By Esq., Areva Martin Areva

Nationally recognized expert on autism advocacy Areva Martin shares her hard-won knowledge as a parent of an autistic child and an individual rights attorney. In The Everyday Advocate, she lays out vital and relevant step-by-step instructions to parents facing the seemingly impossible odds of advocating for a child with autism.

Parents need to become activists for their children’s rights to services and learn how to safeguard those rights-both in school and in the larger outside world. An invaluable resource, The Everyday Advocate offers practical, real-world actions that work, lists helpful websites and organizations, and gives parents and caregivers the emotional support they need as they face the challenge of successfully standing up for children with special needs.

Pub. Date: April 06, 2010
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Format: Hardcover, 336pp
Sales Rank: 306,608
ISBN-13: 9780451230218
ISBN: 0451230213

Source: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Everyday-Advocate/Esq-Areva-Martin-Areva/e/9780451230218/

Related story: Areva Martin on Dr. Phil

Part 1.

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By Paul Bibby | The Sydney Morning Herald

The internet services of two autism support organizations have been crashed by computer hackers and a third may also have fallen victim, raising fears of a targeted attack to coincide with autism month.

Autism Spectrum Australia (ASPECT), the country’s autism service provider, is losing hundreds of dollars in online donations each day after its website was hit by hackers early on Sunday.

The hackers closed web forums, a group email service and registration pages for events.

The codeword-restricted intranet site for the autism training organization Positive Partnerships was also hit.

Autism Victoria’s intranet service also went down.

The first two attacks were traced to IP addresses in the United States and experts said they appeared to be deliberate.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/hackers-hit-charity-donation-site-20100319-qmag.html

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Liane Sorenson

By Keith L. Martin | Insurance & Financial Advisor

Delaware is now among the growing number of states attempting to have insurance companies cover the diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorder.

Sen. Liane Sorenson (R-6th District) has proposed SB 204, requiring all individual health benefit plans to cover autism for those ages 21 and under.

The bill caps benefits at $50,000 per year for applied behavior analysis services, a widely used treatment method for children with autism mostly uncovered by insurance. The treatment is defined in the bill as using behavioral stimuli and consequences to produce socially significant improvement in human behavior.

“Treatment” covered under the proposed legislation includes habilitative or rehabilitative care, pharmacy care, psychiatric care, and therapeutic care.

The bill was sent to the Senate Finance Committee for a report to the full legislative body.

Missouri’s Senate passed a similar bill mandating coverage of autism spectrum disorders March 18, which now advances to the House for approval.

Virginia legislators proposed three autism bills during their recently convened General Assembly session, with all three measures failing to gain legislative approval.

Source: http://ifawebnews.com/2010/03/19/delaware-senator-proposes-insurance-mandate-for-treating-autism/

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The Missouri Senate has voted 26-6 to require some health insurance plans to cover treatment for autism.  (AP)

By Jason Noble | KansasCity.com

JEFFERSON CITY | Health insurance coverage of autism spectrum disorders would be required under legislation passed Thursday in the Missouri Senate.

The approval on a 26-6 vote shifts the bill to the House, which has passed similar legislation. To go into effect, one of the bills still must pass through both chambers and be signed into law by Gov. Jay Nixon.

But Thursday’s progress indicates broad support for an autism insurance mandate and greatly increases its chances of passage, lawmakers said.

“We’re on the road and we’re heading in a good direction,” said Rep. Dwight Scharnhorst, a St. Louis County Republican who sponsored the House version of the bill.

Nixon, a Democrat, has called the mandate one of his top priorities for the legislative session and lauded the Senate vote.

The House and Senate bills would require state-regulated health insurers to provide coverage for autism, a neurological disorder that affects communication and social interaction. The mandate would apply to about 40 percent of the private insurance market.

The differences between the House and Senate bills lie in the caps on coverage of behavioral therapy. In the Senate version, coverage would be capped at $55,000 a year for youths up to age 21. The House bill includes a $36,000 annual cap up to age 18.

Objections to the Senate bill revolved around its price tag.

Insurance companies have said a mandate will lead to higher premiums — with increases perhaps as high as 4 percent. Proponents of coverage have said other states that adopted the mandate have seen premiums rise less than 1 percent.

