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AUTISM FIRST STEPS
AUTISM DAILY NEWSLETTER
Thursday December 20, 2001
INDEX:
* Lack of Qualified
Teachers Undermines State Reforms
* CHERAB Foundation will be filmed for a half and hour news show
* Release for a 'caged animal'
* University seeks to buy building off campus to house child agency
* PhRMA Survey Finds 176 Medicines In The Pipeline For Neurological
Diseases
* NEW PICTURE OF INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS THE OVERLOOKED ROLE
OF VISUOSPATIAL ABILITIES
******************************
Lack of Qualified Teachers Undermines State
Reforms
By DUKE HELFAND, TIMES
STAFF WRITER
California's
multibillion-dollar effort to improve its schools is being threatened by
expanding legions of unprepared teachers with little or no training, state
educators say.
The troubling predicament is underscored by a report to be released today that
shows the numbers of uncredentialed teachers climbing steadily in the state
over the last four years.
More
than 42,000 teachers who lack full credentials now staff California classrooms,
up from about 34,000 in 1997. Uncredentialed teachers account for 14% of the
work force, with the bulk concentrated in the lowest-performing schools.
Students whose schools are at the bottom of the state's performance
ratings--generally minority children from families with little money--are five
times more likely than peers at higher-ranked schools to have an uncredentialed
teacher. Over the last five years, California has begun some of the country's
most aggressive efforts to improve its public schools. But education experts
are virtually unanimous in saying that the quality of teachers is the single
most important factor in raising student achievement.
"Student success in school is teacher-dependent," said Margaret
Gaston, co-director of the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, the
Santa Cruz-based group that issued the new report.
Currently in California, "those children who need a fully prepared and
effective teacher the most are the children who are most likely not to have
one," she said.
Researchers from the center say California is "quickly
institutionalizing" a system in which the least trained teachers go
disproportionately into schools with the neediest children. That leaves new
instructors to learn their craft on the fly at precisely the time that the
state's education reform plans put pressure on failing schools to improve.
Programs Aim to Ease Teacher Shortages
"We have not kept up the educational infrastructure. We are reaping the
results of our neglect," said Jeannie Oakes, a UCLA education professor
and a leading authority on teacher preparation. "Now we're paying the
price. We're not going to solve the problem until we have qualified teaching
staffs," she said.
Oakes was among leading educators who oversaw the report, which was sponsored
by several California think tanks and research organizations.
In the last two years, the state has implemented several new programs designed
to ease the teacher shortage--doling out recruitment bonuses, loan assistance
and other aid to people who agree to teach in low-income schools.
State officials say that while it is too soon to see the fruits of those
efforts, they will help over time.
"Our challenges are great," said state Education Secretary Kerry
Mazzoni. "We are working hard. The news is good about what's happening in
California's schools."
The authors of the new report offer a more pessimistic assessment, suggesting
that the situation will worsen as the state struggles to hire 195,000
additional teachers over the next decade to keep up with attrition, surging
enrollments and retirements.
Good Intentions but Little Experience
The state's only recourse, the analysts say, will be to continue sending waves
of people into classrooms with good intentions but little background.
Alex Bodnar is a case in point.
Bodnar, 26, was selling camera equipment on the Third Street Promenade in Santa
Monica before he became a teacher last summer.
Now he presides over 20 kindergartners at Cahuenga Elementary School in Los
Angeles. He attends classes five night a week in an exhausting routine that
will eventually result in a teaching credential.
"I never experienced working with little children before," Bodnar
said of his six months as a teacher. "I didn't know that kindergartners
didn't know their alphabet."
Bodnar has a bachelor's degree in fine arts and interactive multimedia from
USC--a background that offers little help in his new job where he is trying to
teach phonics to 5-year-olds.
"I do feel a bit of guilt because I'm not as experienced as the other
teachers," he said. "It's very tough."
The job will get even tougher as California continues to phase in its new
school accountability system. The program is designed to dole out rewards to
schools with rising test scores but punish low-performing schools that founder.
One possible sanction is to transfer teachers from failing schools to other
campuses.
