The Autism News | English


So many Canadian children are taking the drugs known as atypical antipsychotics that doctors are being asked to watch for major complications – including dramatic weight gain, tremors, and abnormal face and jaw movements.

Once reserved for schizophrenia and mania in adults, one antipsychotic alone, risperidone, was recommended by Canadian-office-based doctors for children 17 and younger a total of 340,670 times in 2010 – a near-doubling since 2006 – according to data provided to Postmedia News from prescription-drug tracking firm IMS Brogan.

The increase in prescriptions for children as young as six is raising concerns that the drugs are being overused.

Some experts say too little is known about the effects on a child’s cognitive, social and physical development, and that the side effects may set children up for serious health problems later in life.

These concerns were the driving force behind the creation of the world’s first clinic to help children cope with the side effects of such medications at BC Children’s Hospital in April.

Dr. Jana Davidson, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who helped establish the specialized clinic, said in an interview that children taking such medications have an increased risk of developing pre-diabetes, high cholesterol levels and obesity, compared to other children not taking the medication.

In B.C., where 5,000 kids are believed to be taking antipsychotic medication, children newly prescribed the drugs or those already experiencing side effects can be referred to the clinic. They receive coaching from a physiotherapist about the need to be more physically active, nutrition advice from a dietitian, nursing care and treatment from a psychiatrist and endocrinologist.

“We are really grateful we were able to get funding from the Provincial Health Services Authority to open this clinic. We’ve seen 79 kids under the age of 18 so far and we already have a four-week wait list which we want to get down to three,” said Davidson. Davidson said she helped create the clinic because of her increasing alarm over the side effects of treatment in her patients. While she believes the medications are sometimes prescribed inappropriately, they are often useful for a range of disorders including severe aggression, mania in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. But the side effects can be serious.

The Vancouver Sun

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The Autism News | English


The problems of a south Donegal family with four autistic children were highlighted on national radio last weekend when it emerged that the children had been segregated in a wired off area during play breaks at school.

The Brogan family, Patrick and Maria and their four children Martin, Cassie and twins Daniel and Pauric all live just outside Mountcharles and the children attend the local St. Peter’s NS in the village.

Speaking from Mountcharles Valerie Cox of the Pat Kenny Show said that the two older children had been in mainstream school for the last number of years but with the addition of a further three autistic children, the school now qualified for a dedicated autistic classroom but this was not ready as yet but developments are very well advanced.

It has now been confirmed that work on this classroom will commence during the mid-term break.

Patrick Brogan the father of the four children said, “I was approached by another very distressed parent who told me that the children were being separated and not allowed to play together and found that the children were enclosed in a security fence that you would see on a building site and left by themselves.

“I pleaded with the school to take them out of it but they said that they couldn’t if they were to ensure safety due to lack of resources.

“After our complaint, the wire fence came down but was replaced by a wooden one – this was just a cage, nothing but a cage; it was not a solution.”

Another mother commented on the RTE show, “The exclusion of these children is socially damaging and long term will deprive them of their social skills – there must be an alternative.”

Donegal Democrat

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The Autism News | English


(CNN) — Alissa Welker would switch the lights on, off, on, off, on, off — however many times it took to feel “right.” When she was 9, she’d spend the equivalent of an adult workday doing these kinds of rituals. She also washed her hands excessively, avoided sick people and barely ate because she feared food poisoning.

Mystery Almond has also felt that she needed to wash her hands more than most people, to the point that her classmates picked on her. She would see words spelled out in her head — “like reading a book” — telling her to do things, like hitting a girl in second grade who taunted her for obsessing over hand washing.

Alissa, 17, and Mystery, 10, have different symptoms, but they both have had feelings of needing to act in certain ways that are out of the ordinary, as well as intense fears. These are signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is thought to affect 1 in 100 kids, according to the International OCD Foundation.

“Sometimes I feel like, with my OCD, I feel sad. It feels like a darkness has overtaken me. It’s a real bad feeling,” said Mystery, of Coushatta, Louisiana.

Parents, kids, teens, school personnel and mental health providers have a comprehensive resource for learning about pediatric OCD at the International OCD Foundation’s new OCD in Kids website. It includes the personal stories of young people who have OCD, so that kids and teens can learn about their peers’ experiences.

The site launched this week for the organization’s OCD Awareness Week, which culminates in a national event in Boston on Saturday that will be streamed live on the organization’s website.

Children as young as 3 or 4 can show signs of OCD, said Jeff Szymanski, executive director of the International OCD Foundation. But the onset is usually around ages 10 to 12 and the 18 to 22 age group. Boys tend to have symptoms earlier in life than girls. Symptoms include unwanted thoughts that produce fear and anxiety, and repetitive behaviors aimed at getting rid of those ideas.