Both bills include an exemption for small businesses that can prove the mandate caused their premiums to rise more than 2.5 percent over a 12-month period.

The Senate bill is expected to cost the state as much as $29 million a year, due to a measure allowing Missouri residents to purchase insurance from neighboring states, which could avoid paying certain taxes.

Source: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/18/1822953/missouri-senate-approves-bill.html

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Dr. Kasia Chawarska

By Dr. Kasia Chawarska | Yale University

Dr. Kasia Chawarska covers the social disorders in infants and young children. The lecture covers the patterns of onset of autism in young children and the diagnosis, the syndrome expression and atypical face processing in toddlers with ASD.

Source: YouTube

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Piers Hopson, who has been missing for almost two months

By Richard Gladstone | Bexhill Observer – Bexhill News

The parents of missing St Leonards man Piers Hopson are taking part in a live TV appeal next Tuesday (March 23).

Roger and Dawn Hopson will join presenters in the studio on BBC 1’s Missing Live programme from 9.15am to 10am to talk about their son’s disappearance.

Mr Hopson, 35, has been missing from his home address in Southwater Road, St Leonards since January 25.

He was last seen in the Rock-a-Nore area of Hastings shortly after 4pm on the day he went missing.

DI Rob Morland, Hastings CID, said: “We have confirmed that Piers was in the Rock-a-Nore area on Monday 25 January and urge any local residents who may have seen him that day, or since then, to contact us immediately. Piers suffers from Aspergers, a form of autism, and can struggle to communicate with members of the public.

“If you find Piers and he is unwell, please call 999 immediately to request police and ambulance attendance. If he is safe and well, please contact Sussex Police on 0845 60 70 999, quoting Operation Airwolf, or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.”

Source: http://www.bexhillobserver.net/hastings-news/Missing-vulnerable-mans-parents-to.6164669.jp

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By Jenny Gastwirth | WCIA 3 News

CHAMPAIGN–To most 9 year-olds, vacuuming is about as appealing as doing the dishes. To Joseph McNamara, it’s pure joy.

The fourth-grader has autism and he’s likes cleaning his classroom. Friday was almost his last run. The vacuum he uses every day went kaput. His teacher knew she had to act fast. Within seconds, Joseph’s story spread to complete strangers. “I sent out a plea, an email plea asking anyone for an old vacuum cleaner that they may have laying around,” said Chrissy Miller.

Teresa Lee was was sitting at work in Urbana when she got the message. It was forwarded to her. She didn’t know the sender. “For whatever reason the email just struck my heart and I just had to do something quickly,” she said. That something landed Joseph a brand new vacuum the next day. Lee left it in the front office at Robeson Elementary.

Her one act of kindness is getting a big reaction. “It’s not loud,” said Joseph showing off his new prize. “It does not lose suction.” “It’s obviously very kind,” said his mom watching. “I think it’s wonderful that she was willing to step in that way.”

Margaret McNamara and Joseph’s teacher say what Lee, a stranger, has done for Joseph is a lesson they hope to share again. “Thank you,” said Chrissy Miller. “Thank you for touching the life of a child [and] showing kids in my classroom and other classrooms that there are people out there who care.”

Chrissy Miller lost count on how many people offered to donate.

You might wonder how the vacuum helps Joseph. Children with autism like repetitive action. His mom says he would do it all day long if he could.

Source: http://illinoishomepage.net/content/video/?cid=138531 (watch the video)

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Photograph by P.J. Salkovitch / Canadian Press

An exclusive excerpt from Douglas Coupland’s biography of Marshall McLuhan

by macleans.ca

“I knew going into it that this wasn’t going to be a straight biography,” says Douglas Coupland about his new study of Marshall McLuhan. What the Vancouver-based author has concocted instead is a historical mosaic that borrows heavily from McLuhan’s inimitable riffing style—that is, to dance non-linearly around ideas as a means of forming a distinct theory. Coupland also adds a healthy dose of his own literary signature to the mix—asides, like copies of online user-reviews of McLuhan’s works that appear in between chapters, seem at first glance peripheral to the subject at hand but later turn out to speak a distinct truth about it.