Such schools will be hard- pressed to improve--partly because they are staffed
by so many inexperienced teachers, critics say. Reversing the trend is particularly
difficult in hard-to-staff urban schools with bleak working conditions and a
scarcity of accomplished staff, according to the new report.
Given the demand for new teachers, those with full credentials generally can
move to districts with less difficult schools.
State education officials acknowledge a "crisis" in the supply of
qualified teachers and concede that the shortage strikes hardest in schools
with mostly minority children.
The number of uncredentialed teachers in California rose steadily after the
state began reducing the size of elementary school classes about five years
ago.
Reduction in class sizes increased demand for teachers and outstripped the
ability of universities to produce credentialed teaching candidates. That
forced school districts to hire thousands of instructors with little or no
training. The new staffers would teach full-time and earn their degrees in
"intern" programs at night and on weekends.
That ad hoc system represented a sharp departure from the state's prevailing
method for training teachers, who traditionally attended yearlong credentialing
programs on university campuses before taking on classrooms of their own. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-000098650dec12.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dcalifornia
******************************
CHERAB Foundation will be filmed for a half and
hour news show
On January 10th at 4:00 a few of us
from the CHERAB Foundation will
be filmed for a half and hour news show. (This is outside of the 2
documentaries I've posted about already) This 1/2 hour program is
scheduled to air on January 14th.
I spoke to this new producer again today and she told me that they
have scheduled for one or two professionals from CHERAB, in addition
to showing the parent - child aspect as well. Cheryl Bennet Johnson
SLS MA/Educational Consultant (CHERAB's award winning teacher!) will
be one of the professionals interviewed and she will speak about the
educational challenges of a child with a speech disorder. If Dr.
Agin is able to make it from NY she can talk about the importance of
Early Intervention. I will talk about what it's like to not have
local support -the importance of awareness -and why I started a
support group and then nonprofits. They want to also interview a
child with apraxia as well. I told her I didn't want the child or
children there with us while we were discussing what apraxia is. She
agreed: The children will be in the green room watching Nickelodeon
or something and will not hear the other 25 minutes of the program -
they will only be on the air for about 5 minutes towards the end -
this is just to show the viewers that children with speech disorders
like apraxia can look just like any other child.
They want to film my 5 year old apraxic son Tanner, but since he as
well as it seems most of the children in the NY area are on ProEFA or
another EFA - are on ProEFA, they are not be the best examples of
an apraxic child for a number of reasons (amount of sounds, words,
inflections, willingness to talk, etc.) Is there anyone that is
part of this group from the NY area that has a child with apraxia that
is NOT supplemented that would like to help raise awareness
about our special "late talkers"?
We will be having a "get to know you" support meeting hosted by
Cheryl Bennett Johnson SLS/MA Educational Consultant at Children's
Specialized Hospital right before the filming date of January 10th.
The meeting will be on January 7th from 7 to 8:30 PM. If you are
interested-maybe we can arrange to meet your child before or after
the meeting? Please email me if you are interested at
lisa@kiddietalk.org or leave me a message at 908-626-KIDS.
The air date for this is coming up even faster than
the other documentaries-just a few weeks away!! In addition
to airing on TV -I was told that you will be able to watch the entire
show on the Internet!
Please let me know when you have a chance if this interests you!
Thank you for everyone that contacted me about the documentary to be
filmed before and after ProEFA -I've passed on an "overwhelming"
amount of names already and I know that they have spoken to some of you
(and met with you Marci in NYC!) They are still looking for more school
lunch menus however- I'll repost that info soon!
Lisa Geng
President CHERAB Foundation
Communication Help, Education, Research, Apraxia Base
http://www.apraxia.cc
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/childrensapraxianet
908-626-KIDS
732-871-6013 VM
"Help give our cherubs a smile and a voice"
******************************
Release for a 'caged animal'
INTERVIEW BY VALERIE GROVE
Nita
Jackson was bullied at school for being a 'weirdo'. Since finding out that she
has Asperger's syndrome, the 18-year-old has found new purpose by writing a
book and staging a play.
