News from ValeriesList, 5.12.2008

Juice Plus+ is the simple, convenient, and inexpensive way to add more nutrition from fruits and vegetables to your diet, every day.

Tony and I have been taking Juice Plus+ daily for almost 5 years and we feel fabulous, and are more healthy.

Juice Plus+ will not interfere with any biomedical treatment that you may be doing with your child, but will actually enhance it.

If you would like more info about Juice Plus+, please email me.

If you would like to order Juice Plus+, click here.

A Case Study: Juice Plus

Links

	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 thoroughly 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 My enewsletters are archived on my website: www.ValeriesList.com

Future Horizon Conferences in Calif.
	AUTISM AND ASPERGER'S SYNDROME CONFERENCE - RIVERSIDE With Dr. Tony Attwood! July 7, 2008 in Riverside, California ...click here for more info... Click here to register online for this conference. AUTISM AND ASPERGER'S SYNDROME CONFERENCE - BAKERSFIELD With Dr. Tony Attwood! July 9, 2008 in Bakersfield, California ...click here for more info... Click here to register online for this conference. AUTISM AND ASPERGER'S SYNDROME CONFERENCE - SACRAMENTO With Dr. Tony Attwood! July 11, 2008 in Sacramento, California ...click here for more info... Click here to register online for this conference.

Silver Gate Yacht Club's 48 Annual Regatta
	6/08/08 Silver Gate Yacht Club's 48th Annual Wheelchair Regatta - For further Information regarding this annual tour of the San Diego Bay, contact Nina at 858-571-7803 x315 or ntarango@ucpsd.org *Note from Val: It is my understanding that this event is still open to all disabilities. Contact the person named above for more info. Tony and I were participants one year and it was a lot of fun.*

St. Madeleine Sophie's Auxiliary Luncheon
	St. Madeleine Sophie's Auxiliary, Executive Board Cordially invites you to: SMS Auxiliary 42nd Annual Luncheon Wednesday, June 4, 2008 11am to 2pm The Bay View Restaurant MCRD - San Diego Cost: $20 per person for a fabulous lunch Exciting Raffle Prizes!!! For more information, please contact Valerie Saraf. Please RSVP by May 27th. Make your check payable to SMS Auxiliary and send it to: Valerie Saraf, Luncheon Chair 5694 Mission Center Dr., #436 San Diego, CA 92108

ART EXPRESSIONS - a workshop for "sibs" - June 7th
	Have a hard time expressing your feelings about a sibling or friend with a disability? the Art Expressions experience with YOU in mind. All Materials are included, along with the guidance of filmmaker, speaker, disabilities advocate, and artist, Keri Bowers. She is a mother of a nineteen year old son with autism, and a thirteen year old. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, grandmothers, grandfathers, and friends are invited and encouraged to come and share feelings in the form of art. Additionally, people with a disability are welcomed to come to express feelings they may have about the life they live. Will be held June 7th , at Thousand Oaks Location Each person will create a mask - a self portrait - of themselves to take home $30 per person individuals W/ a Disability- $20 RSVP: keri@normalfilms.com or (805) 497 - 9877

News for Sharing From Dr. Feder
	Hi Val, At our DIR®/Floortime support group today, Judy Duncan from Community Interface Services announced that they are expanding their work form adults to kids, and that they are also expanding their regular employment and living services. More information on their website at: http://www.communityinterfaceservices.org/ Cari Miller has collected some great articles on facilitating peer interactions. They are posted on our local DIR®/Floortime blog: circlestretch.blogspot.com Also, we are getting great feedback from the online DIR® Basic course. There is still plenty of time to sign up for this exceptional and in depth introductory course. You can access any lecture 24/7 during the course period, and that period has been extended to May 24th. Go to icdl.com for more information. Our next meeting swill be June 4, 2008, with professionals from 9-1030 am and parent/ caregivers from 1030-noon. See you there! Dr Feder

