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November 8, 2019
Issue 33, Volume 12
It's All About the Choices!
Greetings and Happy Friday!
Please enjoy our weekly newsletter.
News Items:
- Screen-Based Media Associated with Structural Differences in Brains of Young Children
- People With Autism May Have More Symmetrical Brains
- Gut Microbiome of Premature Babies is Associated With Stunted Growth
- The Fetal Brain Possesses Adult-Like Networks
- New Research Explains Why People with Down Syndrome Have Spatial Memory Problems
- Tylenol Use During Pregnancy Linked To Higher Rate Of Autism
PediaStaff News and Hot Jobs
- Hot, New Job! Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) - Rockville, MD
- Hot, New Job! School-Based Occupational Therapist - Sacramento, CA
- Hot, New Job! Special Education Teacher - Chicago, IL
Therapy Activities, Tips and Resources
- Thanksgiving Color by Part-of-Speech
- Visual Perceptual Printables for Thanksgiving - Freebie!
- Free Printable: Thanksgiving Cootie Catcher
- 48 Free "Would You Rather Cards" for Pragmatic Language
Articles and Special Features
- Focus on Bilingualism & Multiculturalism: Encountering Different Cultures in the Workplace
- Pediatric Therapy Corner: 13 Kids Books to Spark Conversations About Empathy
- Worth Repeating: How Birds and Babies Learn to Talk
- SLP Corner: The Effectiveness of Language Facilitation
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
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Have a great weekend and Take Care!
Heidi Kay and the PediaStaff Team
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The Career Center
The links to the right are "live" and reflect the most recent SLP, OT, PT and related assistant jobs, and ALL our Bilingual and School Psychology Jobs.
To further narrow your search by state,
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Screen-Based Media Associated with Structural Differences in Brains of Young Children
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[Source: Science Daily]
A new study documents structural differences in the brains of preschool-age children related to screen-based media use.
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The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, shows that children who have more screen time have lower structural integrity of white matter tracts in parts of the brain that support language and other emergent literacy skills. These skills include imagery and executive function - the process involving mental control and self-regulation. These children also have lower scores on language and literacy measures.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
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People With Autism May Have More Symmetrical Brains
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[Source: Psych Central]
A new study in the journal Nature Communications finds that people with autism have more symmetrical brains.
Research has shown that the left and right halves of our brains develop differently, as each hemisphere specializes in certain functions. For example, in most people, the left hemisphere, which controls the right hand, is dominant for language.
However, natural brain asymmetry is sometimes affected in people with developmental or psychiatric disorders such as autism, a condition characterized by impaired social cognition, repetitive behavior and restricted interests.
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Gut Microbiome of Premature Babies is Associated With Stunted Growth
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[Source; Medical X-Press]
The more abnormal the microbiome in NICU infants, the more likely they are to experience stunted growth even at 4 years of age. While the growth stunting of premature infants has been well known, the role of the microbiome has not been investigated. The effects of the gut microbiome on this growth faltering were just revealed at the World of Microbiome Conference in Milan, Italy, the culmination of a five-year, $2.7 million study funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
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The Fetal Brain Possesses Adult-Like Networks
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[Source: Medical X-Press]
The fundamental organization of brain networks is established in utero during the second and third trimesters of fetal development, according to research published in JNeurosci. The finding lays the groundwork for understanding how the prenatal period shapes future brain function.
The brain functions as a complex network of regions that communicate with each other, known as the functional connectome. During fetal development, the functional connectome begins to take form as early as the late second trimester of pregnancy.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
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New Research Explains Why People With DS Have Spatial Memory Problems
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[Source: Medical X-Press]
Professor Juan Lerma's group, from the UMH-CSIC Institute of Neurosciences, in Alicante (Spain), has identified the gene called GRIK1, fundamental in the balance between excitation and inhibition in the brain, as one of the causes for people with Down syndrome having spatial orientation problems.
The GRIK1 gene is located on chromosome 21, which is triplicated in people with Down syndrome, who therefore have a higher of dose of many genes. This particular gene plays a very important role in communication between neurons, regulating the release of the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, called GABA.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
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Tylenol Use During Pregnancy Linked To Higher Rate Of Autism
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[Source: Disability Scoop]
Exposure to acetaminophen in the womb may have some connection with a child's risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and autism spectrum disorder, suggests a new study published this week in JAMA Psychiatry.
But experts caution that it is too soon to tell pregnant women not to use the over-the-counter painkiller, better known as Tylenol.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
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Ever wonder what it would be like to live in one of the best places in the country? Once again, Money Magazine has named Rockville, MD one of the top 50 cities in the United States to live and work. We have a need for a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) to provide therapeutic ABA services to clients in their natural environments in the Rockville area.
Learn About / Apply for This Job on our Blog |
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We are seeking an Occupational Therapist for the gorgeous Sacramento area. You will work 20 minutes south of Sacramento with elementary through high school-aged children.