Nita
Jackson, an Essex girl with Asperger’s syndrome, looks perfectly normal: in
trousers and a baseball cap, with curtains of Pre-Raphaelite hair. Today she is
talking in an American accent, challenging me to identify which exact city. It’s
Sacramento, pronounced Sacramenno. She sounds like a character from Friends.
“Oh Gahd, erase (pronounced erace) that please.” But some days she is from
Glasgow or more often Belfast: one of Nita’s obsessions is Northern Ireland. “I
don’t like what goes on there, but I like the accent,” she says in broad Ulster
with a touch of Ian Paisley. “It doesn’t make you popular.” On the face of it,
although Nita is 18, she could pass for a bright, precocious 13 — mouthy,
attention-seeking, show-offy, an indulged only child who interrupts to shout
“Nita, Nita” if her mother dares to call her Anita. But since she was told that
she had Asperger’s, three years ago at 15, all her behavioural peculiarities
have been explained. Like never making any friends, and being mocked at school
as a weirdo. Yet this belated diagnosis has seemingly given her direction and
inspiration. She has had a play staged, at a theatre in Chelmsford, Essex, and
now an autobiographical book — wittily entitled Standing Down, Falling Up
— is due out next year. Autism covers a vast spectrum of conditions, and
Asperger’s people are at the high-performing end. The National Autistic
Society’s Prospect employment programme propelled Nita towards the theatre, and
by good fortune a young group of actor-dramatists called The Hens were seeking
work by disabled people. Her play, Detained, started with three
characters in a lunatic asylum “but I had to adapt the loonies to be children
or psychiatrists or old people at the bus stop. It’s a sketch-show sitcom about
mundane things that happen to them, blown out of all proportion into insane
things. And the conversation that lunatics have, and can get away with because
they’re insane.” The sketches question what is insanity, what is normality? She
can’t wait for BBC2 or Channel 4 to buy her sketches and hail her as the next League
of Gentlemen (her chief inspiration) or the next Fast Show, “or
rather, I’ll be the next me”. I am sure she is right. Her mother,
Carolann, sitting behind Nita in their 18th-century cottage, explains that her
daughter is “very good one-to-one”, but entirely at sea in a crowd. Like many
people. But why the convincing American accent? “I hate the Essex accent,” she
says. “It represents all the bad things and the bad times for me.” Horrible time
in school? “Yeah.” Her mother takes over. “I speak on behalf of all parents of
Asperger’s children. Because they are clever, they are not considered to have a
disability: it’s invisible and unrecognised. You are just told that their
behaviour is ‘inappropriate.’ “At school she was bullied and ostracised,
isolated from her peer group. That’s the problem in mainstream schools. They
said the bullying was in her imagination. They said it was the way I was
bringing her up, and accused me of ‘lack of structure’. Most Asperger’s parents
get that. “I was exhausted by her bizarre behaviour, and I’d heard of infantile
schizophrenia, so I phoned Junior Mind. And within five minutes I knew what it
was. She has the autism ‘triad of impairment’: of social communication, of
relationships and of imagination.” I ask Nita about the accents that she so
likes slipping into. Isn’t that imaginative? “That doesn’t mean I’m becoming
another person.” Her mother says : “She puts on a face to meet the faces that
you meet, as Eliot put it. Asperger’s children become actresses.” “Exactly,”
the girl says. “I’ve always been an actress. Sometimes I talk like I was
reciting from a script. It’s virtually flawless. You know Twin Peaks?
There’s this dwarf guy who speaks backwards but you think he’s speaking
forwards. That’s me when I try to speak neurotypical.” (Neurotypical — having a
normal brain.) Carolann says she knew from the start that Nita was a totally
different baby. “Nita No-friends,” says Nita. “She could never join in. When
other children were dressing up, she would wander around on her own. It was
heartbreaking. Her social interaction didn’t work. There was no eye contact.
And she didn’t want to be touched or cuddled or held. Holidays were torture:
trying to get a friend to come with us.” Nita interrupts: “Do you like my
mascot. Mr Big? It’s a yellow, fleecy, smiley face. I collect smileys. I have
hundreds and he is the biggest. All Asperger’s I know collect things. Sorry for
that interruption. Inner calm, inner calm. “Toys took the place of friendships.
