The Autism News | English

CUMMING, Ga. — The number of kids with autism in Georgia’s schools is rising so quickly, educators are trying to find ways to deal with it.

It’s not just the students with autism they worry about, but the perceptions of the other students who go to school with them.

A new film is trying to change how teenagers, in particular, look at kids with autism. It debuted last October at the ReelAbilities ALT Disabilities Film Festival.

The film’s message is powerful not only because teens with autism speak candidly on camera about their disorder, but because teenagers produced the documentary at a level they knew their peers would understand.

The film begins with a young man standing in the middle of the hallway as dozens of teens pass by him and don’t acknowledge him.

“Every day you walk down the hall not really thinking about anything in particular,” stated the film’s narrator. ” And, you don’t realize the student walking next to you is autistic.”

The film asks the question: “Are You Aware?” and, appropriately, that’s the film’s title.

It’s written, produced and directed by Kaden Ochocki and Trevor White, seniors at West Forsyth High School.

“I wanted to convey that making fun of these kids is not OK,” Kaden Ochocki said. “They’re just like everybody else. We shouldn’t treat ‘em differently. Stare. Anything like that.”

11ALIVE

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The Autism News | English

“Bully,” a gut-wrenching documentary by filmmaker Lee Hirsch chronicling the bullying epidemic in America’s schools, opens in theaters across the country Friday, but not in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Released by the Weinstein Company, the film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2011 and opened for limited engagements in Los Angeles and New York March 30. “Bully” is set to expand into a total of 55 markets on Friday.

However, managers at both the Edwards Valencia and Edwards Canyon Country theater complexes, owned by the Regal Entertainment Group, confirmed Thursday and today, respectively, that the movie won’t screen at either location.

“The corporate office decides what we get,” said Audrey Watts, Edwards Valencia manager, adding that Regal’s decision is based on how well the company thinks the film will do at the box office. “We usually don’t get the more artsy or documentary films.”

“We’re the designated arts theater in the Santa Clarita Valley,” said Katriana Lahero, Edwards Canyon Country manager. As of Tuesday, though, “Bully” was not on the schedule of films opening there Friday.

“Bully” has earned generally positive reviews in its limited engagement. It was released to theaters unrated after the Motion Picture Association of America wanted to assign it an R (restricted) rating due to a half-dozen instances of the f-word being used by school bullies. After much controversy that called into question the relevance of the current movie ratings, a compromise was reached. The filmmakers edited “Bully” to soften the f-bombs, and the film was granted a PG-13 rating.

Thirteen million students will be bullied in the United States this year, and three million kids are absent each month because they feel unsafe at school, according to statistics on the “Bully Project” website.

“I think everyone should see ‘Bully,’ because it shows in graphic detail what it’s like to be bullied, and I think that bullies should see the impact they have on kids,” said Marisa Watkins, who has Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism.

A graduating student at Sequoia Charter School and in the Transitional Learning Center program at College of the Canyons, the 18-year-old Stevenson Ranch resident was taunted, mocked and physically bullied in junior and senior high school (Rio Norte, Golden Valley and Canyon), and has been involved in anti-bullying efforts at local schools for several years.

KHTS AM 1220

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The Autism News | English


LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A filmmaker asked the Las Cruces City Council to invest $25,000 in a new movie that is expected to be filmed in Las Cruces this summer.

Rajeev Nirmalakhandan is the director of, “The Odd Way Home,” which is a film about autism. Nirmalakhandan offered a 20-percent return on the investment to the city after a profit is earned.

City Council is considering using money from the Las Cruces Convention and Visitors Bureau for the film but a decision has not yet been decided.

“It has a huge economic impact,” Assistant Director of Marketing and Sales for Hotel Encanto Christopher Cruz said.

Cruz has worked at Hotel Encanto on Telshor Boulevard while two major films were shot in the city in the past. He said the business that comes along with the production tremendously helps restaurants, and especially hotels.

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The Autism News | English


ON JANUARY 26th last, a court in the French town of Lille ordered that a documentary film be censored and removed from the internet.

The film, entitled The Wall, by Sophie Robert, critically examined the current dominant understanding and treatment of autism in France, which is founded on outdated and redundant theories of psychoanalysis.

