March 28, 2014
Issue 13, Volume 7
It's All About the Choices!     
          
Greetings and Happy Friday!

Please enjoy our weekly newsletter!
 
News Items:
  • Strategies for Teaching Common Core to Teens with Autism Show Promise
  • In the New York Times: Teaching Children to Calm Themselves
  • Harness of Hope Helps Mom's Son Walk for the First Time 
  • Oxytocin in the News in Two Research Studies
  • How the Brain Infers Structure, Rules When Learning Could Impact the Study of Learning Disabilities
  • Using Instagram for Therapy Inspiration? Here's a Tip to Make it Better!
  • CDC: 1 in 68 U.S. Children has Autism 
PediaStaff News
  • PediaStaff in the News: See PediaStaff at AOTA for New Career Opportunities
  • PediaStaff Placement of the Week: Milwaukee, Wisconsin!
Therapy Activities, Tips and Resources
  • Speech Therapy Activity of the Week: Consonant Digraph Garden
  • Instagram Post of the Week: OT Month Printable Poster
  • OT Resource of the Week:  A Great Blog is Back with a Great First OT Activity
  • Free App Alert: Social Emotional Exchange - $29.99 Down to Free

Articles and Special Features 

  • School Psychology Corner:  Compulsive Checking - Two Games to Help a Child Think Differently
  • Pediatric Therapy Corner:  Adventures in AT - Switch Accessible Websites
  • SLP Corner: Are You a Pseudoscientist?
  • Worth Repeating: Language is NOT Just Comprehension and Expression
  • Also Worth Repeating: My Journey as a Teenager on the Spectrum
Feel free to contact us with any questions about our openings or items in these pages. Have you discovered our RSS feed? Click on the orange button below to subscribe to all our openings and have them delivered to your Feed Reader!  Don't have an RSS Feed Reader set up? Sign up at Blogtrottr and have our blog posts delivered right to your email.

Have a great weekend and Take Care!

Heidi Kay and the PediaStaff Team





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Common Core and Autism in the News:  Strategies for Teaching Common Core to Teens with Autism Show Promise

[Source:  Medical News Today]

Scientists at UNC's Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) report that high school students with autism learn under Common Core State Standards (CCSS), boosting their prospects for college and employment. Newly published recommendations from FPG's team also provide strategies for educating adolescents with autism under a CCSS curriculum.

 

"The number of students with autism who enter high school settings continues to grow," said Veronica P. Fleury, lead author and postdoctoral research associate with FPG's Center on Secondary Education for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders. "Many educators may find that they're not prepared to adapt their instruction to meet both state standards and the diverse needs of these students."

 

 Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog

Self-Regulation in the News: In the New York Times: Teaching Children to Calm Themselves

[Source:  New York Times]

 

When Luke gets angry, he tries to remember to look at his bracelet. It reminds him of what he can do to calm himself: stop, take a deep breath, count to four, give yourself a hug and, if necessary, ask an adult for help.

 

Luke is 5 and he has been practicing these steps for half a year at school and at home, thanks to a program called Head Start Trauma Smart that currently serves some 3,300 children annually in 26 counties in Kansas and Missouri. "We used to have to do these steps four or five times a day," said Connie, his grandmother (who requested that I change her grandson's name and omit her surname). "Now we're down to four or five times a week."

 

Luke's difficulties stem from his earliest experiences. Before and after his birth, his parents regularly used drugs. His mother was unable to attend to him and his father was sent to prison shortly after his first birthday. Now he lives with his grandparents.

 
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog

Feel Good Story of the Week:  Harness of Hope Helps Mom's Son Walk for the First Time  

[Source:  ABC News Blog and the Daily Mail]

 

An Israeli mom of a child with cerebral palsy has invented a walking harness that changes the way special-needs kids navigate the world.  

Debby Elnatan designed a support harness to allow her wheelchair-bound young son Rotem to stand upright. By cinching the top of the harness to her own waist and slipping specially designed sandals on their feet, the device permits mom and child to walk together while keeping their hands free for other activities.


"When my son was 2 years old, I was told by medical professionals that he didn't know what his legs are and has no consciousness of them," Elnatan recently told the Daily Mail

 

 Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog

Oxytocin in the News:  in Two Research Studies 

 

Editor's Note:  Two articles about the role of oxytocin this week and how it may be responsible for/used in various treatments.  Fascinating that they are also finding it as a potential treatment for anorexia.

 

[Source:  Psych Central]  

 

New research from Australia links addictive behavior, such as drug and alcohol abuse, to the poor development of oxytocin, known as the "love hormone," in early childhood.