I was the manufacturer’s dream, obsessed with Barbie dolls and My Little
Ponies.” She did her GCSEs at home, with the help of individual tuition, under
which she blossomed. “They tolerated my little abnormalities.” She achieved six
with top grades. Then she did A levels, dropping two of them (“I always fall
short of my dreams”) but getting an A in English and a B in business studies.
She dropped out of her university, a former poly. “I was bullied there, too.
People are so childish; they don’t really grow up until they finish their
education. The teachers did everything they could. It was the students’
intolerance. They want everyone to conform. I’m out of the ordinary. I dress
differently. I like fluorescent colours.” She is dressed today like every other
teenager: in dark and dinge. “But I’ve got outfits that you wouldn’t believe,”
she says. “I go out looking like a circus freak. I’m very in your face. I tried
being nice to people but they just say Uh! And Guys! and Excuse ME! and Hello!
and WHAT are you wearing?” She pulls mad faces: cross eyes, lolling tongue. She
says she stalked a radio star when she was 13. “I fancied him rotten. I sent
him three e-mails a day. I would leave insane messages on his answerphone,
saying that I’d kill myself if he didn’t fall in love with me.” As soon as she
heard about Asperger’s syndrome, she read everything written on it and realised
that she was a textbook case. (Little or no social skills, repetitive
behaviour, lack of understanding of the world, inability to make or keep
friends, obsessive personality, rudeness — unintentional, key talents such as
painting, music, maths.) “I say all the wrong stuff and people look at me as if
I was a weirdo. It’s a world lived through all the images and fantasies of the
movies and TV that I watch. I never go out. People back off, and when they’ve
turned away, it’s hard for them to come back again. “I hate to categorise, I
prefer to think of people as individuals, but I don’t fit in with any
particular crowd, even with eccentric people, the arty crowd.” Her father, who
is in the music business, commutes daily to Notting Hill, in West London. “My
father is Asperger’s, too,” says Nita. He is not, says her mother. “He’s a
loner, and he likes order, but he’s not Asperger’s.” For Carolann, life is
centred on her daughter and the people she meets through running SAFE — Support
for Asperger’s Families in Essex. Nita has tried working in the real world: in
tele-sales (double- glazing) and waitressing. She got bullied again and then
sacked. “They all thought that I was weird and they would snigger when I came
in.” Her mother vouches for this — she says that she saw it happen. Nita says:
“I’d like to work in a team. But they don’t seem to like me. I want to get on
with people. I’m sociable. At least, I try to be sociable, I try to be nice,
and I just come over as a bit too desperate to make friends. Before my
diagnosis I was scared. Now I want to talk to people but I get disheartened
after a few hours.” She is widely read: loves Iain Banks, Tolkien, the Narnia
books, Harry Potter, Shakespeare. “I fell in love with Falstaff. And Caliban.”
She wants to be an actress. I can see her in some kind of theatre, working
creatively. I asked Nita that if she were writing for The Times Christmas
Appeal for the National Autistic Society, what would she say? She embarked on a
lengthy, graphic evocation: “Think of an eternity in black and white, divided
from the outside world. Like a caged animal in the zoo.” The following day I
was told that she had withdrawn into a depression. But I think we may hear more
of Nita Jackson.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,72-2001582123,00.html
******************************
University seeks to buy building off campus to
house child agency
By GREG BOLT
A University of Oregon agency that helps more than 1,000
special needs children a year would get a new home off campus if state board
members approve the purchase of a former title company office for almost $1
million.The 8,600-square-foot building at 299 E. 18th Ave. would allow the
agency - known as EC CARES - to unite programs under one roof that are now
housed at four separate locations. The Oregon State Board of Higher Education
will consider the request at its meeting Friday in Portland.Under the proposed
sale, the UO would pay $850,000 plus closing costs for the two-story office
building that once housed a title company office. The university will seek
$664,000 in state bonds and will contribute $300,000 from its own budget, which
includes $114,000 to cover deferred maintenance needs.EC CARES - which stands
for Early Childhood Coordination Agency for Referrals, Evaluations and Services
- now pays about $39,000 annually for its four locations.Debt service on the
15-year bonds would boost that to $67,000 per year, but an Oregon University
System staff report on the requested purchase said the agency - which has grown
9 percent a year for the past five years - can afford the payments.The bonds
will be repaid using revenue the agency already earns designing individual
educational programs for children with developmental delays or disabilities.