Robert interviewed 27 psychoanalysts, three of whom later sued her, claiming they were misrepresented in the film. I have watched the documentary and so far as I can judge, the views of all of those interviewed are consistent with the psychoanalytic model that sees autism as being caused by a distorted relationship between the affected child and the mother. There is no objective evidence to support this viewpoint.

Currently, autism is understood to be a chronic, lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder with biological underpinnings and a strong genetic component. While the condition is not curable, much can be done on a practical level to improve the quality of life of individuals with autism.

Ideologies can give rise to dire consequences and this is evident in the experiences of many French children with autism. In contrast to most other Western countries, it is claimed that up to 80 per cent of them do not attend school. In 2004 the Council of Europe condemned France for failing to provide appropriate education for children with autism.

A common treatment in use in France is termed “packing”, in which a child is wrapped in a wet sheet or blanket that has been refrigerated for about an hour. Only the head is left free and while in this position the child is engaged in psychoanalytic therapy. There is no objective evidence that psychoanalytic therapy has any positive impact on autism and packing is generally regarded as inhumane with potentially serious negative effects.

IrishTimes

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The Autism News | English


PARIS — “Le Mur,” or “The Wall,” a small documentary film about autism released online last year, might normally not have attracted much attention.

But an effort by French psychoanalysts to keep it from public eyes has helped to make it into a minor cause and shone a spotlight on the way children in France are treated for mental health problems.

The documentary, the first film by Sophie Robert, follows two autistic boys: Guillaume, who has been treated with the behavioral, or “American,” approach; and Julien, who has been kept in an asylum for six years and treated with psychoanalysis. Guillaume, though challenged, is functioning at a high level in school. Julien is essentially silent, locked out of society.

Since Sept. 8, when the film first became available on the Web, it and Ms. Robert, 44, have been the targets of criticism from both the analysts who appear in the film and from within the country’s psychoanalytic establishment. Three of the psychoanalysts whom Ms. Robert interviewed for the film have sued her, claiming she misrepresented them in the 52-minute documentary, which has not yet been screened in cinemas or on television.

On Jan. 26, a court in the northern city of Lille will decide whether Ms. Robert must remove their interviews from the documentary if she wishes to keep screening it. The plaintiffs are also seeking damages of €300,000, or $384,000. The lawsuit might be futile, since the film is widely available on the Web (with English subtitles), having been viewed on YouTube more than 16,000 times. (Ms. Robert argues that the plaintiffs, all of whom appear in the film, signed detailed releases.)

Ms. Robert is planning to screen the film in Philadelphia at an autism conference on Jan. 27, the same day the court is to rule. If she wins, a local channel in the north of France, Weo, has agreed to screen it, as has Télévision Suisse Romande, a Swiss channel.

The film makes no pretense of objectivity, juxtaposing interviews with psychoanalysts with scathing criticism of the field’s precepts. Ms. Robert, 44, describes herself as an anthropologist and said she once wanted to be a psychoanalyst herself.

“I would have never imagined what I discovered,” she said of her first few interviews for the film. “Then I thought, wow, what I hear is just crazy.”

Christian Charrière-Bournazel, the lawyer for the three plaintiffs — Esthela Solano Suárez, Éric Laurent et Alexandre Stevens — did not respond to requests for comment.

But in court filings, Mr. Charrière-Bournazel said the film had been edited to make his clients look absurd. Ms. Robert, he said, presented the project to the analysts as a documentary, though “it was in reality a polemical enterprise meant to ridicule psychoanalysis in favor of the behavioral treatments that are so fashionable in the United States.”

“The film is unfair,” Élisabeth Roudinesco, a French historian of psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VII, said. “It is fanatically anti-psychoanalysis. But I don’t think she’s manipulated the film to make them look ridiculous; rather, I think she chose to talk with very dogmatic psychoanalysts who come across as ridiculous.”

Professor Roudinesco said the French psychoanalysis community was actually quite divided by the question of autism, with some “fanatics who believe that autism is caused by a frigid, cold mother. But you don’t attack an entire discipline of medicine because of a scandal involving a few practitioners.”

“Even if it is proved someday that autism is a genetic malady,” she asked, “why abandon the idea that the talking cure could help the patient?”

