FEAT DAILY NEWSLETTER      Sacramento, California      http://www.feat.org

January 30, 2002        News Morgue Search  www.feat.org/search/news.asp

AWARENESS

·        As We Get Smarter About The Disabled, Movies Get Dumber

·        Unlocking Autism Has 200 Reps.

·        On Autism and Indonesia

RESEARCH

·        Schizophrenia Linked To Defect In Prefrontal Cortex

·        Tots’ Rocking, Banging May Not Signal Mental Delay

EDUCATION

·        Survey of Special Education Alteration, Falsification & Forgery

·        Reaser’s Posts

As We Get Smarter About The Disabled, Movies Get Dumber Will Hollywood ever learn?

[We don’t have very many movie reviews in this newsletter, but now appears a small cluster due to the release of “I Am Sam”, whose lead is autistic and mentally retarded.  This acidic review goes beyond the movie and address the portrayl of the disabled by Hollywood.  By Katrina Onstad of the National Post, who - be warned - is not a happy camper.] http://www.nationalpost.com/artslife/arts/story.html?f=/stories/20020125/123 3155.html <- - address ends here.

The tag line on the poster for the mortifyingly bad film I Am Sam should read: What the hell was Sean Penn thinking? Playing a mentally challenged father fighting for custody of his seven-year-old daughter, Penn, usually a fine actor, twitches and rattles his fists like a newborn set free from swaddling clothes or a fifth-grader doing his best “spazz” impression behind the teacher’s back. In Hollywood’s hands, disability has never been too sensitively handled—remember John Mills’ googly-eyed simpleton in Ryan’s Daughter—but recently, depictions of people with mental problems have sunk to new lows.

Along with Penn’s appalling performance in I Am Sam, we have Golden Globe winner Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, playing math genius and schizophrenic John Nash, a performance that’s subdued by Penn standards but also showboatingly twitchy. If it gets Canadian distribution, we’ll soon see King of the Jungle, where John Leguizamo plays the mentally handicapped son of a lesbian Latina social- worker and anti-police-brutality activist.  Seriously. With such a “politically correct” spirit, King of the Jungle probably intended a sensitive, inclusive portrayal, a reclamation of the mentally handicapped from the cheap gimmickry of Forrest Gump. But Leguizamo overdoes it, splaying and moaning, making the ages-old mistake of playing the disease, not the character.

Back in the real world, we’re at least a decade into a social shift to integrate the disabled: mainstreaming in schools, workplace policies to protect the rights of handicapped people, accessible architecture. Yet as we get smarter about the disabled, movies get dumber.

If Hollywood fiction reflects real-world anxieties, then maybe these candy-coated movies are popular because they’re the last place where we’re still able to contain the handicapped. We get to feel tender and humane (Oprah loves I Am Sam) without letting the unpredictable messiness of actual disability infringe on our tidy lives.

Penn plays Sam, a Starbucks busboy who might lose his daughter because he, too, functions at the mental age of seven.

His childlike behaviour is played for laughs: be it a classy latte or a tacky caramel macchiato, Sam responds to each order with: “That’s a good chooooice,” in a sing-song Rain Man voice. Autism must be contagious because ever since Rain Man (1988), mentally challenged characters have one little endless saying—their own personal “Qantas never crashed”—regardless of whether repetition is actually a symptom of their condition. In The Other Sister, Giovanni Ribisi, as a mentally disabled tuba cleaner, says: “I love you more than band music and cookie making.” Then he’s off: “Cookie making, cookie making, cookie making” like a misprogrammed Tickle Me Elmo.

The mentally challenged Hollywood character must 1) have a goofy name like Raymond, Arnie or Charly 2) be willing at some point to slip into a sharp suit to see how he’d look as a “real” person and 3) represent all the goodness from which full-brained people are inherently alienated.

Like the tee-hee-named Forrest Gump, Sam never lies. His beyond-reproach ethics are a contrast to the non-handicapped around him, especially his lawyer, the fast-talking, sharp-dressing, amoral bad mother, played by Michelle Pfeiffer. In Rain Man, Tom Cruise played this role, as the fast-talking, sharp-dressing, amoral bad brother to his autistic sibling (Dustin Hoffman). “One’s intelligence has no bearing on one’s capacity to love,” says Pfeiffer to the court. Oh yeah? I submit to the court the infamous Tommy Lee-Pamela Anderson sex video in which, when not engaged in unsatisfying porn coitus on a yacht or feeding each other supermarket birthday cake, every silence between them is filled with a hollow “I love you, baby.” Your honour, many dumb people are incapable of love.

