at St Cenydd Comprehensive in Caerphilly, where, with the help of a one-to-one support worker, he soon began integrating with pupils from the main part of the school.
Having spent all his school life in specialist departments with other children with a variety of learning difficulties, going into mainstream classes was “totally alien” to him.
He learned to cope by knowing when to expect the bell so he would be prepared for the sudden noise and by going to the library to devour science fiction books during busy lunch breaks.
And despite his condition Thomas has made phenomenal progress.
The Cardiff Blues fan will begin his GCSE courses next month, having chosen leisure and tourism, geography and history for his subjects.
He now sits in mainstream classes for nine subjects, including English, science and his favourite, maths – for which he shot up from set six to set three in just one school year.
A keen sports fan, Thomas also plays in goal with Caerphilly-based disability football club the Pont Dragons.
His behaviour has improved so much he is now able to control his autism – catching himself if he is going to say something in anger and asking politely instead of being rude.
Thomas believes his behaviour has improved naturally as he gets older, while his mum, a devout Christian, sees it as a blessing.
She said: “A child with autism, by their nature, is the most selfish person in the world and it is very difficult for them to understand the needs of other people.
“But somehow last year he started realising that other people have the same needs as himself.
“Now when I come into the house he asks me how I am – that would have been unimaginable just 18 months ago.
“We thought he would have to live with us for the rest of his life, but now I’m confident he will have his own future – whatever he wants that future to be – and he will be happy.
“You have no idea how happy that makes us as parents – and hopefully it will give other parents hope too.”
She added: “It’s like there is light at the end of the tunnel, there is hope.
“I just feel it is criminal to tell any parent that their child’s future is dark because in every child’s life there is hope.”
Thomas harbours ambitions of one day becoming a sports reporter for Able Radio, a disability radio station based in Pontypool at which his mum volunteers.
After that, he hopes to raise enough money to travel the world.
Thomas added: “I just hope some of my hopes and dreams come true.
“People who have children with learning difficulties, especially those with autism, need to know that there is always hope.
“It doesn’t matter what you have got – if you work hard you will achieve your ambitions.”
Source: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health-news/2010/08/26/overcoming-autism-helped-me-realise-i-can-do-anything-91466-27137429


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AUTISM NEWS

and schizophrenia: Scientists measure gene mutation rate

August 27th, 2010



Dr. Guy Rouleau, senior author of a breakthrough paper on schizophrenia. John Morstad for The Globe and Mail

The Autism News

By Physorg
An international study led by University of Montreal scientists suggests family history may not be a good predictor of the presence of mutations predisposing to autism or schizophrenia.
The findings show how new or de novo gene mutations – alterations of the cell’s DNA – play a role in these devastating conditions. Published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, this study has implications for disease prevalence and severity.
“This study emphasizes the importance of de novo mutations as genetic factors predisposing to autism and schizophrenia. We found an increased frequency of severe de novo mutations in critical brain genes in both of these diseases,” says senior author and University of Montreal professor, Guy Rouleau.
“Harmful de novo mutations, as observed in this study, may in part explain the high global incidences of autism and schizophrenia,” adds Dr. Rouleau, who is also director of the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center and a scientist at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre.
Investigating human mutation rate:
The team analyzed 400 genes that are turned on in nerve cells from patients with autism or schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Their results showed that there is an excess of de novo gene mutations associated with the two diseases.
Their study revealed that DNA taken directly from the patient’s blood was superior to that taken from patient-derived cell lines. “The source of biological material is crucial for these types of experiments,” says lead author Philip Awadalla, a University of Montreal pediatrics professor, scientist at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center and scientific director of the CARTaGENE project.
“In the process of confirming our findings, we were also able to provide one of the first direct estimates of the human mutation rate,” continues Dr. Awadalla. “The number of mutations per generation is extremely small but on the order of what was previously indirectly inferred for human-chimpanzee comparisons. We also discovered that mutations can be introduced when cell lines are produced, which creates false-positive results. This artefact can significantly bias results and therefore great care needs to taken when analyzing these samples.”
About de novo mutations:
Mutations are alterations of the cell’s DNA that can occur because of errors in the DNA replication, which happen prior to cell division. Once DNA is changed, this mutation is passed down to a next generation. A mutation that is newly formed and therefore not inherited from either parent is called a de novo mutation.
More information: The paper, “Direct Measure of the de novo Mutation Rate in Autism and Schizophrenia cohorts,” published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, was authored by Philip Awadalla, et al. http://www.cell.com/AJHG
Source: http://www.physorg.com/news202031239.html

