Odds+and+Ends

As I put this wiki together I realize that there are some things that I come across that you might be interested in but that they don't correlate with the curriculum or the week we are on. I will put those things here. I will put the newest information first ( newest added). Brain Gym []

Great website [] []

I must admit I am an avid “ wii” person and I think that there are some games that are great for kids. I have a student with executive functioning difficulties that had it prescribed. There is on game on wii fit plus that is the person trying to stay as still as possible ( control of your body) another one that has the person making judgments ( controlling impulses) and of course the yoga poses. I am really loving doing yoga with children on the spectrum as it is a way that they will be able to use lifelong to help regulate.

On another note the next instructor Kathy Schlenz has contacted me is there anything that you would like me to tell her as she prepares for the class?

Pat Rakovic [|Ideas on how to have students examine their work, improvement rubric] [] Some common terms used in speech and language ( limited) Here are some terms used to describe speech  **Here are some common speech terms you might hear a speech pathologist say:** **Diadochokinesis:** Let's start with the example from above and the hardest term to even pronounce. Here is a syllable breakdown so you can pronounce it correctly and maybe even impress a few people: (die-uh-doe-ko-kin-ee-sis). Diadochokinesis is the rapid repetition of several different sounds in a row. For example, the sound sequence of, "Puh - Tuh - Kuh" forces you to make three different sounds in three different //**places.**// The "**P**" sound is made with the lips, the "**T**" sound is made with the tip of your tongue, and the "**K**" sound is made with the back of your tongue **Speech Intelligibility:** This is how well a person's speech can be understood. If your "speech intelligibility" is good, that means the words you are speaking are clear and can be understood most or all of the time. **Speaking rate:** A speech term for how fast or slowly you speak. **Dysarthria:** A reduction in strength and coordination in the muscles associated with speech. Simply put; //weak oral muscles.// **Verbal Apraxia:** Not being able to perform coordinated oral muscle movements. However, there is no paralysis or muscle damage involved. This means that the person's oral muscles are fine, but the messages sent from the brain to move those muscles are being interrupted. **Dysphagia:** A condition which causes difficulty swallowing liquids and food. Dysphagia requires very specialized speech therapy and should be carried out with a qualified therapist one-on-one. **Aspiration:** Most everyone has done this without knowing there is a name for it. Have you ever drunk or eaten something that //**went down the wrong pipe?**// That is called, "aspiration." This is usually followed by coughing which clears the wind pipe (trachea). However, some people with swallowing disorders aspirate frequently and may not be able to cough the food or liquid back into their throat. This condition also requires specialized speech therapy. **Range of Motion:** The distance you can move your tongue and/or lips in and out, back and forth, up and down, or side to side. **Compensatory Strategies:** Learning new ways to complete a task. For example, if you are having difficulty saying long sentences then you can "compensate" by saying several shorter sentences instead. Saying two or three short sentences instead of one long sentence is a//compensatory strategy.// **Prosody:** A collective speech term related to **//intonation, rhythm,//** and**//vocal stress//** in speech. You're probably saying, //"Great, but what do all those things mean?// Don't worry, we thought of that too ...

 **Intonation:** The rising and falling of your voice (also known as //**pitch**//). Using a "high" pitch or a "low" pitch to add meaning to your message. Have you ever heard someone speak in a //monotone voice?// They speak without any changes in their pitch. It's like one long, unchanging sound. Intonation puts passion and spark into our speech! **Rhythm:** The proper timing between pauses and spoken words in your speech. If your rhythm is "off" your pauses may be too long or too short between words. **Vocal Stress:** This is putting an emphasis on certain words or syllables. For example, let's say you are the **//best//** poker player in your neighborhood. One day a stranger walks up to you and says, //"I heard you are the **worst** poker player in town"// (This stranger emphasized the word,//worst//). With confidence, you respond, //"You have heard wrong, I am the **BEST**poker player in town."// You emphasized or **//stressed//** the word **BEST** in that sentence to get your point across (in a graceful manner, of course). **Thermal Stimulation:** placing ice or a cold object on a weak muscle to stimulate nerve and muscle reaction. **Manual Stimulation:** The use of touch and pressure to stimulate nerves in and around weak muscles. [] This is the top 10 research advances as determined by autism speaks. There is a really interesting article on twins. [] [] Information about dysfluency and ASD.