In autistic boy's hands, paper and scissors express an amazing spectrum
	In Wil Kerner's world, happiness and grief - and all the feelings that come between - are puzzle pieces as alien as the curious construction-paper characters in the art he assembles on his grandmother's living- room carpet. What the autistic 12-year-old can't express verbally or in social interaction he can show through his carefully cut out geometric shapes assembled into characters in a paper collage, a talent the staff at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center calls a rare artistic gift. Large red circles become heads, delicate strips of fringed white paper become hair, and finely cut arches are shaped into eyebrows. The art - and the artist - intrigues those who study autism. Dr. Stephen Dager, interim director of the University of Washington's Autism Center, who has been studying brain anatomy and chemistry in autism, is mystified by Wil's artistic talents. Autistic people generally pay little attention to eyes during social interaction, studies show, and usually are unaware of others' emotions. Yet, Wil has the ability to mimic human emotion through his art. Wil doesn't understand numbers, has limited speech ability and very limited social skills. He has a brief attention span, tends to be compulsive and doesn't like his routine interrupted, and while he seems oblivious to others' subtle facial expressions, he manages not only to reproduce them but to do so by cutting them out of paper. Those who study autism wonder if Wil's remarkable gift is a means of compensation for other deficits or a matter of serendipity. In the past, Wil would have been called a 'savant,' a term now considered insensitive. Dager calls him extraordinarily talented. Last week, Wil was honored at a reception in the Harborview cafeteria, where his art is on display through the month. He fidgeted at a table in the corner with a pile of colored paper in front of him, as dozens of people milled through the exhibit, challenging Wil's need for a calm environment. Guest of honor or not, he finally had enough and shouted. He left for a quiet place as guests continued to admire his work. The hospital has an art program and features artists year-round. When art director Peggy Weise saw Wil's work, she was intrigued. 'It's full of symbolism. Once you spend time with it, it's actually quite sophisticated. You can appreciate it first on the cursory level, and then you can appreciate its more sophisticated qualities,' Weise said. 'Something going on' Wil, who was diagnosed with autism when he was 2, went to special classes in the Issaquah School District until two years ago but failed to thrive and began having panic attacks, said his grandmother, Susan Mooring. He was allowed to be tutored privately at Mooring's home just outside Renton. With the help of his teacher, Leroy Maxwell, Wil, at 10, slowly began to learn to speak, something he seldom had done, and to read. Then one day his father took him to a warehouse store and granted his wish for colorful construction paper, letting him buy an entire cartload. Wil's first collages - circle-headed people with one eye each, a boy and girl holding hands, a blue baby with a shy smile, began to take shape. Mooring glanced at what he was doing and was stunned. 'There was really something going on there,' she said of her grandson's art. Although she had no formal art training, she believed Wil's creations were more than haphazard assemblages. To capture a design before Wil could destroy it, Mooring photographed each one and collected all the pieces. Later, she reassembled each collage on a large piece of artboard and hired a photographer to take digital photographs. Now hundreds of collages later, they're selling - sometimes for as much as $1,000 each in the case of three sold at a charity auction to benefit autism. Amazing skill One collage, of a pig with a downcast look and raised shoulder, gives a strong sense of isolation and sadness, Mooring said. While Wil names most of his work simply - 'Blue Baby' and 'Pals,' for instance - Mooring named the pig collage 'Exclusion.' It was something Wil experienced, she said. Another one of his creations is a collage of rectangles with a large figure, vaguely resembling Donald Trump, seemingly overlooking buildings. 'He calls this one 'Rat,' ' Mooring said. That he can create facial expressions so well is particularly amazing, Dager said, because autistic people tend not to maintain eye contact or study facial expressions. 'Is it that their brains are wired differently? That's part of what we're studying,' Dager said. As for Wil, time for his art is a reward for doing schoolwork, Maxwell said. And when Wil begins to cut, the paper flies, the shapes emerge, the floor is littered with scraps of color and Maxwell and Mooring wait and watch for the magic.
	His Website

National ASA ENewsletter
	click below
	read here

Mom in San Diego needs a DAN doc
	Hi, I have heard alot about DAN doctors, and I was wondering if anyone has a recommendation of one in the San Diego area. Thanks

"The Vision and Learning Link"
	The Sierra Academy of San Diego is pleased to present another in a series of free professional seminars. Please join us on Thursday, June 5th, 6:00PM - 7:30PM "The Vision and Learning Link" Presented by Gary Sneag, O.D., FCOVD and Jennifer N. Tam, O.D. Eighty percent of what a child learns in the classroom is obtained through the visual system. Vision is an often overlooked component of learning and reading problems. This workshop teaches how to identify children whose vision restricts learning, how to build school performance by enhancing vision and how and why vision therapy succeeds. Here is a fun workshop that will give you practical tools to help children who are having trouble with learning. This seminar will conclude with a question and answer session. Gary Sneag, O.D., FCOVD - Behavioral Optometrist Dr. Sneag graduated as an optometrist in South Africa. He was in private practice as well as Chief Examiner and Lecturer at the Johannesburg School of Optometry. He obtained his Masters in Orthoptics in 1982. He was invited to be a Clinical Fellow and teach at Pennsylvania College of Optometry in 1983. He obtained his doctorate and boards in 1984 in Philadelphia. Dr. Sneag obtained his Fellowship in COVD in 1992. He acquired his private practice in Clairemont, San Diego in 1993. He has presented at multiple international congresses in the field of behavioral optometry. He has had many papers published internationally including "Prismotherapy" and "Neuro-Optometry for the clinical optometrist". He was awarded as a Health Professions Mentor in the Academic Enrichment Program at UCSD from 1997 until present. He has held the presidency of the San Diego group of COVD optometrists for over 10 years. Dr. Sneag is married with 2 sons and enjoys playing soccer and guitar. Jennifer N. Tam, O.D. - Behavioral Optometrist Dr. Tam received her Bachelor of Science in biochemistry and cell biology from the University of California, San Diego and Doctorate in Optometry from Pacific University, Oregon. She continued her studies and completed her residency in visual therapy and binocular vision in addition to Low Vision Rehabilitation at the UC Berkeley School of Optometry Binocular Vision Clinic. This has allowed her to share her passion in working with children and adults with vision related learning problems. Dr. Tam is currently in private practice in the Clairemont area of San Diego and is an active member of the American Optometric Association and College of Optometrists in Vision Development. Dr. Tam is proud to be part of the mentor program at UCSD. Please contact Donna Eidler at 858-578-5335 Sierra Academy of San Diego 10695 Treena Street, Suite 101, San Diego, CA 92131

