Juice Plus+®

HBO movie: Autism The Musical

ASA National Newsletter

CNN: Getting help for a child with autism

Free Seminar at Crimson Center in April

CNN: Asperger's: My life as an Earthbound alien

Texas Requires Autism Service List

Tax Break for Parents and Guardians of Special Needs Children

Young Hyperactive Girls More Likely To Have Serious Problems As Adults

'MORNING GLORY JAZZ BRUNCH'

Autism Research Institute ENewsletter

Including Samuel Film Screening

Public Health Risk Seen as Parents Reject Vaccines

Oprah's Big Give - San Diego

An "Innovations in Autism" Lecture Series

Juice Plus+...The Next Best Thing

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Good Health is not Good Luck; it's Science!

I never endorse anyone or anything. Opinions expressed in what I send out, may not be shared by me. Everything is for informational purposes only.

People who "advertise" through this newsletter have never been checked out by me. This includes professionals and even people who are interested in babysitting, etc.

Please take the time to throughly check out anyone and everyone that will be working with or caring for your child. We are all sadly aware, through news stories and word of mouth, of people who pray upon special needs children because of their extra vulnerability.

Thank you,
Valerie Dodd-Saraf

Check out my new website! Past issues of this newsletter are posted on my website and can be easily accessed!

Hi Val,
People can watch the whole thing from their computer from this link:
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/autism/video/
Marit

click here

In recognition of World Autism Awareness Day April 2, CNN reports on the global impact, latest science and controversies related to the brain disorder. Watch for expanded coverage on CNN.com and CNN TV.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- When her son Justin was a newborn, Shannon Kinninger looked up from the kitchen where she was washing dishes, and saw a large, heavy toy fall on his head. Justin didn't cry.

Wednesday April 30, 2008
6:30-8:00 P.M.

"What is a neuropsychologist and how can they help children with Autism and related disorders?"

¿Qué es un neuropsicologo y cómo puede ayudarme con mi niños con Autismo?

Presented by
Roger Perez, Ph.D.
CA License PSB 33358
Psychological Assistant/Postdoctoral Fellow
Advanced Neurobehavioral Health of Southern California
San Diego and Orange County

Crimson Center for Speech & Language
9606 Tierra Grande #107
San Diego, CA 92126
Miramar Area
Please call 858 695 9415 to reserve free seating
Sorry-No childcare is available

One CNN manager recently learned -- at 48 -- that she has Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. Today she shares an inside view of life with the condition.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Recently, at 48 years of age, I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. For most of my life, I knew that I was "other," not quite like everyone else. I searched for years for answers and found none, until an assignment at work required me to research autism. During that research, I found in the lives of other people with Asperger's threads of similarity that led to the diagnosis. Although having the diagnosis has been cathartic, it does not change the "otherness." It only confirms it.

The State of Texas recently passed legislation requiring IEP teams to consider 11 educational strategies for students with Autism. California does not require that IEP teams consider all of these strategies, but parents may bring them up for discussion at IEP team meetings.

According to recent Texas legislation, IEP teams must consider these 11 strategies before finalizing an IEP for a student with autism:

(1) extended educational programming (for example: extended day and/or extended school year services that consider the duration of programs/settings based on assessment of behavior, social skills, communication, academics, and self-help skills);

(2) daily schedules reflecting minimal unstructured time and active engagement in learning activities (for example: lunch, snack, and recess periods that provide flexibility within routines; adapt to individual skill levels; and assist with schedule changes, such as changes involving substitute teachers and pep rallies);

(3) in-home and community-based training or viable alternatives that assist the student with acquisition of social/behavioral skills (for example: strategies that facilitate maintenance and generalization of such skills from home to school, school to home, home to community, and school to community);

(4) positive behavior support strategies based on relevant information, for example:

(A) antecedent manipulation, replacement behaviors, reinforcement strategies, and data-based decisions; and

