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June 22, 2012
Issue 20, Volume 5
It's All About the Choices!     
          
Greetings! 

Hope everyone is having a wonderful summer.  Please enjoy this week's newsletter offering.   
 
News Items: 
  • Evidence Behind Autism Drugs May Be Biased: Study
  • Wider Letter Spacing Helps Children with Dyslexia  
  • Growing Concern Over Concussions Among Youth Athletes
  • More Physical Education in Schools Leads to Better Grades, Study Suggests
  • Some Heavy Kids at Risk of Blindness, Study Says  
  • Orangutans at Miami Zoo Use iPads to Communicate  
  • Ohio Runner with Cerebral Palsy, 11 Becomes YouTube Hit 
Therapy Activities, Tips and Resources
  • App Review of the Week: Minimal Pair Pack and Odd One Out Apps 
  • Moebius Syndrome:  The Mystery Behind the Very Sweet Girl Who Can't Smile
  • Therapist Resource of the Week:  Best Books for Babies.org 
  • Summertime Sensory Activity: Ice Cube Painting

Articles and Special Features 

  • SLP Corner: Speech Therapy Ideas for Preschoolers
  • OT Corner: Horsepower from Within - How Horses Restore Strength and Spirit 
  • Pediatric Therapy Corner Q&A: What Are The Basic Features Of Rett Syndrome?
  • Worth Repeating: Worth Repeating: Social Skills Fuel Language Acquisition
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Have a great weekend and Take Care!

Heidi Kay and the PediaStaff Team





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Autism in the News:  Evidence Behind Autism Drugs May Be Biased: Study

[Source:  Reuters]

 

Doctors' belief that certain antidepressants can help to treat repetitive behaviors in kids with autism may be based on incomplete information, according to a new review of published and unpublished research.

The drugs, which include popular selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), are sometimes used to treat repetitive behaviors in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).   

 

"The main issue to emphasize is that SSRIs are perhaps not as effective at treating repetitive behaviors as previously thought. Further research will help confirm these findings in the long run," said Melisa Carrasco, the study's lead author, in an email.

 

Dyslexia the News:  Wider Letter Spacing Helps Children with Dyslexia
[Source:  Science Daily]

Increasing the spacing between characters and words in a text improves the speed and quality of dyslexic children's reading, without prior training. They read 20% faster on average and make half as many errors. This is the conclusion reached by a French-Italian research team, jointly headed by Johannes Ziegler of the Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive (CNRS/Aix-Marseille Universit�).

 

Read the Rest of this Article on our Blog
Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury in the News: Growing Concern Over Concussions Among Youth Athletes
[Source: Chicago CBS]

The headlines about concussions are everywhere these days; soldiers suffering traumatic brain injuries linked to concussions, or the speculation that football star Junior Seau might have committed suicide after suffering from them.

 

But, when it comes to protecting young players, sports organizations are being forced to change the way they view these injuries.

 

CBS 2's Rob Johnson and his family found that out first-hand.


 Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog
Physical Education in the News: More Physical Education in Schools Leads to Better Grades, Study Suggests
[Source:  Science Daily.com]

More physical education in schools leads to better motor skills and it can also sharpen students' learning ability. This is shown by Assistant Professor Ingegerd Ericsson at Malm� University in a unique study where she followed more than two hundred schoolchildren for nine years in Malm� in southern Sweden. The differences are especially clear among boys.

 

"The differences are significant between children who underwent expanded teaching in physical education and children who had regular instruction," says Ingegerd Ericsson.  

 

 Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
Visual Impairment in the News: Some Heavy Kids at Risk of Blindness, Study Says 
[Source:  Yahoo News]

Some overweight or obese children are at increased risk for a brain condition that can lead to blindness, a new study shows.

 

The risk of idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) - also called pseudotumor cerebri - is especially high in older white girls, according to the Kaiser Permanente researchers.

 

People with the condition have increased pressure around the brain that is not caused by other diseases. Symptoms include headache, blurred vision, nausea and eye movement abnormalities. Idiopathic intracranial hypertension can lead to blindness in up to 10 percent of patients, particularly if not diagnosed and treated promptly.

 

 Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
AAC in the News: Orangutans at Miami Zoo Use iPads to Communicate

[Source:  Wired.com]

 

The iPad is by far the most adored tablet in the human world. The numbers speak for themselves. But what you may not know is that members of the animal kingdom dig the 9.7-inch tablet too - particularly a clan of six orangutans at the Miami Zoo.

 

At the Miami Zoo's Jungle Island, handlers are interacting with orangutans using the iPad. The apes use the tablet to identify items they're familiar with, and express their wants and needs. This is done primarily through an app designed for autistic children that displays an array of object images onscreen.


 Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
Remarkable Kids with Special Needs in the News:  Ohio Runner with Cerebral Palsy, 11 Becomes YouTube Hit

[Source USA Today]

 

When John Blaine realized 11-year-old Matt Woodrum was struggling through his 400-meter race at school in central Ohio, the physical education teacher felt compelled to walk over and check on the boy.