Federal law requires states to provide a "free and appropriate"
education to children with special needs, and EC CARES receives the money to do
that through the state and federal governments.The agency helps about 1,200
Lane County children a year - including those with autism, cerebral palsy and
physical impairments - and is believed to be the only university-run program of
its kind in the nation. The UO works with the Lane Education Service District
to provide services at no cost. EC CARES is part of the UO College of
Education. Martin Kaufman, dean of the college, said bringing the scattered
program together in one building will make it easier and more convenient for
families receiving services as well as for the staff providing them."We
think there'll be more synergies for them and more efficiencies they can
achieve if we can get them together under one roof," Kaufman said.The
agency looked for space on campus, but was stymied by the already-cramped
quarters for the College of Education and an overall campus space crunch
brought on by a record-high enrollment. That forced it to look off campus, and
the 18th Avenue property will meet space needs while being only five blocks
from campus.The deal is expected to close by the end of January if all
conditions are met, including approval by the state board.The building will
offer space for offices, meeting rooms and client consultations. With a staff
of about 100 and partnerships with numerous other community agencies, EC CARES
serves children from birth to school-age, offering screening and evaluations;
speech and physical therapy; parent education and support; vision and hearing
serves; and specially tailored instruction. More than 30 graduate and
undergraduate students from the UO also gain practicum experience with the
program.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/20011218/1d.cr.uobuilding.1218.html
******************************
PhRMA Survey Finds 176 Medicines In The Pipeline
For Neurological Diseases
U.S.Newswire, 12/17/2001 11:03 To:
National Desk Contact: Meredith Art of the Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), 202-835-3469 Web site: http://www.phrma.org
WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A new survey found 176 new medicines in
development for neurologic diseases -- up from 138 when the previous survey was
conducted in 1999. More than 100 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are
conducting this research, according to the Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). ''Pharmaceutical company researchers are
using significant new knowledge about how the brain works to help patients with
Alzheimer's, stroke, Parkinson's and other diseases,'' said PhRMA President Alan
F. Holmer. The potential new medicines include: -- 24 for Alzheimer's disease,
which afflicts nearly half of all Americans 85 and older; -- 34 for brain
tumors, 21 of which are being developed by the National Cancer Institute either
on its own or in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies; -- 16 for
multiple sclerosis, which affects 350,000 to 500,000 Americans, most of them
women; -- 41 for pain, which causes 4 billion lost work days per year, a $79
billion drain on our economy; -- 16 for Parkinson's disease, which affects 1
out of every 100 Americans over age 60; -- 9 for epilepsy, which affects more
than 2 million Americans; -- 14 for stroke, which strikes someone in the U.S.
every 45 seconds; -- 10 for migraine headaches, which affects about 13 percent
of the U.S. population. Other medicines being developed target amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), head injuries, Huntington's
disease, neuropathies, sleep disorders, spinal cord injuries, lupus and other
diseases. All of these medicines are either in human clinical trials or
awaiting approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. ''These new
medicines, and the pharmaceutical industry's continuing investment in research
on diseases of the central nervous system, are grounds for hope that some of
the cruelest of human afflictions may have better treatments and, one day,
cures,'' said Holmer. --- The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
America (PhRMA) represents the country's leading research-based pharmaceutical
and biotechnology companies, which are devoted to inventing medicines that
allow patients to live longer, healthier, and more productive lives. Investing
more than $30 billion in 2001 in discovering and developing new medicines,
PhRMA companies are leading the way in the search for new cures. KEYWORDS:
MEDICAL/PHARMACEUTICAL
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/351/wash/_PhRMA_Survey_Finds_176_Medici:.shtml
******************************
NEW PICTURE OF INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS THE
OVERLOOKED ROLE OF VISUOSPATIAL ABILITIES
Research Offers More Evidence That Intelligence Goes Beyond Verbal
SkillsWASHINGTON - When we say that people "know their way around,"
we really mean they're smart. Now, psychologists have evidence that strong visuospatial
skills and working memory may be at least as good as verbal skills and
working memory as indicators of general intelligence. New research correlates
visuospatial abilities, less extensively explored than verbal abilities in
intelligence research, with the brain's "executive function," the
central cognitive command and control that may lie at the heart of smarts.