MARINA BIOTECH

The Autism News

By Pudget Sound Business Journal
Marina Biotech Inc., which used to be known as MDRNA, said it’s sold patent rights and technology related to its Carbetocin asset for $750,000 upfront in a deal that could be worth up to $27 million.
The Bothell biotech (NASDAQ: MRNA) sold the asset to Cypress Bioscience Inc. (NASDAQ: CYPB) of San Diego. Cypress will be responsible for the future development of Carbetocin, which Cypress describes as “a potential breakthrough treatment for the core symptoms of autism.” Cypress also could pay Marina Biotech royalties on commercial sales of Carbetocin.
“The sale of our Carbetocin assets to Cypress is another example of our efforts to monetize the legacy assets of our predecessor company,” said J. Michael French, president and CEO of Marina Biotech, referring to the assets of Nastech Pharmaceuticals, the predecessor company to Marina.
Source: http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2010/08/23/daily27.html

Missing Cat Returns Home to Girl with Autism

The Autism News


By ABC 13
Lynchburg, VA – Last Thursday, we brought you the heart-wrenching story of a girl with severe autism who was distraught over her missing cat.  Now, Boots and 12-year-old Shyann are back under the same roof.
Boots can’t exactly say where he’s been for the past nine days. But he didn’t seem to go far.  A nearby neighbor spotted him Wednesday night.
“I tried to get it and it got away and it ran over there in front of the house.  We kept looking for it,” said neighbor John Keehan.
He called Jackie Paris, who rushed over.
“I started clanking my bowls and everything and the next thing you know, there he comes out of the woods, and I snatched him up, and I cried,” Paris said.
Shyann was asleep when Jackie arrived home.  But in the morning, the child who had been so visibly upset was now content.
“No fussing, no nothing.  She let me get her dressed.   She was petting him and he was rubbing up against her, and I said are you happy your cat is home?  She said [nods head] and I said, me too,” Paris said.
And he’s the real thing, not a replacement.  But Jackie had plenty of offers.  She got at least 50 calls since our first story aired.
“They’ve offered me animals, their own animals.  Just people calling to know if I’d found the cat, that I was in their prayers.”
Shyann and Boots are now back to having a relationship that doesn’t require a conversation.
And Jackie, who is still taking in the kindness of the ABC 13 viewers, is speechless.
“Words can’t express how I feel right now, my heart is full, my soul is full, my daughter is happy, our cat is home,” Paris said.
Boots didn’t seem to be hurt, but he is a little thinner after his disappearance.  He has an appointment with the vet Friday.
Source: http://www.wset.com/Global/story.asp?S=13051385

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Thieves steal autistic boy’s speaking device

Thieves steal autistic boy’s speaking device

July 13th, 2010
The Autism News | English
http://www.assistivetech.com/Images/contentimages/Products/AT/Mercury/minimerc1.jpg
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.
“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
By The INDY Channel
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
http://www.saidaonline.com/en/newsgfx/jobs%20newspaper-saidaonline.jpg
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
http://media2.myfoxdc.com//photo/2010/07/13/StaffordManWithGun.mov_tmb0002_20100713182605_320_240.JPG

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.”
“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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Monday, July 12, 2010

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

July 12th, 2010
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
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

July 12th, 2010
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

July 12th, 2010
The Autism News | English
http://www.schreinerlegal.com/images/tn_Scales%20-%20Dreamstime.jpg
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

July 12th, 2010
The Autism News | English
http://poemavb.org/poemathoughts/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/bicycle-wheel-4242.jpg
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

July 12th, 2010
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

July 12th, 2010
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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