 

"We know that newborn babies already have levels of oxytocin in their bodies, and this helps to create the all-important bond between a mother and her child," said Dr. Femke Buisman-Pijlman from the University of Adelaide's School of Medical Sciences.

 

Read the Rest of this Article and a Second Study Summary Through a Link our Blog

How We Learn in the News:  How the Brain Infers Structure, Rules When Learning Could Impact the Study of Learning Disabilities 

[Source: Medical News Today]

 

In life, many tasks have a context that dictates the right actions, so when people learn to do something new, they'll often infer cues of context and rules. In a new study, Brown University brain scientists took advantage of that tendency to track the emergence of such rule structures in the frontal cortex - even when such structure was not necessary or even helpful to learn - and to predict from EEG readings how people would apply them to learn new tasks speedily.

 

Context and rule structures are everywhere. They allow an iPhone user who switches to an Android phone, for example, to reason that dimming the screen would involve finding a "settings" icon that will  

 

Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog

Social Media Tip:  Using Instagram for Therapy Inspiration? Here's a Tip to Make it Better! 

Ever get annoyed that you can't click on a link that we (or anyone) puts in their Instagram posts? Here is an easy Workaround Tip just for you!

  • From within Instagram, bring up the post that has the link you want to go to.
  • Scroll to the bottom of the post and bring up the 'more" menu represented by "..." at the bottom right.
  • Choose "Copy/Share URL". This will copy the internet address for this particular Instagram post to your clipboard.
  • Next, open your browser.   And paste the link you have copied in your search bar. Hit enter.   This will bring up the link to this Instagram post in your browser.
  • Now scroll down the post and select the URL of the link you want to visit using the method you use on your device to select text. (Press and hold brings up the text selection tool in iOS, click and drag selects on the computer and Android too I believe)
  • Select "Copy"
  • Go to the top of your browser and paste that URL into the search bar, and hit enter.  You will be on the page you want!

Voila!  Hope that helps!

Autism in the News:  CDC: 1 in 68 U.S. Children has Autism 

[Source:  CNN]

 

One in 68 U.S. children has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a 30% increase from 1 in 88 two years ago, according to a new report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This newest estimate is based on the CDC's evaluation of health and educational records of all 8-year-old children in 11 states: Alabama, Wisconsin, Colorado, Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas, Arizona, Maryland, North Carolina, Utah and New Jersey.

 

The incidence of autism ranged from a low of 1 in 175 children in Alabama to a high of 1 in 45 in New Jersey, according to the CDC.

 

Children with autism continue to be overwhelmingly male. According to the new report, the CDC estimates 1 in 42 boys have autism, 4.5 times as many as girls (1 in 189).

 

Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link on our Blog

PediaStaff in the News:  See PediaStaff at AOTA for New Career Opportunities  

[Source:  Baltimore (PRWEB) March 25, 2014]  

The staffing company will also be handing out their exclusive PediaStaff OT Thumballs at The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) conference. PediaStaff places Occupational Therapists in direct hire positions and also places contractors through the back-office services of Top Echelon Contracting, Inc.

PediaStaff,  a nationwide staffing company that focuses on the placement of pediatric and school-based clinicians, will once again be sharing career opportunities and useful tools at the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA's) 84th Annual Conference and Expo.  This year's conference will be held from April 3-6 at the Baltimore Convention Center. 

Featured Placement of the Week:  Milwaukee, Wisconsin  

'Congratulations to Erika K., SLP on her contract to cover a personal leave for the remainder of the school year for one of PediaStaff's clients in great Milwaukee, WI.

Speech Therapy Activity of the Week:  Consonant Digraph Garden  

[Source:  I Can Teach My Child]

 

Here is a fun, springy way to work on speech sounds!  Please Visit I Can Teach My Child and look at the entire blog post.  It was written for parents rather than speech-language clinicians,  it is very 'user friendly' and could be an excellent activity to send home with the kids as carryover work.

 

 Learn More About this Activity and See a Photo on our Blog

Instagram Post of the Week:  OT Month Printable Poster  

OT Month is just about here!  Get ready with this colorful door/wall sign from My Therapy Source!  Our friends on Instagram like enough that it is our "IG Post of the Week!"

 

Download the Poster Through a Link on our Blog

OT Resource of the Week:  A Great Blog is Back with a Great First OT Activity  

Many of you remember the Ping Pong Ball Match that I posted on the blog last year  and also featured on Instagram not too long ago.     That activity was created by Kristin Clewel who had shut down her blog for personal reasons.