To be sure, this is still a biographical work. It’s just that, for Coupland, the things people already know about McLuhan—his famous phrases “global village” and “the medium is the message,” plus his cameo in Annie Hall—aren’t as interesting as, say, the great thinker’s biological and genetic makeup. And so, instead of analyzing McLuhan’s 1962 masterwork The Gutenberg Galaxy, Coupland investigates the brain that composed it.

Marshall McLuhan’s brain was fuelled by fresh blood from the heart through not one but two arteries at the base of his skull, a trait in the mammalian world found mostly in cats and rarely in human beings. As well, people in Marshall’s family tended to die of strokes. Marshall himself had countless small strokes during his lifetime—sometimes in front of a classroom of students, where he’d suddenly gap out for a few minutes and then return to the world.

Why mention this medical information? To establish that Marshall was not merely different but very different, and it wasn’t simply in the way he thought; rather, it was because of the biological mechanisms that made and allowed him to think what he thought.

Marshall exhibited throughout his life a certain sense of obliviousness about the physical world—he was the epitome of the absent-minded professor. He couldn’t drive a car. He tuned in and out of conversations with friends and strangers, and during classes he would ramble, seemingly unaware of those around him, clicking in and out of reality. Many people, when describing their encounters with him, say that with Marshall you had a few seconds to say your hellos or make your point, and after that he was back on Planet Marshall. And this is not to confuse obliviousness with cluelessness. Marshall had created a rich inner life. Why leave it if he didn’t have to?

Perhaps this disassociation, along with others of Marshall’s traits, should be placed on an autistic spectrum. For example, there was Marshall’s hypersensitivity to noise and sounds—loud and/or sudden and/or unwanted. The man disliked disruption of daily patterns. He disliked being touched or jostled. He loved ritual. He punned (punning is a form of disinhibition related to neural wiring in the brain’s limbic system). Marshall was also obsessed with words and memorization, and he was, it has been said, oblivious—not cripplingly so, but it did alter his ability to communicate in person in a way that, if nothing else, probably didn’t help him. Older people interpreted his obliviousness as arrogance; young people interpreted it as cool.

This is not to say that Marshall was autistic, or even a high-functioning Asperger syndrome autistic. But if he had any specific psychopathology, that would be the direction in which to look. He wasn’t depressive. He wasn’t schizophrenic. He wasn’t addicted to alcohol or anything else. He was, to an admirable degree, a happy man with a great family and career. But he did tend to be curiously and creatively oblivious. As his biographer Philip Marchand says, if he had a weakness, it was his inability to listen to speakers less forceful than he was. His forte, on the other hand, was talking tirelessly not only in brilliantly articulate sentences but whole paragraphs—a form of communication he much preferred to writing.

As Marshall aged, his eccentricities became more common and more pronounced. He had a massive collection of jokes and cartoons and loved sharing them with almost anyone in almost any situation—the sorts of corny things your parents email you that have a half-dozen FWD tags in the header. Marshall began his classes and his paid speeches with jokes and bad puns, partly because punning is a pathology and partly because starting an event this way unsettled the audience. Who is this guy? Is he for real? Is he on drugs? Oh, good God, these are the worst jokes I’ve ever heard. That pun was atrocious. This guy is nuts. And then he’d hit them with a wall of ideas, forcing them to challenge their basic assumptions, often alienating them, frequently disturbing them, and always leaving in his wake lots to talk about at the dinner table.

Most anyone who attended or audited his classes or went to any of his speeches will agree that Marshall became random quickly. He was tangential and self-contradictory, and could really piss people off. With his protective oblivious coating, it all bounced off him. He was out to stimulate people into making up their own minds and stimulating their own ideas, using his thinking as a catalyst. If they became wrapped up in a specific, it meant they’d lost sight of the big picture. He almost felt sorry for people who took him the wrong way.

There were underlying biological reasons for the acceleration of Marshall’s tics and eccentricities. Throughout the early 1960s he began to, for lack of a better word, freeze when in public, either teaching or in social situations. He’d be talking and then he would stop. His eyes would go blank, and then after a minute or two he’d continue where he had left off. It was disconcerting, and worried those close to him. Medically, there were three potential causes for these freezings: perhaps they were mini-strokes, or they may have been petit mal seizures (minor epileptic seizures), or they could have been related to a benign brain tumour the size of a lemon found in his brain later on in the 1960s. With each event, Marshall became a bit more of a prisoner of the wiring and plumbing of his head.

