Here’s the text of my letter to the editors of the Charlottesville Daily Progress regarding the editorial to which I referred yesterday:
The Daily Progress got a lot right with its editorial entitled “Protecting mentally ill” (8 August 2006). As the editorial noted, this is a complex problem that is exacerbated by deinstitutionalization, the behavior of individuals with disabilities, and the legitimate need of officers to protect the public. Efforts by the task force convened by the Public Defender Office and other law enforcement officials to provide training for local police officers in handling difficult encounters with individuals with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders certainly deserve praise, and I am glad that the Progress recognized the merits of the effort.
However, the Progress editorial writer overlooked an important aspect of this issue: Law enforcement interactions with children and youths with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Sad news reports from Boise, ID, Denver, CO, and other areas describe terrible incidents—including the death of children with autism—as a consequence of confrontations between officers and children.
Fortunately, around the country law enforcement officials, public-interest groups, and researchers have worked together to develop curricula to help law enforcement personnel resolve untoward encounters between police officers and children with disabilities. I hope our local officials do not overlook the need to include training for officers in use of effective methods when they encounter problems with children and youth who have Emotional and Behavioral Disorders.
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Under the title “Protecting mentally ill,” the Charlottesville (VA, US) Daily Progress (my local newspaper), published an editorial discussing the problem of interactions between law enforcement officers and indivdiduals with mental illness. The editorial writer lauded efforts by local law enforcement officials to address the issue of untoward interactions between officers and individuals with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, including securing grant funds to advance training for officers.
It’s nice to have a newspaper focus on this issue. EBD Blog readers know that it’s one that concerns me, as noted in the following quote from the entry here entitled Police training recommended:
There are curricula available and in use for helping officers of the law to handle individuals with disabilities. Examples are here, here, and here; there are many others. Do you think your community should promote use of these curricula? Would using them reduce the chances of another child being killed? I hope so.
Sadly, the Daily Progress editorial did not note the critical need for attention to how police and other public-service officials might interact with children and youths who have Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Look’s like it’s time for me to write a tradtional letter to the editor.
Link to the editorial.
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Individuals with Tourette Syndrome and comorbid Learning Disabilities differ from those who have Tourette Syndrome alone in eight specific ways, according to research by Lawrence Burd and colleague that was published in 2005.
BMC Pediatr. 2005 Sep 1;5:34.
Tourette Syndrome and learning disabilities.
Burd L, Freeman RD, Klug MG, Kerbeshian J.
Department of Pediatrics, University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Grand Forks, North Dakota, USA. laburd@medicine.nodak.edu
BACKGROUND: Tourette Syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder of childhood. Learning disabilities are frequently comorbid with TS. Using the largest sample of TS patients ever reported, we sought to identify differences between subjects with TS only and subjects with TS and a comorbid learning disability. METHODS: We used the Tourette Syndrome International Consortium database (TIC) to compare subjects with comorbid Tourette Syndrome and learning disabilities (TS + LD) to subjects who did not have a comorbid learning disability (TS-LD). The TIC database contained 5,500 subjects. We had usable data on 5,450 subjects. RESULTS: We found 1,235 subjects with TS + LD. Significant differences between the TS + LD group and the TS-LD group were found for gender (.001), age onset (.030), age first seen (.001), age at diagnosis (.001), prenatal problems (.001), sibling or other family member with tics (.024), two or more affected family members (.009), and severe tics (.046). We used logistic modeling to identify the optimal prediction model of group membership. This resulted in a five variable model with the epidemiologic performance characteristics of accuracy 65.2% (model correctly classified 4,406 of 5,450 subjects), sensitivity 66.1%, and specificity 62.2%. CONCLUSION: Subjects with TS have high prevalence rates of comorbid learning disabilities. We identified phenotype differences between the TS-LD group compared to TS + LD group. In the evaluation of subjects with TS, the presence of a learning disability should always be a consideration. ADHD may be an important comorbid condition in the diagnosis of LD or may also be a potential confounder. Further research on etiology, course and response to intervention for subjects with TS only and TS with learning disabilities is needed.
Link to PUBMED abstract.
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CNN television has a five-item series of articles about autism. The Web site offers a text-based introduction with links to each of the five video segments (which require Windows Media Player). Link to the CNN index page.
Flash of the electrons to Henry D. Schlinger, Ph.D., (Department of Psychology, California State University, Los Angeles) for alerting EBD Blog to these sources.
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