Doctors draw the line between normal childhood behaviors and signs of OCD when kids engage in repetitious behaviors that become time-consuming. Children may become fixated on thoughts that they just won’t move away from. And they may not necessarily realize they’re not acting normally.
“For the most part, adults realize that these symptoms don’t make any sense. They get that this doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Szymanski said. “Kids don’t necessarily have that perspective.”

A standard behavioral treatment for OCD is called exposure therapy, a kind of cognitive behavioral therapy aimed at decreasing anxiety associated with particular phenomena. For children, this often involves naming OCD as the “bully or “monster” and chasing it away, Szymanski said. This helps kids deal with their scary, unwanted thoughts.

Medication may also be prescribed. A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that kids who had cognitive behavioral therapy for OCD, in addition to medication, tended to show more improvements than those who only took medication.
Some kids get good treatment and never experience OCD symptoms again; others will have it throughout their lives, with some periods being better than others. It may go away in childhood and come back in adulthood.

Alissa’s mother, Vicki Gonzalez, had never heard of OCD before Alissa came to her and told her about these feelings. Gonzalez turned to the internet and discovered that Alissa’s symptoms seemed to match up with that condition.

CNN Health

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The Autism News | English


MORE than two months after their specialist school closed due to a lack of funds, a group of eight autistic children still have no school places.

The former pupils at Achieve ABA in Donaghmede, north Dublin, have instead spent the past 10 weeks either at home or being taught by private tutors paid for by parents.

Following the closure of their school at the end of July after five years in operation, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn charged the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) to find new places for the children.

However, parents have accused the NCSE of not doing enough to meet their children’s educational needs and say it has referred them to unsuitable schools.

The NCSE has denied this and said it was satisfied that a school place was available for each of the children.

But in one case, a girl was referred to an all-boys school while in another a boy was told there was a place for him at a special school, despite his parents already being told he did not meet the enrolment criteria and could not attend.

Savings

Pat McCormack, a teacher and father of Meabh (7), said her two years at Achieve had been a period of “great advancement”. However, since its closure he and his wife have had to pay for a tutor for their daughter.

“At the minute we’re using our savings and are looking to take out a loan to continue funding her education for the rest of the year. For the last six weeks we can only afford a little over three days a week and the other days we’re home-schooling,” he explained.

Independent

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The Autism News | English


It took two months for a family to collect $500 worth of bottles, it probably took thieves only a few minutes to steal the recyclables. Thefts happen everyday, but not often do they happen to children raising money to help others.

Sean Andruchow had been in Vancouver visiting a specialist for his autistic son, when he arrived back home he discovered the theft.

Andruchow and his autistic children had collected the bottles for Quinton’s Quest for Autism, (QQA), a non-profit group that helps autistic children afford testing and therapy.

The stolen bottles were collected to specifically help two Kelowna children who are going to an autistic retreat in Alberta.

Andruchow says the backyard was fenced and it would have been hard to see the bottles laying next to the house.

“There are no suspects and it’s hard to say how anyone would know the bottles were there unless someone came right into our yard.”

The two children are suppose to leave for the retreat in November and it will take $5000 to get them there, but after the thieves stole from Quinton’s Quest, the count down is on to make sure enough money can be collected in time to get the children the therapy they need.

The bottle thieves are not going to discourage the Andruchow family.

Castanet

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The Autism News | English


* An autistic student had a habit of spitting on other pupils, which caused a lot of resentment towards her. The other children were asked to be friendly to her and over time, she showed a lot of improvement.

* A child suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder would start hitting other students when she was unable to follow anything in class. Other students, who started being offensive to her, were sensitised and the situation got better.

These are some of the instances how the city schools are trying to integrate differently able children to mainstream education.

Children suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Dyslexia, Autism, Down’s Syndrome and hearing impairment, are being taught with the regular students in a number of schools these days.

The key difficulty for the children with special needs is that of reading and writing.

Idian Express

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The Autism News | English

Cristina Puno, Pauline Wong and Deborah Gibson, parents of autistic children, share their messages for other families.

The Vancouver Sun

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The Autism News | English


The brains of autistic children have a distinctive topography that a team of Stanford University scientists was able to capture using new imaging techniques, with the hope of someday creating a template for the autistic brain that could be used to diagnose kids at an early age.

Detailed, computerized analyses of MRI scans showed a pattern of organization, especially in regions of the brain dedicated to communication and self-awareness, that was particular to children with autism, according to the new research, which was published online in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

The results are still years away from being applied to children in the real world. But they could be used not just for diagnoses, but to refine treatments and offer a better understanding of how autism affects the brain.