The sad truth of I Am Sam is that a severely retarded man is not capable of raising a child alone. Some of Sam’s friends are played by actual actors with disabilities, grown men forced to spew sitcom punch lines, high-five each other and carry red balloons like toddlers; we’re expected to see this band of nutty misfits as a suitable support system for a child. As a viewer, it’s a strange experience, particularly while watching such a manipulative tearjerker, to be aligned with the so-called bad guys, those nasty social workers and judges.

Sam’s daughter, painfully overacting, tells the court: “All you need is love.” That’s not only the Beatles’ worst song, it’s also untrue. Think about it: Would you leave your baby alone with a seven-year-old, no matter how loving that child may be?

Retarded people make perfect movie heroes because most movies don’t know what to do with intellectual characters anyway. A genius sitting around thinking about chaos theory just isn’t a cinematographer’s dream. So A Beautiful Mind plays down John Nash’s math thing and concentrates on his more filmic schizophrenia. He’s less infantilized than Sam, but equally bleached; huge chunks of Nash’s past—his bisexuality, his difficult relationship with his wife, his own son’s schizophrenia—are excised. The human spirit can only come in one variety in Hollywood: triumphant.

When Nash wins the Nobel Prize, he tells the theatre of intellectuals that he owes it all to love. How guilty people living with a schizophrenic must feel watching this film; all that medical treatment, therapy and endless work when all my son really needed was a hug. They should know that in real life, the stress of schizophrenia broke up Nash’s marriage (they eventually reunited).

There have been good films with handicapped stories: Dominick & Eugene (1988), about a garbageman and his brother; the Australian tragicomedy Sweetie (1989); and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), to name a few. In Gilbert, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Arnie, a mentally challenged teenager with the repetitious quirk of climbing the town water tower. The monotony of rescuing Arnie, and the sameness of his own small-town existence, wears down Arnie’s brother and keeper, Gilbert (Johnny Depp). Already rare within the genre for its subtlety and humour, Gilbert Grape even permits Arnie to be annoying, kind of gross, and still worthy of love. DiCaprio delivers a compassionate, constant performance (he has the backing of a great script) without the big show-stopping “breakthrough” scene that most handicapped movies require. In I Am Sam, Sam grows up—he gets a better apartment and makes a speech about parenting—as if mental problems are something you can just snap out of.

No matter how offensive, this is the time of year that Hollywood lets loose its very special movies on a direct path for our heartstrings. As Eddie Murphy said in Bowfinger: “White boy play an idiot, they get the Oscar. Find me a script with a retarded slave, then I get the Oscar!”

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Unlocking Autism Has 200 Reps. World Widwide

Unlocking Autism is honored to be working with 200 Representatives in the United States and Representatives from seven Countries around the World.

We are currently accepting applications for additional International Representatives.

We need you to help us change the lives of not only those living in America with autism, but also those around the World.  You can begin to help us make a difference by purchasing one of our new, adorable T-shirts.  This white shirt has our little boy and girl standing in the center of the world.  It reads UNLOCKING AUTISM, Changing The World We Live In.  A picture and ordering information are available at our website.

Unlocking Autism www.unlockingautism.org

Be sure to bookmark our site while you are there.  Information on The Power Of One I. D. E. A.  Autism Awareness Rally taking place in Washington D.C. on April 21, 2002 will be available later this week.  Information regarding International  projects and events will also be available soon.

If you or someone you know would like information on becoming a State or International Representative for Unlocking Autism send an application request to Nancale@aol.com.

UA Staff

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On Autism and Indonesia

[Excerted from a letter to The Jakarta Post – Indonesia. It is

authored by Hiang Marahimin, Assistant Chief Editor of Nirmala Magazine in

Jakarta Thanks to Richard Miles.]

http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=020121001363&query

=autism

The authorities here may not acknowledge this fact, but autism is on the rise in Indonesia. You don’t need polls and surveys (which are difficult to come by anyway in Indonesia) to realize this. Just try to make an appointment with one of the doctors who specializes in treating autistic children and you will see that it takes a wait of two months to three months before the doctor can see you.