The idea that children with autism spectrum disorder should be treated with the “talking cure” employed in psychoanalysis may sound outdated to some viewers, since many medical scientists believe that underlying physiological problems are at least partly responsible for the disorder. In the United States, the National Institutes of Health recommends that it be treated with behavioral and other therapies.

Ms. Robert said the version of psychoanalysis that is most prevalent in France, particularly the post-Freudian school championed by Jacques Lacan, takes it as a given that autism and other mental health problems are caused by children’s relationship with their mothers, or by “maternal madness.”

“Sometimes, when the mother is depressed, in utero, I mean when she is pregnant or at birth, sometimes the child can be autistic,” an analyst tells the camera in one scene. Another explains that autistic children “are sick of language — autism is a way of defending themselves from language.”

To the question of what an autistic child can expect to gain from psychoanalysis, yet another analyst responds, “The pleasure of taking interest in a soap bubble. I can’t answer anything else.”

The New York Times

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The Autism News | Français

Combat d’images. Combat autour d’images et de leur éventuel galvaudage. Impossible de trouver un siège, hier après-midi, dans la salle des audiences civiles du palais de justice de Lille. La plupart ont déjà été pris d’assaut par des adultes ayant épinglé des larges photos d’enfants à leur col. Une coutume malheureusement banale chez les proches de personnes kidnappées. Ou prises en otage.

Face à ces parents, aussi bien Christian Charrière-Bournazel, l’avocat de trois psychanalystes ayant saisi la justice, que la présidente Elizabeth Polle, le martèlent : « Il ne s’agit pas de faire le procès de l’autisme ou de la manière dont on pourrait le soigner. » En 2010, la productrice Sophie Robert contacte une série de psychanalystes. « Il s’agit de préparer un documentaire », explique Christian Charrière-Bournazel, insistant sur la neutralité induite dans le terme « documentaire ».

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The Autism News | English

AMC Entertainment (AMC) & Autism Society of America bring families affected by autism and other disabilities a special opportunity to enjoy their favorite films in a safe and accepting environment on a monthly basis with the ”Sensory Friendly Films” program.

In order to provide a more accepting and comfortable setting for this unique audience, the movie auditoriums will have their lights brought up and the sound turned down, families will be able to bring in their own gluten-free, casein-free snacks, and no previews or advertisements will be shown before the movie. Additionally, audience members are welcome to get up and dance, walk, shout or sing – in other words, AMC’s “Silence is Golden®” policy will not be enforced unless the safety of the audience is questioned.

Did you go to one of our previous Sensory Friendly Flims? Tell us what you thought!

Tickets are $4-6 depending on location and can be purchased on the day of the event.

Dolphin Tale | October 1st, 2011 | 10 a.m. local time

A story centered on the friendship between a boy and a dolphin whose tail was lost in a crab trap.