(B) a Behavior Intervention Plan developed from a Functional Behavioral Assessment that uses current data related to target behaviors and addresses behavioral programming across home, school, and community-based settings;

(5) beginning at any age, consistent with subsections (g) of this section, futures planning for integrated living, work, community, and educational environments that considers skills necessary to function in current and post-secondary environments;

(6) parent/family training and support, provided by qualified personnel with experience in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), that, for example:

(A) provides a family with skills necessary for a child to succeed in the home/community setting;

(B) includes information regarding resources (for example: parent support groups, workshops, videos, conferences, and materials designed to increase parent knowledge of specific teaching/management techniques related to the child's curriculum); and

(C) facilitates parental carryover of in-home training (for example: strategies for behavior management and developing structured home environments and/or communication training so that parents are active participants in promoting the continuity of interventions across all settings);

(7) suitable staff-to-student ratio appropriate to identified activities and as needed to achieve social/behavioral progress based on the child's developmental and learning level (acquisition, fluency, maintenance, generalization) that encourages work towards individual independence as determined by, for example:

(A) adaptive behavior evaluation results;

(B) behavioral accommodation needs across settings; and

(C) transitions within the school day;

(8) communication interventions, including language forms and functions that enhance effective communication across settings (for example: augmentative, incidental, and naturalistic teaching);

(9) social skills supports and strategies based on social skills assessment/curriculum and provided across settings (for example: trained peer facilitators (e.g., circle of friends), video modeling, social stories, and role playing);

(10) professional educator/staff support (for example: training provided to personnel who work with the student to assure the correct implementation of techniques and strategies described in the IEP); and

(11) teaching strategies based on peer reviewed, research-based practices for students with ASD (for example: those associated with discrete-trial training, visual supports, applied behavior analysis, structured learning, augmentative communication, or social skills training).

We, the Undersigned, are parents, guardians, friends or family members of special needs children. Every year during tax preparation time, we find that there are no tax breaks for the inordinate amount of money we spend on our children's needs.

Young girls who are hyperactive are more likely to get hooked on smoking, under-perform in school or jobs and gravitate towards mentally abusive relationships as adults, according to a joint study by researchers from the Université de Montréal and the University College London (UCL).

BENEFITING PROGRAMS AND EARNING POWER FOR ADULTS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

Event Details
Date: April 19, 2008
Time: 10am - 2pm
Location: St. Madeleine Sophie's Center, El Cajon Phone: 619-442-5129
Adult Price: Advance: $45 At the Door: $55

Event Description Join the St. Madeleine Sophie's Center for their 10th Annual Champagne Brunch. This brunch will feature garden tours, an art walk, live music from the Jason weber Quartet, live auction, floral demonstrations and a raffle that includes some great prizes including a chance to win $10,000 cash! Plus fantastic food and beverages from some of the areas finest restaurants. All proceeds will go to support job training for adults with developmental disabilities.

Buy Tickets! Adopt A Frog! Get Involved!

To learn more about St. Madeleine Sophie's Center (SMSC) and its 'Morning Glory Jazz Brunch' garden fundraiser, visit www.stmsc.org or contact Erich Foeckler: phone: 619-442-5129 (Ext: 3332); e-mail address: efoeckler@stmsc.org

St. Madeleine Sophie's Center, a non-profit, non- denominational 'Life Program' day training center for adults with developmental disabilities, is located at 2119 E. Madison Avenue, El Cajon, CA 92020.

click below

Photojournalist Dan Habib rarely thought about the inclusion of children with disabilities before he had his son Samuel. Now he thinks about inclusion every day. Habib documented his family's efforts to include Samuel in every facet of their lives, a journey that transforms each of them. The acclaimed 58-minute film is built on the story of Habib's own family as they work to include Samuel, 8, in all facets of school and community. Including Samuel also features four other families with varied inclusion experiences, plus interviews with dozens of teachers, young people, parents and disability rights experts.