If one doctor sees three new autistic patients every day (this I know

to be a fact), calculate how many new autistic patients are discovered every

year in Indonesia. Copyright © Asia Intelligence Wire

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Schizophrenia Linked To Defect In Prefrontal Cortex

[By Jules Asher.]

http://unisci.com/stories/20021/0129021.htm

Using functional brain imaging, National Institute of Mental Health scientists for the first time have linked two key, but until now unconnected, brain abnormalities in schizophrenia.

They have shown that the less patients’ frontal lobes activate during a working memory task, the more the chemical messenger dopamine, thought to underlie the delusions and hallucinations of schizophrenia, rises abnormally in the striatum, a relay station deep in the brain.

Together with other evidence, this suggests that the excess dopamine activity that antipsychotic drugs quell may be driven by a defect in the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s executive control center.

Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, M.D., and Karen Berman, M.D., report on their PET (positron emission tomography) study, published online January 28, 2002, in Nature Neuroscience.

The most disabling form of mental illness, schizophrenia affects one percent of the adult population, typically in young adulthood, with hallucinations, delusions, social withdrawal, flattened emotions and loss of social and personal care skills.

Although the cause of the disorder remains a mystery, studies that shed light on the role of dopamine in schizophrenia hold promise for advancing understanding and, ultimately, improving treatments.

The researchers used two different types of radioactive tracers in the same scanning sessions with 6 patients and 6 healthy controls to simultaneously monitor two different types of brain activity.

A radioactive form of oxygen revealed where blood flowed, and hence what parts of the brain were active, during the experimental task. A radioactively-tagged chemical precursor of dopamine indicated activity of this chemical messenger.

The PET scanner employs an array of radiation detectors to get a fix on the destinations of the tracers, producing color-coded, quantitative images of the activity being measured.

The scans were taken while patients performed an abstract reasoning/working memory task that activates the prefrontal cortex. As in previous studies, the patients showed reduced prefrontal activation and performed poorly on the task, suggesting disturbed functioning of that part of the brain.

Also consistent with previous findings, patients’ striatal dopamine activity was abnormally elevated. In patients, but not in controls, the researchers observed a tight coupling and highly significant inverse correlation between these two abnormalities, suggesting that they share a “common pathophysiological mechanism.” The striking linkage is likely traceable to a primary dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex, argue the investigators, who cite basic science findings that dopamine activity in the striatum is under the control of the prefrontal area. Stimulating or inhibiting this area affects firing of striatal neurons and dopamine release.

A recent study in rats found that neurons that project from the prefrontal cortex to the striatum are inhibitory in effect, suggesting an anatomical mechanism by which reduced prefrontal activity might take the brakes off striatal dopamine release.

Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, colleagues in the NIMH Clinical Brain Disorders Branch have discovered a similar correlation between decreased NAA (N-Acetyl Aspartate), an indicator of the health of cells, in the prefrontal cortex, and excess dopamine release in response to amphetamine.

Also participating in the research were: Daniel Weinberger, M.D., Philip Kohn, Giuseppe Esposito, M.D., NIMH; Robert Miletich, M.D., Ph.D., Mario Quarantelli, M.D., National Institute on Neurological Disorders and Stroke; Richard Carson, Ph.D., NIH Clinical Center.

“These results provide a long-sought insight into the roots of dopamine dysregulation in schizophrenia,” said Berman, “They suggest a possible treatment strategy that targets prefrontal cortex dysfunction, not just excess dopamine.” The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Federal Government’s primary agency for biomedical and behavioral research. NIH is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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* * *

Tots’ Rocking, Banging May Not Signal Mental Delay

http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2002/01/29/eline/links/20020129elin011.  htm1 <- - address ends here.

Reuters Health - Contrary to what many researchers have thought, new study results suggest that rhythmic behaviors such as rocking back and forth and banging hands and arms vary little between children who are at high risk of delayed development and children who are not.