Arizona

AMC Mesa Grand 24
1645 S. Stapley Dr., Mesa, Ariz. 85204

AMC Deer Valley 30
3033 W. Agua Fria Fwy., Phoenix, Ariz. 85027

Foothills 15
7401 La Cholla Blvd. Ste. 144, Tucson, AZ 85741

California

AMC Downtown Disney District 12
1565 Disneyland Dr., Anaheim, CA 92802

AMC Covina 30
1414 N. Azusa Ave., Covina, Calif. 91722

AMC Cupertino Square 16
10123 N. Wolfe Rd., Cupertino, Calif. 95014

AMC Ontario Mills 30
4549 Mills Cir., Ontario, Calif. 91764

AMC Block 30
20 City Blvd. W., Ste. 1, Orange, Calif. 92868

AMC Mission Valley 20
640 Camino Del Rio North, San Diego, Calif. 92108

AMC Palm Promenade 24
770 Dennery Rd., San Diego, Calif. 92154

AMC Van Ness 14
1000 Van Ness Ave San Francisco, CA 94109

AMC Mercado 20
3111 Mission College Blvd., Santa Clara, Calif. 95054

AMC Del Amo 18
3525 Carson St., Torrance, Calif. 90503

AMC Promenade 16
21801 Oxnard St., Woodland Hills, Calif. 91367

Colorado

AMC Flatiron 14
61 W Flatiron Cir, Broomfield, CO 80021

AMC Highlands Ranch 24
103 W. Centennial Blvd., Highlands Ranch, Colo. 80129

AMC Westminster 24
10655 Westminster Blvd., Westminster, Colo. 80020

Connecticut

AMC Danbury 16
61 Eagle Road, Danbury, CT 06810

AMC Plainville 20
220 New Britain Ave., Plainville, CT 06062

*See also New York and New Jersey for other theatres in the New York City area

District of Columbia

AMC Georgetown 14
3111 K St. NW, Washington, DC 20007

*See also Vriginia and Maryland for other theatres in the Washington, D.C. area

Florida

AMC Altamonte 18
451 Altamonte Ave., Altamonte, FL 32701

AMC Aventura 24
19501 Biscayne Blvd., Ste. 3001, Aventura, Fla. 33180

AMC Coral Ridge 10
3401 NE 26th Ave, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33306

AMC Regency 24
9451 Regency Square Blvd Jacksonville, FL 32225

AMC Pleasure Island 24
1500 Buena Vista Dr, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830

AMC Merchants Crossing 16
15201 N Cleveland Ave Suite 800, North Fort Meyers, FL 33917

AMC Woodlands Square 20
3128 Tampa Rd., Oldsmar, FL 34677

AMC Sunset 24
5701 Sunset Dr., Ste. 300, South Miami, Fla. 33143

AMC Veterans Expressway 24
9302 Anderson Rd., Tampa, FL 33634

AMC Indian River 24
6200 20Th St Rm 600, Vero Beach, FL 32966

Georgia

AMC Phipps Plaza 14
3500 Peachtree Rd. NE, Atlanta, Ga. 30326

AMC Discover Mills 18
5900 Sugarloaf Pkwy., Ste. 415, Lawrenceville, Ga. 30043

AMC Southlake 24
7065 Mount Zion Cir., Morrow, Ga. 30260

Illinois

AMC Northbrook 14
1525 Lake Cook Rd, Northbrook, IL 60062

AMC Barrington 30
175 Studio Dr, South Barrington, IL 60010

AMC Cantera 30
28250 Diehl Rd., Warrenville, IL 60555

Indiana

AMC Greenwood 14
461 S. Greenwood Park Dr., Greenwood, Ind. 46142

AMC Castleton Square 14
6020 E. 82nd St., Indianapolis, Ind. 46250

Kansas

AMC Studio 30
12075 S. Strangline Rd., Olathe, Kan. 66062

*See also Missouri for other theatres in the Kansas City area

Kentucky

AMC Newport on the Levee 20
One Levee Way Ste 4100, Newport, KY 41071

Louisiana

AMC Elmwood Palace 20
1299 Elmwood Park Blvd., Harahan, LA 70123

AMC Houma Palace 10
5737 W Park Ave, Houma, LA 70364

Maryland

AMC White Marsh 16
8141 Honeygo Blvd., Baltimore, Md. 21236

AMC Columbia Mall 14
10300 Little Patuxent Pkwy., Columbia, Md. 21044

AMC Rio Cinemas 18
9811 Washingtonian Blvd., Gaithersburg, Md. 20878

AMC MJ Capital Center 12
800 Shoppers Way, Largo, MD 20774

*See also Virginia and District of Columbia for other theatres in the Washington, D.C. area