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Blinking May Yield Clues About Autism Autistic Children Blink Differently Than Children Without the Condition By [|Denise Mann] WebMD Health NewsReviewed by [|Laura J. Martin, MD]

 Dec. 12, 2011 -- When and why children blink may provide researchers some important clues about how children with [|autism] process and take in information. Although it may not feel like it, blinking interrupts what we are watching. If a story or scene is engrossing, we can keep our [|eyes] peeled. This is called blink inhibition. There are key differences between [|toddlers] with and without [|autism spectrum disorder] and when they blink their eyes. The new finding appears in the //Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences//. The CDC states that one in 110 children in the U.S. has an autism spectrum disorder. This is a range of developmental disorders that affect the ability to communicate and relate to others. In the new study, 2-year-olds with or without autism watched a video of a boy and girl playing. The video included physical movements as well as children interacting with each other. For the typical children, the rate of blinking decreased more when watching the emotional part than during physical movements. This pattern was reversed among children with autism. Blinking Patterns Shed Light on Autism “When we blink and when we don't can actually index how engaged people are with what we're looking at, and how important they perceive that thing to be,” says Warren Jones, PhD. He is the director of research at the Marcus Autism Center at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. Children without autism seem to be able to anticipate what is coming next based on facial expressions and wordplay. This is not the case among children with autism. “Without understanding the social context in which actions happen, children with autism may often be reacting, after the fact, to physical events that have already happened,” Jones says in an email. The findings give “researchers a new tool for trying to understand how children with autism look at, engage with, and learn from what they see,” he says. “This might give us more information about cues that are distracting to children with autism, and it might also give us information about cues that are naturally engaging to [these] children.” Study Findings May Help Diagnose, Treat Autism Autism experts are excited about the implications of the study. “This is a very well done study that demonstrates the unique patterns of social attention in autism,” says Thomas Frazier II, PhD. He is the director of research at the Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital Center for Autism. “In fact, if replicated, this information may become useful for developing earlier and more objective diagnostic tools,” he says in an email. Geraldine Dawson, PhD, is the chief science officer for Autism Speaks, an autism advocacy and science group. She says the findings may help researchers develop effective therapies. “This is the first study to my knowledge that has used blinking to assess how engaged a child is with what he or she is viewing,” she says. “These results suggest that therapy should focus on helping the child to become more emotionally engaged with the social world and to learn that people are important and rewarding,” Dawson says in an email. “The hope is that, as a result of therapy, the young child with autism will show higher levels of attention.” What’s more, blinking rate could provide a way to measure social engagement, she says. This “could be used in clinical trials that are testing treatments that aim to increase the child’s interest and engagement with the social world.” [|Examples of IEP goals from National Association of Special Education Teachers.] [|Prozac lessens symptoms in autistic adults] [|For caregivers, understanding autism symptoms is key to coping with them.] [] This is a free online tool for making visuals [] Great website and you can sign up for email alerts. There is one free visual support a month. [] This is an article about the brain and the process of knowing words and sentences. [] This is a site des//igned by a speech and language pathologist to gather videos that can help teach social skills.// http://macdonaldtechforteachers.wikispaces.com/Google+Docs+-+Students Wiki about using technology in the classroom

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Data Provide Snapshot of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Special Health Care Needs What Genius and Autism Have in Common //A study of eight child prodigies finds that share some striking characteristics, most notably high levels of autistic traits and an overrepresentation of autism in their close family members // The study found a few key characteristics these youngsters had in common. For one, they all had exceptional working memories — the system that holds information active in the mind, keeping it available for further processing. The capacity of working memory is limited: for numbers, for example, most people can hold seven digits at a time on average; hence, the seven-digit phone number. But prodigies can hold much more, and not only can they remember extraordinarily large numbers, they can also manipulate them and carry out calculations that you or I might have trouble managing with pencil and paper. Working memory isn’t just the ability to remember long strings of numbers. It is the ability to hold and process quantities of information, both verbal and non-verbal — such as, say, memorizing a musical score and rewriting it in your head. All the children in the study scored off the charts when tested on measures of working memory: they placed in at least the 99th percentile, with most in the 99.9th percentile. Surprisingly, however, the study found that not all of the prodigies had high IQs. Indeed, while they had higher-than-average intelligence, some didn’t have IQs that were as elevated as their performance and early achievements would suggest. One child had an IQ of just 108, at the high end of normal. There was something else striking too. The authors found that prodigies scored high in autistic traits, most notably in their ferocious attention to detail. They scored even higher on this trait than did people diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism that typically includes obsession with details.
 * <span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">By [|MAIA SZALAVITZ] **<span style="color: #e0e0e0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> | **<span style="color: #437ea1; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;">@maiasz **<span style="color: #e0e0e0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> | **<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">July 10, 2012 **<span style="color: #e0e0e0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> |

The full article is at [] = Using Brain Activity Patterns to Identify Autism in Kids as Young as 2 = <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">In a large new study, researchers at Boston Children's Hospital used EEG to identify specific patterns of brain activity that can distinguish children with autism.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> Read more: [|http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/26/using-brain-activity-patterns-to-identify-autism-in-kids-as-young-as-2/#ixzz20fsEkRym]

==<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 22px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">[|Can Autism Really Be Diagnosed in Minutes?] == <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> By [|BONNIE ROCHMAN]   <span style="color: #cc0000; display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> A Harvard researcher says he’s achieved exceptional accuracy in identifying autism by using just seven online questions and an evaluation of a short home video of the child, instead of conventional, face-to-face exams that can take hours. <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> Read more: [|http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/autism/#ixzz20fsxJNa2]

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/business/2013/01/03/pkg-pleitgen-germany-aspergers.cnn Video about German company that only hires Aspergers.