In “Schizophrenia takes a daughter away: Even a loving family with ample financial resources is powerless against the disease,” Scott Gold and Lee Romney of the Los Angeles (CA, US) Times describe the struggles of Tiffany Sitton and her family with Ms. Sitton’s schizophrenia. The reporters reveal how shortcomings in the mental health system have put Ms. Sitton and her parents in untenable positions.
Continue reading ‘Schizophrenia robs family’
Monthly Archive for December, 2007
In “A true rite of passage: Unusual theater project prepares autistic teens for bar and bat mitzvahs,” James Ricci of the Los Angeles Times describes an unconventional approach to helping children and youths with Autism learn to interact with others. He focuses his story on Elaine Hall and her son, Neal, explaining how Ms. Hall promotes participation in activities leading to bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies.
Hall started the program in October 2006. Working with a group of five children, she and her volunteers taught prayers by having their students sing them, dance them, act them out, and, for the profoundly nonverbal, beat drums to show they were sharing the experience. To teach Hebrew letters, they had the nonverbal children form them with their bodies or bake them as cookies. They had the youngsters make their own yarmulkes and rehearse in Vista del Mar’s sanctuary where they would eventually perform.
Continue reading ‘Theater, religion, and Autism’
Sphere: Related ContentAutism Speaks, the nearly 3-year-old advocacy organization that advocates for research and awareness of Autism, announced that it has awarded nearly $5 million for research to investigate the causes, biology, diagnosis, and treatment of Autism. According to Peter Bell, an executive vice president of Autism Speaks, “These grants will fund research projects that offer innovative and rigorous approaches to providing urgently needed answers about autism.”
Continue reading ‘Autism Speaks Grants’
Through ACT 4 Juvenile Justice (ACT4JJ), which is a lobbying group, National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition is seeking support for a statement of principles regarding reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA). The organization compiled the principles in an effort to strengthen federal-state partnerships, ensure that states receive the federal resources needed to sustain use of evidenced-based practices, and provide programs that help states and local jurisdictions meet the spirit of the JJDPA.
ACT 4 Juvenile Justice (ACT4JJ) is a campaign of the National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition composed of juvenile justice, child welfare and youth development organizations exploring opportunities related to the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), scheduled for 2007.
Link to the ACT 4 Juvenile Justice site.
Sphere: Related ContentOver on WrightsLaw, Sue Whitney Heath responded to a question from a parent about a school that made a questionable decision about a student’s school placement. Under the headline “Behavior Problems: It Isn’t Okay Just to Teach the Easy Kids,” Ms. Heath provides advice to the parent about how to address the problem.
Your son is either misbehaving and the school should follow the rules for kids who misbehave, or he is behaving like a kid with anxiety and ODD, so the school staff need to deal with this as an educational issue.
It is okay for the school:
- to provide a teacher who is able to teach your son.
- to expect all teachers to follow the steps in school policies for disciplining students.
- to get teachers more training in classroom management and discipline when they need it.
It is not okay:
- just to teach the easy kids.
- for a teacher to take his personal issues into the classroom.
There’s lots of detail at the site. Here’s a link to the full entry.
Link to on-line version of the Wrightslaw newsletter.
Sphere: Related ContentFew reasonable people champion the absolutist position that emotional and behavioral disorders are solely the result of biological or environmental problems. Still, when I come across work that re-emphasizes the mutual interaction of environmental and biological factors, I find it refreshing. In this review paper, Professors E. D. Leonardo and R. Hen present an integrated perspective about anxiety disorders. Here’s the abstract:
Neuropsychopharmacology (2008) 33, 134–140; doi:10.1038/sj.npp.1301569; published online 12 September 2007
Anxiety as a Developmental Disorder
E David Leonardo1,3 and Rene Hen1,2,3
1Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
2Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
3Division of Integrative Neuroscience, The New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA
Correspondence: Dr R Hen, Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Columbia University, The New York State Psychiatric Institute, 1051 Riverside Drive, Unit 87, New York, NY, USA. Tel: +1 212 543 5328; Fax: +1 212 543 5410; E-mail: rh95@columbia.eduReceived 27 June 2007; Revised 9 August 2007; Accepted 13 August 2007; Published online 12 September 2007.
Abstract
There is increasing recognition that many psychiatric disorders including anxiety disorders are neurodevelopmental in their origins. Here, we review and integrate data from human studies and from animal models that point to a critical period during which neural circuits that mediate anxiety develop. We then postulate that this highly plastic critical period is a time of heightened responsiveness that is particularly susceptible to adverse events. We discuss these concepts in the context the current heightened interest in gene by environment interactions in psychiatric illness emphasizing the importance of the temporal relationship between gene action and environmental milieu.
You’ll need a subscription or access from a subscribing organization (e.g., a university) to read the full text that is available at this link.
Sphere: Related Content
Latest Comments
RSS