His blackouts became alarmingly frequent, but Marshall never wanted to give any indication of weakness, however slight. Finally, in the fall of 1967, his family broke through Marshall’s fortress of denial and begged him to get help. He went in for brain surgery on the morning of Nov. 25, 1967. The doctor exercised supreme caution, and Marshall’s surgery became, at that point, the longest recorded neurological surgery in medical history.

His family had braced themselves for all possible worst-case scenarios (paralysis, profound memory loss, retardation—a terrifyingly long list of possibilities). When Marshall woke up an hour after surgery, the surgeon asked him how he felt, and he replied that it would depend on one’s definition of “feeling.” He was back again—phew!—but he was back in reduced form. He had, in fact, lost swaths of memory; curiously, he had trouble remembering books he’d read many times over. He lived with staggering pain for months afterwards, and he lost some of his ability to be civil to colleagues and students. In addition, his hypersensitivity to noises, always high, became extreme.

Marshall had another health scare in 1971. An angiogram revealed that his carotid artery was blocked, but it was during the discovery of this that surgeons discovered his feline blood circulation: his external carotid artery (the artery that supplies blood to the face, scalp, and jaw) had formed huge connecting channels through the left base of his skull and inside his skull. Had it not been for his one-in-a-billion vascularization, Marshall’s brain would have been toast long ago. He considered this vascularization to be a miracle. Who’s to say it wasn’t?

On Sept. 26, 1979, he suffered a catastrophic stroke in his office. Marshall’s stroke left him unable to read, write, or speak. He could understand conversations but couldn’t participate verbally. The arteries that had blessed him had also cursed him. And, as happens with stroke victims, some verbal function remained: he could still sing hymns, and he was left with one signature phrase he could use when trying to speak. In his case, it was “Oh boy!”

Oh, the irony for Marshall. Words—the sound of them, the shape of their letter forms, their intricate relationship to each other, a relationship rendered industrial and homogenized by the printing press—were suddenly nothing but sounds with meaning, prehistoric noises with no means of being recorded or passed forward.

Well-meaning friends and family tried to retrain Marshall to read, but the neural damage was structural and too great. Devices like flash cards and Speak & Spell toys were tried, but to no avail. What seemed to make him happiest was to have visitors and friends come to read to him.

Source: http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/03/17/inside-mcluhan%E2%80%99s-head/

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By Skyhorse Publishing (April 1, 2010)

New information, therapies, and advice for every parent with an autistic child. For parents of children with autism, research is a full-time job. For parents with limited time, ability, or resources to do this, Ken Siri and Tony Lyons have compiled the latest in autism theory, research, and treatment. Cutting-Edge Therapies for Autism  contains contributions from more than eighty experts on a variety of therapies, models, and multifaceted evaluation and treatment centers. Each contributor gives the reader a basic description of the topic, including its scientific rationale, development, risks, and benefits. Siri and Lyons include the therapies of the future, focusing on current clinical trials, ongoing research, and the researchers striving to better understand autism and find new treatments.

Contributions include:

* Dr. James Adams on chelation
* Dr. Jeffrey Becker on vision therapy
* Dr. Marvin Boris on allergies
* Dr. Charles Chapple on CST
* Ms. Judy Chinitz on parasites
* Ms. Jenifer Clark on ABA and the future
* Ms. Meghan Collins on physical therapy
* Ms. Dorinne Davis on sound therapies
* Dr. Michael Elice on IVIG and PPAR agonists
* Dr. Alessio Fasano on probiotics
* Dr. Mark Freilich on psychopharmacology
* Dr. Richard E. Frye on mitochondrial dysfunction and AEDs
* Dr. Michael Goldberg on neuroimmune dysfunction
* Dr. Doreen Granpeesheh on CARD
* Dr. Lester Grinspoon on marijuana
* Dr. D. Grodberg, Dr. A. Kolevzon, & Dr. J. Buxbaum on the Seaver Autism Center
* Ms. Valerie Herskowitz on technology
* Dr. Devin Houston on enzymes
* Ms. Cindy Griffin and Ms. Lindyl Lanham on homeopathy
* Dr. James E. Jan on melatonin
* Mr. Markus Jarrow on OT/SIT
* Dr. Betty Jarusiewicz on neurofeedback
* Mr. Raun Kaufman on Son-Rise
* Dr. Arthur Krigsman on GI disease
* Ms. Mariah LeFeber on dance/movement
* Dr. Jaquelyn McCandless on LDN
* Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona on traditional healing and antifungals
* Dr. Frank Morales on stem cells
* Dr. James Neubrander on MB12 and HBOT
* Ms. Lavinia Pereira and Ms. Michelle Solomon on speech
* Dr. Sally Rogers on the Denver Model
* Dr. Harry Schneider on restoring language
* Ms. Karyn Seroussi & Lisa S. Lewis, PhD, on diets
* Dr. Louisa Silva on massage
* Dr. Fred Starr on Respen-A
* Dr. Theoharis Theoharides on novel therapies
* Dr. Lauren Tobing-Puente on parenting
* Dr. Gil Tippy on DIR/Floortime
* Ms. Ginny Van Rie & Dr. Juane Heflin on sensory therapy
* Dr. Amy Yasko on nutrigenomics