These findings appear in the December issue of the Journal of Experimental
Psychology - General, published by the American Psychological Association
(APA).A five-psychologist research team from across the United States tested
167 participants on a variety of tasks to discern the relationships among
spatial abilities (abilities to solve visuospatial problems), visuospatial
working memory (an ability to temporarily store relevant visuospatial
information), and executive functioning (the brain's supervisory or regulatory
functions). The resulting pattern of interactions paint a clear picture.
Participants who were good at complex visuospatial tasks that involved visually
encoding items, maintaining those images, and manipulating them -- in other
words, people who had more effective "inner sketchpads" (useful in
everything from rearranging the furniture to fitting luggage into the trunk of
the car) -- also performed better on executive function tasks. Such executive
functions, somewhat analogous to the functions of company executives, included
coordinating multiple tasks, setting up and managing various goals and
subgoals, avoiding impulsive response tendencies and inhibiting automatic but
incorrect responses.Because psychologists are coming to view executive
functioning -- supported by the brain's frontal lobes and crucial in regulating
and controlling behavior -- as central to the concept of intelligence, the
results tie visuospatial ability to general intelligence.Miyake et al. also
looked at how well visuospatial working memory and executive function
correlated with three basic spatial abilities. Executive ability had the
strongest correlation with spatial visualization, which required complex
multi-step visuospatial reasoning, and the lowest correlation with perceptual
speed, which required quick visual matching of simple shapes. (The third
ability tested was spatial relations, which required mentally rotating a simple
figure quickly.) In short, participants who were better "visualizers"
and can solve complex visuospatial problems accurately and quickly also had
stronger executive function. This makes sense, say the researchers, because
spatial visualization tests are more complex than perceptual speed tests and
thus draw on the mental "executive" more fully, revealing the close
ties between the two.According to the authors, the implications are clear for
everything from measurement to education and training, with potential for
ensuring that the intelligence of visuospatially oriented people is not
discounted. These people have been viewed as having strengths limited to the
practical, mechanical and technical realms. "Traditional IQ tests have
more verbally oriented items than visuospatial," says the article's lead
author, Akira Miyake, Ph.D., of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
"Understanding the nature of visuospatial abilities and their
relationships to general intelligence or to general-purpose executive functions
should contribute strongly to more fair and comprehensive tests of
intelligence." The study also lends support to the emerging view that
intelligence has both multiple discrete components -- such as, for example, the
independent verbal and visuospatial domains -- and an over-arching general
aspect, which Miyake et al. believe may be "executive function,"
tapped when the domains undertake more complex or novel tasks. Executive
function may also coordinate and modulate the domains' various lower-level
processes. The article's other co-authors are Naomi P. Friedman, Ph.D., also of
the University of Colorado at Boulder; David A. Rettinger, Ph.D., of Yeshiva
University; Priti Shah, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and
Mary Hegarty, Ph.D., of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Article:
"How are Visuospatial Working Memory, Executive Functioning, and Spatial
Abilities Related? A Latent-Variable Analysis;" Akira Miyake, Ph.D., and
Naomi P. Friedman, University of Colorado at Boulder; David A. Rettinger,
Ph.D., Yeshiva University; Priti Shah, Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor; and Mary Hegarty, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara; Journal
of Experimental Psychology - General, Vol. 130, No. 4. Akira Miyake can be
reached by e-mail at miyake@psych.colorado.edu
or by phone at 303-492-2305.Full text of the article is available from
the APA Public Affairs Office and at http://www.apa.org/journals/xge/press_releases/december_2001/xge1304621.html
http://www.apa.org/releases/visuospatial2.html
******************************
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