Some people with developmental disorders make rhythmic movements that are common in very young children, such as continuously rocking back and forth. Since babies usually stop these behaviors by their first birthday, several researchers have predicted that it might be possible to identify children at risk of delayed development by observing their rhythmic movements.

Dr. Alan S. Unis and colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle tested this idea in a study of 18 children who had an increased risk of delayed development because they had been born prematurely. The researchers compared the at-risk children with a “control” group of children who were not born prematurely.

The investigators evaluated the children’s rhythmic behaviors while they snacked and played at age 13 months. They then evaluated the children’s mental and motor development at age 2.

Overall, there was no statistically significant difference between the groups in the level and types of rhythmic behaviors, the researchers report in the January issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

“The central hypothesis of this study, that children born prematurely would differ from control children in the type and frequency of their rhythmic behaviors, was largely unconfirmed,” Unis and his colleagues conclude.

The researchers did detect some differences, but not the ones they expected.

For instance, boys who had higher levels of rhythmic behaviors while snacking tended to have higher mental development scores at age 2, the report indicates. The researchers did not observe the same link in girls.

But both boys and girls who exhibited lower levels of rhythmic behavior while playing on their own were more likely to have a higher mental development score at age 2.

Why less rhythmic behavior during one activity but more during another are both associated with higher development scores may not seem to make much sense, but Unis and his colleagues offer a few possible explanations.

Children who show more rhythmic behavior while snacking may be trying to communicate, the authors suggest. For example, a child may point repeatedly to food that is out of reach.

In contrast, a child who is developmentally delayed might bang on a play phone rather than pretend to talk on it.

As for the differences between boys and girls, the results “are an indication that girls and boys develop cognitively through different pathways,” according to the researchers.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 2002;41:67-74.

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Survey of Special Education Alteration, Falsification & Forgery

Last week the FEAT Daily Newsletter ran a preliminary survey of “Special Education Documentation Falsification, Alteration and Forgery”.  The purpose of this survey is to prepare information to be included in testimony for the president’s commission on excellence in special education so that idea amendments can be proposed that will better protect the rights of disabled students and their parents.

As a result of the 150+ replies they’ve received to date, the surveyor, autism advocate Dee Alpert, has been able to put the survey into final form which can be easily tabulated.

Even if you replied to the preliminary survey, please take a moment to answer the survey below so that we can start formal tabulation of results.

You can find the final form of the Internet Survey Of Special

Education Documentation Alteration, Falsification And Forgery at this FEAT

Newsletter website: http://www.angelfire.com/on/featnews/finalsurvey.doc

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Reader’s Posts

I am in NE area (go Patriots!) and interested in learning what supports are

out there for families who have multiple children with autism.  We have

unique needs with multiples but don’t seem to get any more services because

of our situation.  Is there special legislation for families with more than

one special needs child, are there support groups for families with

multiples, are there specialists who can provide realistic advice for

families with multiples, or conferences on this subject, etc? Please email

I read the comment from Lyn S. about FEAT Newsletter readers being ignorant.  She stated that she responded to readers posts on your newsletter and didn’t get thank-yous.  As a parent of an autistic son, I feel compelled to respond.  We posted a query a few months ago and received more than 60 very valuable responses.  We responded to many, but the time it would have taken to thoughtfully respond to 60 people is something that we just didn’t have.

That is why the email posts are so valuable; we can get to them when we have

a free minute.  I hope that Lyn S. understands that we do the best that we

can, but we barely have time to dry our hair some days.  Please know that we

I am the mother of a 3.5 year old son with PDD-NOS.  My husband and I feel

that our son does not fit in anywhere.  He doesn’t fit in with the special

Ed crowd he just picks up new stims.  He is social and playful but lacks

pragmatics and doesn’t really fit in with the “regular” crowd.  Looking to

talk to parents of PDD-NOS kids.  July198@aol.com

>>  FREE (Almost) READER’S POSTS <<

For Individuals, organizations, non-commercial and commercial. Limit your posting to no more than 60 words please. There is no charge for this service, but posters are obligated to thank all those who take the time to answer your ads. This is a consideration for others with autism after you and yours, who seek assistance from appreciated readers. Send submissions to:

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Would appreciate any feedback from parents of children who have been treated

by John Hicks, M.D. who practices in the Chicago area. Hirzram@aol.com

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