and many more!

Paperback: 528 pages
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1616080256
ISBN-13: 978-1616080259
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.6 inches

Source: Amazon

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By Hannah Wooderson | 24dash.com

Believed to the first document of its kind in the UK, Glasgow today launched its practical guide for Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) to support individuals, families and carers dealing with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Led by Glasgow City Council and a special sub group set up to look at housing issues associated with ASD sufferers, the 17-page good practice guide has been developed in conjunction with various housing associations and autism organisations and charities.

As part of the research for this project the housing needs and issues of Glasgow families with children with ASD were examined through a questionnaire. More than 280 responses were received providing a rich source of information on housing experiences and a chance to raise issues on housing provision, support and advice.

What the research results particularly highlighted was the low levels of awareness of ASD and its implications for housing needs amongst those who dealt with housing provision, across all tenures.

Responses also raised a number of other issues such as lack of separate bedrooms for children with ASD, lack of access to safe and secure gardens, access to funding for housing adaptations, problems with neighbours who don’t understand or appreciate the family’s circumstances and how needs change as the children develop.

Launched at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s annual conference in Glasgow, the guide will go to all RSLs with housing stock in Glasgow and will be downloadable from the Glasgow City Council website. It will be used as a training note with real life examples and practical solutions to them in meeting the needs of households with members with ASD.

The guide begins by explaining what ASD is and how these developmental, life long conditions can express themselves in different ways and levels of severity from subtle effects in social behaviour to the opposite end of the spectrum when someone’s condition may be so severe and disrupting that it makes it difficult for them to live independent lives.

The document also contains guidelines on legislative requirements and the Disability Discrimination Act, communicating with clients that have autism, how to support these tenants and sustain their tenancy, what can be done to adapt and maintain to meet their housing needs and requirements and further sources of information.

Councillor Graeme Hendry, from the Council’s working group on Autism Spectrum Disorder and housing issues, said: “These new guidelines will provide an invaluable resource to social landlords to provide a fully inclusive service to tenants and their families that live with autism.

“I hope they help ensure that these tenants are assigned suitable and sustainable homes and that local authority and socially rented housing providers around the country will also be able to use them.”

Minister for Housing and Communities Alex Neil said: “This is a great example of how colleagues in different organisations can combine their knowledge and expertise to prepare guidance that is helpful and supportive.

“The guide will raise awareness and provide support to housing providers, which will equip them to respond to the common problems experienced by people with this condition.”

Welcoming the introduction of the guide, Dr Robert Moffat, Regional Officer, from the National Autistic Society said: “The planning and provision of appropriate housing should be the cornerstone of a whole life approach to the needs of individuals, families and carers whose lives are touched by Autism Spectrum Disorder.

“The National Autistic Society in Scotland greatly welcomes the work that Glasgow City Council has put into creating this guide and we believe it will be of enormous benefit to housing professionals across Scotland.”

With this guide being the first of its kind in the UK, it is hoped that it can be replicated and built on by other local authority areas so that those individuals and families dealing with ASD can receive access to the appropriate housing and housing support.

Source: http://www.24dash.com/news/Housing/2010-03-16-Glasgow-launches-first-housing-guide-to-support-people-with-autism

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