Autistic Behavior Onset Appears to Coincide With Brain Overgrowth at 12 Months
	Medscape: May 8, 2008 (Washington, DC) - Changes in behavior and brain circumference appear around 12 months of age in infants later diagnosed with autism, converging research suggests. Findings from different lines of study suggest that autistic behavior may have its onset in the latter part of the first year of life, at the time that brain overgrowth (enlarged brain volume) seems to occur in autism, said Joseph Piven, MD, from the University of North Carolina, in Chapel Hill, at a press conference about psychiatric risk and the developing brain given at the American Psychiatric Association 61st Annual Meeting. Three types of investigations - magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of the developing brain, longitudinal studies of head circumference, and early behavioral studies of infants who have siblings with autism - all have found indications that autism onset seems to occur in the early postnatal period, around 12 months of age. "This convergence [of different research findings] on the postnatal period really points us in a very important direction - to focus our research on that time when these major brain changes may be responsible for the initiation of this disorder, and this has potential implications for understanding the pathogenesis and potential treatment of autism," said Dr. Piven. Children who are later diagnosed with autism appear to have distinguishing behavioral characteristics at 12 months of age - much earlier than most people would have predicted a few years ago - and this appears to coincide with the onset of brain enlargement, Dr. Piven told Medscape Psychiatry, Three Research Approaches Dr. Piven and colleagues performed MRI scans on 2- year-olds - 25 control toddlers and 51 toddlers with autism - and found that the toddlers with autism had generalized enlargement of gray- and white-matter cerebral volumes, but not cerebellar volumes (Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2005;62:1366-76). In that same study, they examined retrospective, longitudinal head-circumference data from birth to age 3 years in 113 children with autism and 189 local control children and found that in the children with autism, head circumference appeared normal at birth, but the rate of growth began to increase significantly more than in the control children at around 12 months of age. In a third type of research, Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, MD, and colleagues at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario, reported that infants with autistic siblings who went on to develop autistic spectrum disorders themselves already had defining behavioral features of autism at 12 months of age (Int J Dev Neurosci. 2005;23:143-52). Teasing Out the Brain-Behavior Relationship "Siblings of autistic individuals are at a higher risk of developing autism, so it allows you to efficiently study very young children before they develop clear symptoms of autism," said Dr. Piven. Several of these studies suggest that at 6 months of age, the children who went on to develop autism were functioning fairly normally (in their social behavior, for example), but some time after 6 months of age and before 12 to 14 months of age, they developed autistic symptoms, he noted. Dr. Piven's group is currently involved in a large, 4-site study in the United States that aims to examine over 500 six- and 12-month-old infants at risk of autism and to follow them from 6 through 24 months of age. The researchers will look at brain structure, brain development, and infant behavior to determine the relationship between brain overgrowth and the onset of autism, with findings expected within 5 to 6 years. "We do see some very focused abnormalities in the brain that seem to be related to specific behavioral and neuropsychological features . . . [but] it's early days in terms of teasing out the brain-behavior relationship in autism," he said. Dr. Piven indicated he has no significant financial disclosures. American Psychiatric Association 161st Annual Meeting: Symposium 34. May 3-8, 2008.

East County Swin-a-Thon at St. Maddie's

At the SMSC Aquatic Center
Saturday, May 31st from 8AM to 2PM

How many laps can you swim or walk in 30 minutes?

*Anyone can participate
*Swimmers are to raise a minimum of $100, have 1/2 hour to complete laps and must be accompanied by responsible party during event
*Refreshments and prizes for each paticipant

To register call Kim Holt at 619-442-1919 ext:3114 or email kholt@stmsc.org

The Aquatic center offers services to over 350 San Diegans throughout the year. All junds raised directly benefit