Including Samuel recently won the annual Positive Images in Media award from TASH, an international group committed to the full inclusion of people with disabilities. The film has been featured in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and on NPR's All Things Considered. Exceptional Parent Magazine calls it a "must see" for parents, educators, policy makers, community leaders and the general public.

Screening Information
Hosted by the COMPASS Family Center at USD and UCP San Diego

When: Friday, April 4, 2008, 6:30 PM
Cost: $10 for the general public. $5 for students with valid ID.
Where: University of San Diego, Mother Rosalie Hill Hall Auditorium (Room 116)
5998 Alcalá Park, San Diego, California, 92110.

Tickets: http://www.compassfamilycenter.org/events/events/ind ex.php? com=detail&eID=20&month=04&year=2008

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: March 21, 2008

SAN DIEGO - In a highly unusual outbreak of measles here last month, 12 children fell ill; nine of them had not been inoculated against the virus because their parents objected, and the other three were too young to receive vaccines.

"Anyone who has watched their child struggle through a vaccine-preventable illness understands the reasons we vaccinate our children."

Alison Vander Vort, Boston

The parents who objected to their children being inoculated are among a small but growing number of vaccine skeptics in California and other states who take advantage of exemptions to laws requiring vaccinations for school-age children.

The exemptions have been growing since the early 1990s at a rate that many epidemiologists, public health officials and physicians find disturbing.

Children who are not vaccinated are unnecessarily susceptible to serious illnesses, they say, but also present a danger to children who have had their shots - the measles vaccine, for instance, is only 95 percent effective - and to those children too young to receive certain vaccines.

Measles, almost wholly eradicated in the United States through vaccines, can cause pneumonia and brain swelling, which in rare cases can lead to death. The measles outbreak here alarmed public health officials, sickened babies and sent one child to the hospital.

Every state allows medical exemptions, and most permit exemptions based on religious practices. But an increasing number of the vaccine skeptics belong to a different group - those who object to the inoculations because of their personal beliefs, often related to an unproven notion that vaccines are linked to autism and other disorders.

Twenty states, including California, Ohio and Texas, allow some kind of personal exemption, according to a tally by the Johns Hopkins University.

"I refuse to sacrifice my children for the greater good," said Sybil Carlson, whose 6-year-old son goes to school with several of the children hit by the measles outbreak here. The boy is immunized against some diseases but not measles, Ms. Carlson said, while his 3-year-old brother has had just one shot, protecting him against meningitis.

"When I began to read about vaccines and how they work," she said, "I saw medical studies, not given to use by the mainstream media, connecting them with neurological disorders, asthma and immunology."

Ms. Carlson said she understood what was at stake. "I cannot deny that my child can put someone else at risk," she said.

In 1991, less than 1 percent of children in the states with personal-belief exemptions went without vaccines based on the exemption; by 2004, the most recent year for which data are available, the percentage had increased to 2.54 percent, said Saad B. Omer, an assistant scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

While nationwide over 90 percent of children old enough to receive vaccines get them, the number of exemptions worries many health officials and experts. They say that vaccines have saved countless lives, and that personal-belief exemptions are potentially dangerous and bad public policy because they are not based on sound science.

"If you have clusters of exemptions, you increase the risk of exposing everyone in the community," said Dr. Omer, who has extensively studied disease outbreaks and vaccines.

It is the absence, or close to it, of some illnesses in the United States that keep some parents from opting for the shots. Worldwide, 242,000 children a year die from measles, but it used to be near one million. The deaths have dropped because of vaccination, a 68 percent decrease from 2000 to 2006.

"The very success of immunizations has turned out to be an Achilles' heel," said Dr. Mark Sawyer, a pediatrician and infectious disease specialist at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. "Most of these parents have never seen measles, and don't realize it could be a bad disease so they turn their concerns to unfounded risks. They do not perceive risk of the disease but perceive risk of the vaccine."