"Matt, you're not going to stop, are you?" he encouragingly asked Woodrum, who has cerebral palsy.

"No way," said the panting, yet determined, fifth-grader.


Read the Rest of this Article and Watch the YouTube Video Through a Link on our Blog
App Review of the Week: Minimal Pair Pack and Odd One Out Apps
The following app reviews were written by Australian Speech/Language Pathologist Jess Langhorne. Thank you Jess for submitting these app reviews.

Minimal Pair Pack and Odd One Out are two handy applications bought to you from the clever folk at tboxapps. Tboxapps provide software and applications for Speech Pathologists, teachers and people with communication difficulties and disorders such as aphasia, autism and developmental language difficulties, and their specialty is AAC. A quick look at any of their products will reveal the deft touch in design and utility that comes from having both a Speech Pathologist and IT specialist in the mix!

Read this Article on our Blog
Resource of the Week: Moebius Syndrome: The Mystery Behind the Very Sweet Girl Who Can't Smile
I was going though my Google Alerts today and saw this article about a girl in Lubbock Texas with Moebius Syndrome which leaves children unable to squint, blink, frown, smile or form other facial expressions.  I thought it was timely to provide some resources on it here in this blog.

Read this Article on our Blog
Therapist Resource of the Week : Best Books for Babies.org 
Thanks to Reading Rockets for highlighting a Seattle Times article about this website:

[Source: Reading Rockets]

Choosing the best books for babies and toddlers is a fun - and important - job. But finding the best books for the youngest readers isn't always an easy task. For example, the winners of the Caldecott Medal, given annually to the best-illustrated book for children, often are books aimed at preschoolers or older children. Fortunately, there's the "Best Books for Babies" group. Comprised of librarians and other early-childhood experts, the group annually reads through hundreds of books before choosing the 10 best books for babies and toddlers.

Visit Best Books for Babies.org Through a Link on our Blog
Summertime Sensory Activity :  Ice Cube Painting

Here is a fun way to explore ice this summer as a sensory "craftivity" with your kiddos!


[Source:  First Palette.com]

 

Materials

  • Ice cube tray
  • Small plastic bowls
  • Plastic spoons
  • Food coloring
  • Scissors
  • Sketch paper
  • Craft sticks or disposable ice cream spoons

Read More About this Activity Through a Link on our Blog

SLP Corner: SLP Corner: Speech Therapy Ideas for Preschoolers

by: Sherry Artemenko M.A., CCC_SLP

 

One of the joys of having a blog is that I hear from people literally all around the world. Some are parents seeking advice for their children who have speech and language delays, some are students in grad school asking my opinion on a app they are developing or a grant they want to pursue, and some are fellow SLP's who have great suggestions, questions or just need a little encouragement. I got the following note that falls in the last category. I asked the sender if I could excerpt her note and include it on my blog in hopes that it would help others who might have the same questions.

 

 Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog

Occupational Therapy Corner: Horsepower from Within - How Horses Restore Strength and Spirit
By: L A Pomeroy

"People have a need to touch animals in order to connect with them," observes Dr. Temple Grandin, who was diagnosed with autism as a child but went on to earn a PhD in animal science from the University of Illinois and accept an associate professorship at Colorado State University. She has authored five books, including Animals in Translation, published in 2005, that explore and explain what life with autism can teach us about communicating with other species through resources other than language.

 

She compares autism's heightened sensitivity to stimulus as responses by animals whose senses - hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch - are more developed than our own. Her observations suggest that, emotionally and physically, when we touch horses, they can indeed touch us back.


 Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog

Pediatric Therapy Corner: Q&A: What Are The Basic Features Of Rett Syndrome?
Editor's Note:  This article was written for PediaStaff back in 2010 and we felt it was a good one to feature again!!

By: Ingrid Harding, Founder and President, Girl Power 2 Cure, Inc.


Rett Syndrome is a neurological/movement disorder which predominantly affects girls (approximately 1 in 10,000). Many attain developmental milestones from birth to age two or three, but then begin to regress. Others are slow to develop from birth. It affects all aspects of motor control. In addition, there are cardiac, respiratory, gastrointestinal and orthopedic concerns. Rett is considered a "full-spectrum" disorder with varying severity and phenotypes depending on the child's unique genetic makeup, specific mutation, and/or percentage of cells skewed to use the

 Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog

Worth Repeating - Worth Repeating: Social Skills Fuel Language Acquisition

by:  Meredith Meyer, Ph.D. and Dare Baldwin, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of Oregon

 

Introduction

From the instant infants greet the world, they are immersed in a rich social environment constructed and shaped by their parents, caregivers, siblings, and others. Language is one key medium through which social and cultural exchanges occur. Infants and children are exposed to meaning-relevant communication through face-to-face interaction as well as through observation of others' language use, and this communication is crucial for development of interpersonal understanding as well as learning about the world in general. Social processes fuel children's language acquisition, and the social bases underlying language acquisition are a central piece of the puzzle when investigating the acquisition process. We turn now to three specific questions shaping research regarding the social underpinnings of language acquisition.  


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