Massachusetts

AMC Framingham 15
22 Flutie Pass, Framingham, MA 17014

AMC Tyngsboro 12
440 Middlesex Road Tyngsboro, MA 01879

Michigan

AMC Gratiot 21
35705 South Gratiot Ave, Clinton Twp, MI 48035

AMC Grand Rapids 18
3000 Alpine Avenue Grand Rapids, MI 49544

AMC Livonia 20
19500 Haggerty Rd, Livonia, MI 48152

AMC Forum 30
44681 Mound Rd, Sterling Heights, MI 48314

Minnesota

AMC Eden Prairie 24
8251 Flying Cloud Drive, Eden Prairie, MN 55344

AMC Rosedale 14
850 Rosedale Center, Roseville, MN 55113

Missouri

AMC West Olive 16
12657 Olive St, Creve Coeur, MO 63141

AMC Barrywoods 24
8101 Roanridge Rd., Kansas City, Mo. 64151

AMC Independence 20
19200 E. 39th St. S., Independence, Mo. 64057

*See also Kansas for other theatres in the Kansas City area

Nebraska

AMC Oakview 24
3555 S. 140th Plaza, Omaha, Neb. 68144

New Jersey

AMC Cherry Hill 24
2121 Route 38, Cherry Hill, NJ 08002

AMC Jersey Gardens 20
651 Kapowski Road, Elizabeth, NJ 07201

AMC Loews Freehold Metroplex 14
101 Trotters Way, Freehold, NJ 07728

AMC Hamilton 24
325 Sloan Avenue, Hamilton, NJ 08619

AMC Wayne 14
67 Willowbrook Blvd, Wayne, NJ 07470

AMC Essex Green 9
495 Prospect Ave, West Orange, NJ 07052

*See also New York and Connecticut for other theatres in the New York City area; see also Pennsylvania for other theatres in the Philadelphia area

New York

AMC Maple Ridge 8
4276 Maple Rd Amherst, NY 14226

AMC Bay Plaza 13
2210 Bartow Ave., Bronx, N.Y. 10475

AMC 84th Street 6
2310 Broadway, New York, NY 10024

AMC Loews Stony Brook 17
2196 Nesconset Highway Stony Brook, NY 11790

AMC Vestal Towne Square 9
2425 Vestal Parkway, Vestal, NY 13850

AMC Webster 12
2190 Empire, Webster, NY 14580

AMC Palisades Center 21
4403 Palisades Center Drive, West Nyack, NY 10994

*See also New Jersey and Connecticut for other theatres in the New York City area

North Carolina

AMC Concord Mills 24
8421 Concord Mills Blvd, Concord, NC 28027

Oklahoma

AMC Crossroads 16
1211 E I-240 Service Road, Oklahoma City, OK 73149

AMC Quaill Springs 24
2501 W Memorial Rd -Ste E, Oklahoma City, OK 73134

Ohio

AMC Ridge Park Square 8
4788 Ridge Rd., Brooklyn, Ohio 44144

AMC Lennox 24
777 Kinnear Rd, Columbus, OH 43212

*See also Kentucky for other theatres in the Cincinnati area

Pennsylvania

AMC Neshaminy 24
3900 Rockhill, Neshaminy Mall 660, Bensalem, PA 19020

AMC Colonial Commons 9
5114 Jonestown Rd. Harrisburg, PA 17112

AMC Waterfront 22
300 W. Waterfront Dr., West Homestead, Pa. 15120

AMC Painter’s Crossing 9
112 Wilmington Pike, West Chester, PA 19382

*See also New Jersey for other theatres in the Philadelphia area

South Carolina

AMC Dutch Square 14
421 Bush River Rd., Unit 80, Columbia, SC. 29210

Texas

AMC Parks at Arlington 18
3861 S Cooper St, Arlington, TX 76015

AMC Barton Creek 14
2901 Capital of Texas Highway, Austin, Texas 78746

AMC Stonebriar 24
2601 Preston Rd., Ste. 300, Frisco, Texas 75034

AMC Firewheel 18
100 Coneflower Dr., Garland, Texas 75040

AMC Gulf Pointe 30
11801 So. Sam Houston Pkwy E Houston, TX 77089

AMC Willowbrook 24
17145 Tomball Pkwy Houston, TX 77064

AMC First Colony 24
3301 Town Centre Blvd. South, Sugar Land, TX 77479

Utah

AMC Loews Layton Hills 9
728 West 1425 North, Layton, UT 84041

Virginia

AMC Hampton 24
1 Town Center Way, Hampton, Va. 23666

AMC Tysons Corner 16
7850 Tysons Corner Center, Mclean, Va. 22102

AMC Lynnhaven 18
1001 Lynnhaven Mall Loop, Virginia Beach, Va. 23452

AMC Potomac Mills 18
2700 Potomac Mills Cir., 886-F3, Woodbridge, Va. 22192

*See also Maryland and District of Columbia for other theatres in the Washington, D.C. area

Washington

AMC Kent Station 14
426 Ramsay Way, Kent, Wash. 98032

AMC River Park Square 20
808 W Main Ave Spokane, WA 99201

AMC Woodinville 12
17640 Garden Way NE, Woodinville, WA 98072

Wisconsin

AMC Mayfair 18
2500 N Mayfair Rd., Ste. M186 Wauwatosa, WI 53226

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