“Older kids, you just talk to them and you know they have autism. But the 2-year-old where you don’t have a good idea what’s going on with him, whether he’s autistic or not, this tool could help,” said Dr. Antonio Hardan, a child psychiatrist and an author of the Stanford study. “And having this kind of tool might also help you determine what kind of treatment the individual will be getting.”

Autism affects roughly 1 in 100 children in the United States, and rates have increased significantly in the past 20 years. As parents and doctors become increasingly aware of the disorder and its lifelong complications, research into autism has exploded.

Diagnosis has improved significantly, and on average, children are diagnosed at about age 3. But the diagnostic process is difficult and dependent on the skill of the doctor.

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The Autism News | English


Dora’s parents, Linda and Javier, were worried about their daughter’s first days of school. She was a quiet child who had high functioning autism. Dora was about to begin first grade. The previous year she was in the preschool program for children with disabilities (PPCD). During those first three years of school, the PPCD teacher had gradually increased Dora’s time out into the general education setting. By the end of her last school year in PPCD, Dora’s time in the self-contained classroom had decreased substantially. Instead, a large part of the day was now spent in the general education classroom.

Linda and Javier called up the school a week before school started. They spoke to Dora’s special education teacher to make sure that their daughter would start the first days of school out in her general education class. The teacher checked the child’s individual education plan (IEP) to see what her schedule was for the new school year. Dora’s IEP provided for three hours in general education. Initially, the girl’s limited communication and challenges of autism had delayed her cognitive development. Now, she was catching up quickly to her peers. At Dora’s last annual ARD meeting (admission, review, dismissal), the committee had decided that the girl would be placed in kindergarten classroom for the upcoming year rather than the first grade setting. After reviewing the child’s progress, the ARD team decided to continue increasing Dora’s time in general education with some self contained support.

Dora was an amazing child. At three years old, she appeared to be very withdrawn with limited communication. When she went to her PPCD unit, the tight structured routine with lots of visuals helped her blossom. Dora was like a sponge. She needed predictability and visuals in the classroom to help her become organized and to calm her down. By the time she left the PPCD program, Dora knew her numbers, letters and was speaking more fluently. She still needed sensory time for calming her senses and social skills support. By incorporating a mixed schedule of special education and general education, Dora was gradually being weaned from special support.

The Brownsville Herald

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The Autism News | English


The holidays are the perfect time for a break away from school and work, but for autistic children the change in routine can be confusing and difficult to deal with. So how can you make the holidays easier for your autistic child?

Why are holidays different for children with autism?

Autistic children need a certain level of structure and routine. During the school terms, routine is easy to maintain. However when the holidays arrive, autistic children can get confused as to why they aren’t getting up at a certain time or going to school.

“With neuro-able children, you are able to wake up one morning and say, ‘I know, I’m going to take my children to the park today,’ but having three autistic children I need to plan days in advance if we are to go on a day trip somewhere,” says Louise, mum to Phoebe, 7, Nathan, 5, and Harry, 4. All three children have an autistic spectrum disorder (ASD).

“My two boys are prone to running off and have no awareness of roadside dangers while Phoebe and Harry both have a hypersensitivity to noise, so places that attract large crowds are no good for us. This is why I need to plan in advance. I need to think about what may happen when we are on a day trip and find out any dangers that could affect my children,” explains Louise.

“Also, things that everybody learns and takes for granted, like queuing, can become an issue for children with an ASD. Trying to tell them they must queue for the thing they want can make life very stressful for them because they don’t understand why they can’t have it now. Then you are faced with tantrums, meltdowns and screaming, which can add to the pressure of parents. Autism is the invisible disability and people viewing automatically assume you are a bad parent, but you just have to ignore them,” says Louise.

How to make the holidays easier for your autistic child

The first day of holidays after a term of school will be difficult for your autistic child and they may take a few days to adjust, so be patient and try to help as much as possible. Your child’s school may provide a transition booklet, which you can read more about in our piece about school and your autistic child.

Activities and day trips are a great way to entertain your children, but there can be a lot of planning involved. Every autistic child is different, so paying attention to what your child likes and dislikes will make your life and your child’s life easier when it comes to choosing a day trip.

Once you’ve chosen a place to visit for your day trip, ring them up to sort out any necessary arrangements to suit your individual autistic child. Some places may ask you to provide evidence of your child’s disability, which you can ask your doctor about if necessary. Louise also advises to check forums or blogs about the place and speak to other mums and dads with autistic children who have visited the place before.

Made For Mums

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