From the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times:

Ole Ivar Lovaas, a UCLA psychologist who developed one of the most widely used therapies for children with autism, has died at the age of 83.  Dr. Lovaas was the first researcher to suggest that autism can be treated. He is credited with helping to change the treatment and public perception of people with the condition.

“His work first of all showed that the kids were teachable,” said Tristram Smith, a psychologist at the University of Rochester. “It was also very important in deinstitutionalization, showing that you could teach the kinds of skills that the kids needed to succeed at home and in the community.”

Dr. Lovaas proposed that the symptoms of autism could be addressed through a rigorous program of behavior modification, centered around a system of rewards and punishments. His early work was criticized as abusive because it involved researchers slapping children and using electric shocks, sometimes delivered with a cattle prod. These practices were later eliminated. The Lovaas model today relies on positive reinforcements.

See also: 1965 Life Magazine article about Lovaas’s work at UCLA. “Screams, Slaps & Love; A surprising, shocking treatment helps far-gone mental cripples”

From the New York Times:

Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical company, disclosed in an interview this week that an experimental drug has brought about substantial improvements in the behaviors of people with Fragile X syndrome in a small clinical trial.

The research involved only a few dozen subjects and has not been published or peer reviewed.

The company refused to reveal many details, citing commercial interests, but a Novartis official cautioned against too much optimism. Dr. Mark C. Fishman, president of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, said the drug is likely to be years from commercial development and could fail further clinical trials.

If authenticated in further, larger trials, the results could also become a landmark in the field of autism research, since scientists speculated that the drug may help some patients with autism not caused by fragile X, perhaps becoming the first medicine to address autism’s core symptoms.

… “This is perhaps the most promising therapeutic discovery ever for a gene-based behavioral disease,” said Dr. Edward M. Scolnick, former research chief at Merck and now director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

An excerpt from the Washington Post‘s obituary, by Emma Brown:

Stanley I. Greenspan, 68, a child psychiatrist who wrote more than a dozen parenting books and developed the popular “floor time” method for reaching children with autism and other developmental disorders, died April 27 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda of complications from a stroke.

In a career spanning 40 years, Dr. Greenspan drew praise for his early research on infant development and later found a wide following as an author and public speaker. At the time of his death, he was a professor at George Washington University’s medical school.

… Trademarked as “D.I.R./Floortime,” Dr. Greenspan’s method focused on developing children’s underlying ability to form relationships and react to new situations. It received widespread attention as an alternative to more traditional methods that use rewards and punishments to shape specific behaviors.

“What he did was give us a way to begin to reach these children early and give them a chance to develop to their potential,” said T. Berry Brazelton, a noted pediatrician, author and Harvard professor who wrote “The Irreducible Needs of Children” with Dr. Greenspan in 2000.

Writing in the New York Times’ Room for Debate blog, law professor David Smolin says the case of the boy who was sent back to Russia by his adoptive mother highlights the risks inherent in foreign adoptions. Many of these children, he says, have serious psychological, behavioral, cognitive and educational issues, the legacy of traumatic backgrounds or neglectful institutions. An excerpt:

… too many prospective adoptive parents, even when warned about hypothetical possible problems, are asked to make a purportedly permanent adoption decision based on inadequate or misleading information about the particular child with whom they are matched. Too many prospective adoptive parents are matched with children whose behaviors, issues and needs are far beyond the capacity of a normal family to manage.

Smolin is a professor at the Cumberland Law School at the Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.

Says authorities failed to disclose ‘psychopathic issues/behaviors’

From the [UK] Daily Mail, AP/Washington Post, [UK] Telegraph:

Russia’s foreign minister is urging an end to all U.S. adoptions after a a seven-year-old Siberian boy adopted by an American family was sent back to Moscow alone because his U.S. mother didn’t want him any more.

The adoptive mother, Torry-Ann Hansen of Tennessee, said in a letter to authorities that the boy “is violent and has severe psychopathic issues/behaviors.” She claimed that the Russian orphanage staff had lied about his “mental stability” in order to “get him out of their orphanage”.

The Russians angrily denied this, saying he was stubborn but that his only disability was that he was ‘flat-footed’.

Related posts:

• Higher rates of learning disabilities among adopted children — Houston Chronicle
• Adopted youths more likely to have mental disorders — Chicago Tribune

From the Wall Street Journal:

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has often gone undiagnosed in adults, according to government figures, but that is beginning to change. It’s estimated that some ten million American adults have the disorder, but fewer than a quarter are aware of it.

Experts say adult ADHD often accompanies depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder, and it’s difficult for clinicians to determine which came first. In the absence of treatment, adults with ADHD have a heightened risk of substance abuse, auto accidents and employment problems. Yet adults with ADHD can also be highly intelligent, energetic, creative and focused.

Experts recommend that people who suspect ADHD should have a thorough evaluation and, if diagnosed, should consider both medication and behavioral therapy.

With a reading list, internet links and a quiz: Do you have adult ADHD?

From the Ottawa [Canada] Citizen:

Ottawa school district officials are throwing out a report released this week, saying it contained flawed data. The report concluded that suspensions for students with special needs had risen dramatically in the past year.

Superintendent Walter Piovesan said some students with multiple diagnoses had apparently been counted twice.

The report had spurred criticism from disability advocates, who accused the board of suspending children “for being autistic.”