News, commentary, resources, and more about Emotional and Behavioral Disorders.
Over at EpiWonk, a highly experienced epidemiologist provides blog entries about contemporary epidemiological research. One of the topics he or she is examining is Autism. The posts are worth a reasoned read.
Flash of the electrons to Liz Ditz for alerting me to this source.
Sphere: Related ContentUnder the headline “Boy, 9, overcomes autism to play ball, win essay contest,” Hudson Sangree of the Sacramento (CA) Bee reported about Brandon Mark playing baseball. That may not seem worthy of an article, but because Brandon has Autism, it is. Here’s Mr. Sangree’s lead:
After their son Brandon was diagnosed with autism, Kelvin Mark and Cheryl Lieu worried he would never lead a normal life.
The two physicians, who live in the Sierra Oaks neighborhood, said they were concerned he might never be able to dress himself, feed himself or speak in coherent sentences. They wondered if he would develop the normal mechanisms of fear and avoidance that would prevent him from walking into traffic.
With Brandon’s hypersensitivity to sunlight, dirt and loud voices, the normal childhood pastime of playing Little League baseball seemed far out of reach.
So when Brandon, 9, got his first solid hit and rounded the bases to score, Kelvin Mark said it brought tears to his eyes.
Continue reading ‘Baseball and Autism’
Sphere: Related ContentI’m pleased to add a link to the Web Resources section of EBD Blog that points to the Web site for Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI). MDRI is devoted to ensuring that people with disabilities can participate in society, regardless of the country in which they live. Among other things, MDRI has influenced laws and governmental agencies to promote the human rights of individuals with disabilities.
MDRI documents conditions, publishes reports on human rights enforcement, and promotes international oversight of the rights of people with mental disabilities. Drawing on the skills and experience of attorneys, mental health professionals, human rights advocates, people with mental disabilities and their family members, MDRI trains and supports advocates seeking legal and service system reform and assists governments to develop laws and policies to promote community integration and human rights enforcement for people with mental disabilities. The organization is forging new alliances throughout the world to challenge the discrimination and abuse faced by people with mental disabilities, as well as working with locally based advocates to create new advocacy projects and to promote citizen participation and human rights for children and adults.
Individuals with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders should enjoy the same basic human rights as anyone else. From this perspective, it is easy to see why EBD Blog endorses the efforts of MDRI. To save readers the need to locate the link in the side bar, here’s a jump to MDRI’s home page.
Sphere: Related ContentNope, not an experiment about how to get kids to clean their rooms, but a proposal to study the effects of a hypoallergenic environment on the behavior of children with Autism. According to an article by Timothy McNulty entitled “Doctor plans novel treatment for autism,” that’s the idea. Writing in the 11 May 2008 issue of the Pittsburgh (PA, US) Post-Gazette, Mr. McNulty reported that a physician named Scott Faber in the Pittsburgh area plans to create an environment that will be free of toxins and examine the effects of living in such an environment on children with Autism.
Continue reading ‘Clean room study’
It’s one of those stories I wish hadn’t transpired. On the basis of evidence gained via facilitated communication, police mistakenly charged a man with abusing his daughter and, to compound the problem, they based their case in part on inappropriate interrogation of the man’s son, a boy who has Asperger Syndrome. Oakland County (M, US) prosecutor David Gorcyca dropped the case when he was unable to substantiate the FC-based allegations.
In an editorial 20 March 2008, the Detroit Free Press summarized the case and the terrible consequences to which the family was subjected because of it:
Continue reading ‘FC, sex, false interrogration–yuck’
In a New York Times article entitled “‘Mad Pride’ Fights a Stigma,” Gabrielle Glaser reports about efforts by individuals with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders to promote public understanding of their problems. Although I don’t usually cover adult issues on EBD Blog, I think this story merits mention.
Ms. Glaser leads with two cases:
Sphere: Related ContentIN the YouTube video, Liz Spikol is smiling and animated, the light glinting off her large hoop earrings. Deadpan, she holds up a diaper. It is not, she explains, a hygienic item for a giantess, but rather a prop to illustrate how much control people lose when they undergo electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, as she did 12 years ago.
Continue reading ‘Mad Pride’
It’s true. I must update the look of the blog. Changes in the underlying software that controls the general system (killer good WordPress) and the related software (as of this writing, I’m still using the wonderful K2 theme) that controls the look of the site (layout, colors, etc.) made some of my settings fail even worse than they were failing before I updated the software. I’m working on it, honest. Now that I have a little more air in my calendar, that’ll get easier.
Sphere: Related ContentWriting for the Associated Press, Dan Nephin reported that charges against Dr. A. T. Nadama related to the death during chelation therapy of a young boy with Autism have been dropped.
Continue reading ‘Chelation death charges dropped’
Over on Teachers At Risk (great title!), Elona Hartjes has a post about her reaction to a popular press discussion about the prevalence of mental illness among school children.
Twenty percent of kids sitting in classrooms today are mentally ill. That’s shocking. What’s even more shocking is that only 1/5 of that twenty percent are getting treatment.
I could hardly believe my ears tonight when I heard that statistic on TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin. Next week, May 3 – May 10, 2008 , is Children’s Mental Health Week and I suppose that’s why the program, “Kids aren’t right†aired tonight.
Continue reading ‘Prevalence of EBD’
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