EBD Blog

Local interest note: Some students at U.Va. have launched a service to match students with jobs such as baby-sitting, tutoring, and etc. For people in the Charlottesville (VA, US) area, this may be a worthwhile means of finding child care help. Here’s how Mike Gugel explains it:

It’s pretty hard to find a trustworthy babysitter or tutor in Charlottesville, especially if your child is disabled or has special needs. Friends and family aside, there aren’t many places you can turn to…. Hiring UVa students for child care ensures you’re getting qualified and responsible workers. So if you need a babysitter, a tutor for your kids, help moving, computer help, or any other short term job, it might be worth checking out www.collegequickjobs.com.

Writing in the current issue of Scientific American, Mark Alpert reported on contemporary research about dietary intervention in Autism. Under the title, “The Autism Diet,” Mr. Alpert described the flawed research that has previously been touted as evidence of the benefits of diets such as those that eliminate gluten or casein or that use omega-3 fatty acids as supplements. He also described current and rigorous studies being conducted by Robin Hansen, Susan Hyman, and others.

Continue reading ‘Autism diets’

In a pair of experiments reported in the prestigous journal Child Development, Ms. Elisa Back and colleagues from the University of Nottingham (UK) examined whether adolescents with Autism infer mental states less well than their peers. The issue is of interest because some researchers have hypothesized that inadequate skill in interpreting facial expressions may account, in part, for some of the social deficits of people with Autism. Ms. Back and her colleagues sought to clarify whether the phenomenon occurs and, if it does, whether certain parts of the face are difficulty for people with Autism to interpret.
Continue reading ‘Autistic eyes and faces’

While poking around the Internet (something that takes too much of my time), I was glad to discover that

http://best.online.docus.googlepages.com/

has a streaming video on Temple Grandin and another on Kim Peek. Look under the heading (of course) “Lifestyle/Society.”

Flash of the electrons to the Houvourases at Behavior Concepts for the lead.

The Incredible Years programs, which comprise a coordinated set of (a) parent training programs and individual family counseling, (b) teacher training and school consultation, and (c) group child training in social skills, problem-solving, and anger management, are in the news again. The IY programs are aimed at reducing conduct problems in young children. They have been researched extensively.

Continue reading ‘Incredible Years’

Over on Soapy Water you can read molly_g’s musings about why she has agreed to have her son take medication. I commend it to readers as a way to check perceptions.

It was 2 years ago when Mrs. Ris moved her blog to its current location. She’s had lots of good insights about teaching students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders on Mentor Matters, so I encourage readers to check the site.

The Internet is a-buzz with the news of the study by Jonathan Sebat, B. Lakshmi, Dheeraj Malhotra, Jennifer Troge, Christa Lese-Martin, Tom Walsh, Boris Yamrom, Seungtai Yoon, Alex Krasnitz, Jude Kendall, Anthony Leotta, Deepa Pai, Ray Zhang, Yoon-Ha Lee, James Hicks, Sarah J Spence, Annette T. Lee, Kaija Puura, Terho Lehtimäki, David Ledbetter, Peter K. Gregersen, Joel Bregman, James S. Sutcliffe, Vaidehi Jobanputra, Wendy Chung, Dorothy Warburton, Mary-Claire King, David Skuse, Daniel H Geschwind, T. Conrad Gilliam, Kenny Ye, and Michael Wigler published yesterday in Sciencexpress. Sebat and colleagues compared the genes of children to the genes of their parents. They found that children with autism were much more likely to have genetic mutations that their parents didn’t have than were children who did not have autism.

We tested the hypothesis that de novo copy number variation (CNV) is associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). We performed comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) on the genomic DNA of patients and unaffected subjects to detect copy number variants not present in their respective parents. Candidate genomic regions were validated by higher-resolution CGH, paternity testing, cytogenetics, fluorescence in situ hybridization, and microsatellite genotyping. Confirmed de novo CNVs were significantly associated with autism (P = 0.0005). Such CNVs were identified in 12 out of 118 (10%) of patients with sporadic autism, in 2 out of 77 (2%) of patients with an affected first-degree relative, and in 2 out of 196 (1.0%) of controls. Most de novo CNVs were smaller than microscopic resolution. Affected genomic regions were highly heterogeneous and included mutations of single genes. These findings establish de novo germline mutation as a more significant risk factor for ASD than previously recognized.

One of the major sources of mutations of this sort is the gametes of the parents. As Leslie Feldman’s page on paternal age shows, older fathers’ sperm are more likely to carry mutations.

Sebat and colleagues are leaders in the study of copy number variation. They’ve done other work on copy number polymorphism in cancer as well as developing techniques and procedures widely used in the study of genetics. It’s wonderful that they’ve turned their focus to Autism. Link to Professor Sebat’s page at Cold Spring Harbor Lab.

Links:

• The press release from Cold Spring Harbor Labs;
• John Hamilton’s “Cause of Autism Narrowed Down to 100 Genes” on National Public Radio;
• Coverage by Edyta Zielinska in The Scientist (UK);
• “Study Finds Autism Key” by Jamie Talan of Newsday;
• Coverage by Tom Paulson in the Seattle (WA, US) Post Intelligencer;
• Results for a Google search of blogs for “autism sebat”;
• For good background information, see Flags and Lollipops entry on cnv.

As many people who monitor the Web for terms such as “behavior” and “disorder” know, sleep disorders are among the more widely discussed topics one finds when searching with those and similar terms. Mostly, that’s because of a lot of discussion about restless leg syndrome and related behavior associated with sleep disorders. However, colleagues here are at the University of Virginia (U.Va.) have some relatively new—and pretty alarming—scientific findings on sleep disorders in children, so I’m passing the information along to readers of EBD Blog.
Continue reading ‘Sleep disorders’

This should be tagged “Don’t believe everything you read.” Twenty percent of children have Autism? Well, some folks are saying this is true. According to Susan Brown of NWITIMES.com [NWI Times serves Northwest Indiana (IN, US) and the southeast Chicago (IL, US) suburbs], it’s true. She even says the figure comes from “The largest study of its kind.”

She’s got her facts wrong, wouldn’t you say? So, to what extent should one trust the remainder of the story? It’s a hodge-podge…. Read it yourself. Beyond the typo in the third paragraph (typos are commonplace in my materials, so I’m not casting stones!), you’ll find a few storylines that seem to be run together.

Over on Liquid Waffle Girl, Jill reports about a student who brought a weapon to school. I hope she keeps us posted about the events. Read “Jay’s Got a Knife.”

The Behavior Analysis Association fo Michigan announced two additional workshops for its soon-to-happen meeting. They are likely to relevant to readers of EBD Blog who are interested in Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome.

BAAM is pleased to announce two additional workshops for the BAAM convention (March 22-23 at Eastern Michigan University). One is on providing support for adolescents with autism and Asperger’s in schools; the other is on self-improvement using cognitive-behavioral techniques.

We believe both of these workshops are excellent opportunities. More and more people with pervasive developmental disorders are attending schools, and it is especially important to attend to adjustments issues when these children become adolescents. Dealing effectively with personal life issues is also important for everyone. J. Silva will offer instruction on a systematic approach to dealing with dysfunctional behavior in everyday life.

“Creating School Communities of Support for Socially Challenged Adolescents with Autism/Asperger’s Syndrome” by Mary Schlieder of Norris School District

“Live 100% Now: A Cognitive-Behavioral 10-Session Clinical and Non-Clinical Intervention” by J. Silva of Eastern Michigan University.

Link to the BAAM Web site for more information.