* We need an Occupational Therapist to start as soon as possible and work for the remainder of the school year
* OT will work 7.5 Hours per Day; Monday-Friday
* OT will service multiple sites in a small community
* Enjoy an Excellent School District with a supportive team.
Learn About / Apply for This Job on our Blog |
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A Short term LBS1 teaching position has opened in the vicinity of North Chicago near Ravenwood. We need an LBS1 Special Education teacher that can work with severe and profound emotionally disturbed students in 2nd-5th grade.
* You would start this position ASAP and work through the end of this school year, June 17, 2019
* You will be working the hours of 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Monday through Friday
* You will primarily be working with a population with emotional disturbance and a few other health impairments
* The student to teacher ratio is 10:2 at this day school including a full-time teacher and a teacher assistant
Learn About / Apply for This Job on our Blog |
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Thanksgiving Color by Part-of-Speech
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Source: Square Head Teachers]
Here's a fun twist on practicing parts of speech that came to me (*last minute*) the other day, but I thought I'd share it with you anyway... I combined the "color by number" idea with some basic parts of speech skills and ta-da! Hidden turkey just waiting to be revealed!
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog |
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Visual Perceptual Printables for Thanksgiving - Freebie!
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[Source: Your Therapy Source]
This freebie challenges visual perceptual skills with a Thanksgiving theme. Practice visual motor, visual discrimination, visual spatial, visual closure and overall visual perceptual skills with these printables. Print off multiple copies for your students and your activities are ready to go for fine motor centers in the classroom, visual motor skill practice, special education classrooms, early finishers and/or handwriting warm ups.
Read the Rest of this Post / Download the Freebie Through a Link on our Blog |
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Free Printable: Thanksgiving Cootie Catcher
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[Source: Bren Did]
Gratitude or thankfulness is a skill that can be learned through repetitive behavior. This free gratitude activity for kids is an easy way to practice thankfulness with your kids. Plus kids love the fun folded paper cootie catchers / fortune tellers.
Read More and Download this Freebie Through a LInk on our Blog |
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48 Free "Would You Rather Cards" for Pragmatic Language
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[Source: The Measured Mom]
Thank You to
Smart Apps for Special Needs for recommending these great, free "Would You Rather" conversation starter cards on the
Measured Mom blog. These cards are perfect for carryover pragmatic language work , reasoning, and conversation practice and are ideal for long car rides and vacations!
Read More and Download this Freebie Through a LInk on our Blog |
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Focus on Multiculturalism: Encountering Different Cultures in the Workplace
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By Ana Paula G. Mumy, MS, CCC-SLP
I recently printed off a Thanksgiving Mad Lib page to try out with a couple of my clients. I made the mistake of not reading it in its entirety before beginning the activity with one of them. As we went along generating adjectives, nouns, and verbs to fill in the blanks, it became clear that the "typical" Thanksgiving meal experience was atypical to her.
The "cook and bake all day-gather around the table-enjoy food and fellowship" experience that is common to us was not at all a relatable scenario for this child. Watching Thanksgiving Day Parades and football games on TV was also foreign...her response, "We don't watch TV!" A more accurate statement would
probably have been, "We don't have a TV!" No matter how
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Peds Tx Corner:
13 Kids Books to Spark Conversations About Empathy
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Lately, it seems like every other day, we turn on the news or open up our social media to find that another tragedy has occurred. Each time we're faced with these events, we may be overcome with sadness, frustration, and hopelessness. But in these times, it's important to have conversations with the children around us about inclusion and empathy.
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Worth Repeating:
How Birds and Babies Learn to Talk
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[Source: The New Yorker]
Few things are harder to study than human language. The brains of living humans can only be studied indirectly, and language, unlike vision, has no analogue in the animal world. Vision scientists can study sight in monkeys using techniques like single-neuron recording. But monkeys don't talk.
However, in an
article published today in Nature, a group of researchers, including myself, detail a discovery in birdsong that may help lead to a revised understanding of an important aspect of human language development. Almost five years ago, I sent a piece of fan mail
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SLP Corner:
Effectiveness of Language Facilitation
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[REPOSTED from an article she wrote for us in 2015]
by Becca Jarzynski, M.S. CCC-SLP
A while back, I posted on the ABCs of ABA
Within that post, I described the basics of ABA, a method of therapy that I believe is often a bit misunderstood. I also promised to follow that post with a more thorough description of the shades of grey that exist within the broader field of ABA.
Before I do that, though, I want to touch on the effectiveness of an approach that often seems to be the very opposite of ABA: indirect language stimulation. And before I do that (hang with me here), I'm going to briefly explain the idea of a
continuum of naturalness that exists within the field of speech-language therapy. This term was first coined by Fey in 1986, and I think it is a wonderful way to help us wrap our minds around the variables that exist when we think about the various methods of therapy.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link on our Blog
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