Seek out graduate programs in applied behavioral analysis

By Jane Gross in the New York Times:

Unable to find appropriate support for their kids, many parents of children with autism are going back to school to learn how to perform applied behavioral analysis (A.B.A.) themselves. They’re spending lots of money and even changing careers in the process — but they believe it’s worth it if it helps their kids learn.

Featured is a program at Caldwell College in New Jersey.

In most states, a generic special education degree is sufficient to treat children with autism and to use the particular techniques of A.B.A., the only therapy for the disorder with proven results in peer-reviewed research. But many colleges and universities now offer specialized degrees in A.B.A. Graduate programs are offered at Northeastern University in Boston, Florida State University in Tallahassee, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, the University of Maryland in Baltimore County and California State University in Los Angeles, to name a few. Administrators at several of the programs say they, too, have parents of autistic children among their students.

For some parents, it’s just the latest in a long line of sacrifices they’ve made for their kids.

(more…)

From DiversityInc.com, a publication about diversity in business, a list of seven things you can NEVER say to people with disabilities. (The emphasis is theirs.) Developed with the participation of the National Organization on Disability (NOD) and the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, the list is just the right length to be posted on the office bulletin board.

Take note:

1. “What’s wrong/what happened?” or “Were you born that way?”
2. “Oh, if you just have faith, you can be healed.”
3. Speaking slowly or loudly to someone who is in a wheelchair.
4. “I don’t even think of you as a person with a disability.”
5. “How do you go to the bathroom?”
6. “But you look so good.”
7. “Oh, you’re here, you must feel better.”

And that doesn’t even take into account the standard list of culturally insensitive words like “handicapped,” “retarded” and “slow” to refer to people with disabilities, or “compliments” like “you look so good.”

“These terms are unacceptable because they are linked to a history that the general public isn’t aware of,” says Nancy Starnes, vice president and chief of staff for the National Organization on Disability (NOD). “And just like there are terms that you don’t use for African Americans anymore, the same goes for people with disabilities.”

People actually say this stuff? Given that the Census Bureau reports that there are 11.8 million people with reported disabilities in the work force, surely we’ve got a lot of reliable correspondents out there. Readers, what have you heard? Tell us about your most memorable office interaction.

For inspiration, take a look at DiversityInc’s other lists of cringeworthy comments:

• 10 Things NEVER to Say to Black Coworkers: #1: “You’re so articulate.”
• 7 Things NEVER to Say to Asian-American Executives: #1: “You must be the IT person.”
  
• 10 Things NEVER to Say to Latino Executives
  
• 7 Things NEVER to Say to LGBT Coworkers
• 6 Workplace Myths About People With Disabilities

From Computerworld.com:

For the 1.3 million Americans who are blind, using computers can be beyond difficult. Screen reader software, which describes the activity on the screen to the user, can be both expensive and ineffective. Inputting data is doubly challenging when people can’t see to use the mouse. Keyboard shortcuts are helpful, but there aren’t enough of them and they keep changing.

And using commercial websites can be “maddening,” said Jay Leventhal, editor of AccessWorld Magazine, produced by the American Foundation for the Blind in New York. Worst of all is security software that requires customers to input a password displayed in a moderately distorted image that screen readers can’t read. A class-action lawsuit is pending against Target Corp.

The story includes tips for making websites accessible.

Computer folk debate the story at slashdot.org.

Harnessing the creative energy behind the diagnosis

Wall Street Journal columnist Sue Shellenbarger offers encouragement to parents of kids with ADHD, introducing us to some adults who were labeled as children and went on to build satisfying, productive lives for themselves.

Among those she lists: Ty Pennington, the host on “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition;” JetBlue founder David Neeleman and Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea (above), who also has dyslexia. All had challenging childhoods, run-ins with school authorities, and teachers who didn’t believe they could succeed at much of anything. Neeleman said he thought he was “stupid.” Their stories are more relevant now than ever, with an estimated 8 percent of school-age children carrying the ADHD label.

The common thread in each case was the help of supportive parents who valued their children’s individuality, emphasized their strengths and didn’t give up. (Medication also gets a brief mention, as do behavior modification techniques.) Paul Orfalea praises a saying his mother used: “Look at your five fingers. All five are different for a reason. School wants to make you all the same.”

It’s worth noting that the strategies suggested here for helping a child with ADHD are markedly similar to those needed to help any child, disability or not.

If only Shellenbarger had edited out her references to ADHD “sufferers,” especially in light of the positive messages offered by parents. The phrase “people with ADHD” would have felt so much better.

Readers, now it’s your turn. Any tips of your own to share?

Kids boost social skills by teaching pets

From CBS Early Show:

Dog trainer Kathy Santo has started a program called “Paws Four Autism” that helps kids in New Jersey connect with others by learning to train their family pets. She says the program helps kids learn to maintain eye contact with their dogs, which in turn helps them develop relationships with people.

Santo demonstrates her techniques in a video on the CBS site that also features student trainers Gower Nibley and Brittany Wilkes.

A link on the site carries resources about autism for families. Sadly, its use of language is not always sensitive — one page leads readers to “notable sufferers,” including Thomas Edison and Jane Austen.

From USA Today:

Christine Frisbee says she wants people to remember what she calls the “forgotten siblings” — the brothers and sisters of children with chronic illnesses.

Her book, “Day by Day,” compiles diary entries from children with seriously ill siblings. Frisbee writes from experience.

Frisbee’s teenage son, Rich, died in 1989. He had leukemia. In the almost 12 months from the diagnosis to Rich’s death, Christine and her husband, Rick, the parents of five children, shuttled back and forth to the hospital each day. And in the hectic life of a parent with a seriously ill child, Frisbee realized she made little time for her other children, who, just like other children, needed their parents.

… Reading through the entries of the book, published by the Richard D. Frisbee III Foundation, one thing becomes clear: As families try to cope with the illness, the healthy children feel as if they have become an afterthought to their parents.

By the Associated Press in the New York Times:

Summer camps just for kids with chronic diseases are booming — places to learn about epilepsy or finally meet someone else with Tourette’s tics or slice open a cow’s heart to see what’s wrong with their own.

Now fledgling research suggests such special camps may offer more than a rite of passage these children otherwise would miss: They just might have a lasting therapeutic value.

… ”How do you live well with a chronic condition? I believe in part, the power of being amongst your peers normalizes the experience,” explains Sandra Cushner-Weinstein, a social worker at Children’s National Medical Center who founded the hospital’s weeklong camps for five illnesses, and is studying the impact on campers.