Dr. Sawyer and the vast majority of pediatricians believe strongly that vaccinations are the cornerstone of sound public health. Many doctors view the so- called exempters as parasites, of a sort, benefiting from the otherwise inoculated majority.

Most children get immunized to measles from a combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, a live virus.

While the picture of an unvaccinated child was once that of the offspring of poor and uneducated parents, "exempters" are often well educated and financially stable, and hold a host of like-minded child- rearing beliefs.

Vaccine skeptics provide differing explanations for their belief that vaccines may cause various illnesses and disorders, including autism.

Recent news that a federal vaccine court agreed to pay the family of an autistic child in Georgia who had an underlying mitochondrial disorder has led some skeptics to speculate that vaccines may worsen such conditions. Again, researchers say there is no evidence to support this thesis.

Alexandra Stewart, director of the Epidemiology of U.S. Immunization Law project at George Washington University, said many of these parents are influenced by misinformation obtained from Web sites that oppose vaccination.

"The autism debate has convinced these parents to refuse vaccines to the detriment of their own children as well as the community," Ms. Stewart said.

While many parents meet deep resistance and even hostility from pediatricians when they choose to delay, space or reject vaccines, they are often able to find doctors who support their choice.

"I do think vaccines help with the public health and helping prevent the occasional fatality," said Dr. Bob Sears, the son of the well-known child-care author by the same name, who practices pediatrics in San Clemente. Roughly 20 percent of his patients do not vaccinate, Dr. Sears said, and another 20 percent partially vaccinate.

"I don't think it is such a critical public health issue that we should force parents into it," Dr. Sears said. "I don't lecture the parents or try to change their mind; if they flat out tell me they understand the risks I feel that I should be very respectful of their decision."

Some parents of unvaccinated children go to great lengths to expose their children to childhood diseases to help them build natural immunities.

In the wake of last month's outbreak, Linda Palmer considered sending her son to a measles party to contract the virus. Several years ago, the boy, now 12, contracted chicken pox when Ms. Palmer had him attend a gathering of children with that virus.

"It is a very common thing in the natural-health oriented world," Ms. Palmer said of the parties.

She ultimately decided against the measles party for fear of having her son ostracized if he became ill.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, measles outbreaks in Alaska and California triggered strong enforcement of vaccine mandates by states, and exemption laws followed.

While the laws vary from state to state, most allow children to attend school if their parents agree to keep them home during any outbreak of illnesses prevented by vaccines. The easier it is to get an exemption - some states require barely any paperwork - the more people opt for them, according to Dr. Omer's research, supported by other vaccine experts.

There are differences within states, too. There tend to be geographic clusters of "exempters" in certain counties or even neighborhoods or schools. According to a 2006 article in The Journal of The American Medical Association, exemption rates of 15 percent to 18 percent have been found in Ashland, Ore., and Vashon, Wash. In California, where the statewide rate is about 1.5 percent, some counties were as high as 10 percent to 19 percent of kindergartners.

In the San Diego measles outbreak, four of the cases, including the first one, came from a single charter school, and 17 children stayed home during the outbreak to avoid contracting the illness.

There is substantial evidence that communities with pools of unvaccinated clusters risk infecting a broad community that includes people who have been inoculated.

For instance, in a 2006 mumps outbreak in Iowa that infected 219 people, the majority of those sickened had been vaccinated. In a 2005 measles outbreak in Indiana, there were 34 cases, including six people who had been vaccinated.

Here in California, six pertussis outbreaks infected 24 people in 2007; only 2 of 24 were documented as having been appropriately immunized.

A surveillance program in the mid '90s in Canada of infants and preschoolers found that cases of Hib fell to between 8 and 10 cases a year from 550 a year after a vaccine program was begun, and roughly half of those cases were among children whose vaccine failed.

Gardiner Harris contributed reporting from Washington.