Well, Kristin's terrific blog is back, and she has started it off with terrific bilateral motor activity that works tripod grasp, fine motor, visual motor, sequencing and praxis - "Spell It" - the Bilateral Block Tower.

 

Read the Rest of this Post and Check out 'Spell It' on our Blog

Free App Alert:  S.E.E (Social Emotional Exchange) From $29.99 to FREE!  

[Source: Smart Apps for Special Needs]

 

An app that helps children recognize emotions by looking at facial expressions has gone FREE in the lead up to Autism Awareness Day.   This app is usually $29.99

 

We are not sure how long this app will be FREE for so hurry up and download it now while you can!

 

Download this App Through a Link on our Blog

School Psychology Corner: Compulsive Checking - Two Games to Help a Child Think Differently

[Source: Special-ism]

Children who repeatedly check are often watchful of what's happening around them. They take care to make sure things are okay, which in itself is fine; but when carefulness develops into something more serious, it's time to step in.

 

Responsibility Awareness

Since children with obsessive checking symptoms often believe they are in a position to cause or prevent a dangerous outcome, they do not recognize that responsibility is shared with others. This altered judgement leads to taking on too much concern. Such safekeeping causes children to experience guilt, fear and high distress levels because their attentiveness outstretches them. Consequently, they will manage their broad sense of responsibility with corresponding ideas to find anxiety relief.


Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog


Pediatric Therapy Corner: Adventures in AT - Switch Accessible Websites

by Brittany Lehane, M.S, CCC-SLP

For a long time I didn't have many resources for switch users in my SLP bag of tricks. I've recently devoted more time to finding new websites that are switch accessible (can be controlled by a switch) and want to share them! The following websites have great free resources to use with kids or adults who are physically impaired. These sites are also great to use on a touch screen computer. Instead of using a switch to control the computer, the user can tap the screen (if they are able to). If not, then use a switch!

 

What is a Switch?
For anyone new to the world of switches, you need two basic things to start: a switch and a switch interface. The switch interface connects the switch to the computer (making it work!). Then, the user can hit the switch and make something on the computer happen, usually a video turns on or the student can take a turn in a game.

 

Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog


SLP Corner: Are You a Pseudo-Scientist?

by Mary Huston, CCC-SLP 

 

Unfortunately, I think the term fits many in our profession.

I didn't just tick you off did I?

 

This morning I listened to a CEU seminar speechpathology.com (SPC). It was titled Evaluating Science and Pseudoscience in Speech-Language Pathology #5499 for those of you with SPC accounts (and for those of you that don't have them...think about getting one. They are great - so many hundreds of sessions at your fingertips...ASHA CEUs just waiting to be taken. [But this is not a commercial for that site...no matter how good it is! Although if this post moves you to get an account - let me know and I'll happily give you a code you can use so I get a referral credit toward my renewal...or if you know someone else using it, ask them for one so they get credit. We can all share the wealth, so to speak]).

 

Anyway! Back to the session.

The seminar basically was all about the difference between true science and pseudoscience and how we tend to get caught up in pseudoscience. The session was led by Dr. Gregg Lof,who I have

 
Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog

Worth Repeating: Language is NOT Just Comprehension and Expression

[Source:  All Children's Academy]  

 

Often when we think of a child's communication skills we think of how well we understand the child's speech (intelligibility or articulation) and their language skills (receptive and expressive).  There are many components of language other than simply understanding and expressing commands, ideas, and concepts.  These other areas of language are very important to consider during an evaluation as a child gets older and progresses through school.  Language development continues throughout ones life and as we age the form, content, and use of language becomes increasingly important.  

The form and content of language are two of the three aspects of language.  The form of language refers to the structural aspect of language, otherwise known as grammar.  Grammar refers to the organization, placement, and relationship of the words used.  It is the "rules" that govern language, and is generally divided into two parts, syntax and morphology.  

Also Worth Repeating: My Journey as a Teenager on the Spectrum

[Source: Autism Speaks]

 

This guest post is by Brandon Conner and is part of an initiative on our site called "In Our Own Words: Living on the Spectrum," which highlights the experiences of individuals with autism from their perspectives. 

 

I was done finishing my last Accounting assignment for the week when my friend came up to marvel at what I had done. We began to draw up a conversation that eventually led to me saying to him, "I have autism." He replied, "There is no way you have autism. You're way too smart to have it." While I am used to hearing such stereotypes against people like me, I still felt emotional to the point where I almost yelled at him for saying it.

 

This was when I decided to make it my goal to get people to realize what is behind the skin of those who have been blessed with autism.  Autism is not what society calls a disorder, and I hope that those like me will not let other people's opinions about them force them to change.

 

Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link on our Blog

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