Happy New Year to everyone!  We thought it might be fun to start the year with new weekly feature - Meet the Staff.   Each week we will introduce you to a staff member here at PediaStaff so you can put our names with our faces and roles here.

Since I am most visible to you here on the blog, (and because I need to give the staff time to get some pretty pictures made), let's go ahead and start with me!

By: Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

It's an oft-repeated and erroneous stereotype that autistic people lack empathy.
 

When I hear another iteration of this myth, I have an immediate, visceral reaction that combines impatience at its perpetuation with a keen understanding of its power to wreak havoc on the lives on autistic people. When it comes to our ability to find partners, to form friendships, to be welcomed in community, and to find work - particularly in the helping professions - this myth can have a devastating impact. It's one of the main reasons that so many autistic people remain in the closet, living their entire lives in fear of exposure.
 

Ironically, in the face of the myth of nonexistent autistic empathy, I have an intensely empathetic response. I intuitively recognize the potential for harm and suffering to millions of people, and I feel grief, anger, and a powerful need to speak to the issue.

From time to time, the ASHA School Services team is asked by members for guidance in writing Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals and objectives. To answer these questions, the School Services team asked ASHA members across the country if they would share their IEP resources allowing us to post guidance given by their states or their districts or a link to where useful information can be found. Many districts rely on their state department of education for instructions about how to write the IEP. Some states provide sample forms and include benchmarks and short-term objectives as well as suggestions for accommodations. Others include state standards and corresponding speech goals and objectives.

Sensory processing disorder covers a wide variety of sensory impairments, one of which is dyspraxia. Children with dyspraxia are typically uncoordinated and clumsy due to deficits in processing sensory information. Physical therapists provide services to these children to improve muscle tone, balance, coordination and praxis (motor planning).