WASHINGTON, DC (August 8, 2014) – President Obama signed the Autism CARES Act today, which dedicates $1.3 billion in federal funding for autism over the next five years. Autism CARES—introduced by Sens. Menendez (D-NJ) and Enzi (R-WY) and Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Mike Doyle(D-PA)—enjoyed broad bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House.

“Autism Speaks commends President Obama and our Congressional leaders for taking action on behalf of the millions of families affected by autism, which continues to rise at an alarming rate,” said Autism Speaks President Liz Feld. “These families are our champions and this critical legislation would not have been possible without the voices of tens of thousands of grassroots advocates from across the country.”

Autism CARES reauthorizes the landmark 2006 Combating Autism Act for another five years at an annual funding level of $260 million. The funding will be used primarily for autism research grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health. Autism CARES will also ensure the continued funding of autism prevalence monitoring; training of medical professionals to detect autism; and continued efforts to develop treatments for medical conditions associated with autism.

“Since 2006, the prevalence of autism has risen at an alarming rate to 1 in 68, including 1 in 42 boys. Given this epidemic, there has never been a greater need for these types of bipartisan efforts to make autism a federal priority,” said Feld. “We applaud Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Michael Enzi (R-WY) and Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) for their continued leadership and commitment to autism families.”

Autism CARES also tasks the federal government with surveying the current landscape of adult services and reporting to Congress where gaps exist and how to most effectively address those needs.

“There is a particularly acute need to serve young people with autism as they transition to adulthood and need new housing, employment, transportation, and other services,” Feld added. “Autism CARES will be critical to identifying these challenges and the ways that the federal and state officials can address them.”

The bill also empowers the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) with the task of avoiding unnecessary duplication and making recommendations to implement a strategic plan. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is required to take charge of implementing the plan and reporting to Congress on progress.

Just before leaving Washington for a month-long break, the U.S. Senate acted to renew the nation’s primary autism legislation, sending the measure to the president’s desk.

The autism bill was approved by unanimous consent late Thursday night. The move comes after the legislation, which cleared the U.S. House of Representatives in June, had been held up for weeks as some advocacy groups working as the Autism Policy Reform Coalition called for changes to the measure.

Known as the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act, or Autism CARES, the bill authorizes $260 million in federal funding annually through 2019 for autism-related programs.

It serves as a reauthorization for what’s previously been known as the Combating Autism Act, which is set to expire at the end of September. Without the renewal, federal funding for research, prevalence tracking, training for professionals, early identification and other autism efforts would come to a halt, supporters led by Autism Speaks said.

“The Senate’s action today ensures these vital autism programs are reauthorized and continue providing research, services and supports individuals with autism and their families have come to rely on,” said U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the legislation’s lead sponsor.

In addition to continuing federal funding for existing programs, the Autism CARES Act calls for an autism point person at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and spells out changes to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. The bill also requires a new report be conducted focusing on the needs of young adults and youth during transition.

Aside from approving the autism legislation, lawmakers also moved forward on a bill that would establish a new way for people with disabilities to save money. A House panel unanimously approved the Achieving a Better Life Experience, or ABLE, Act on Thursday, positioning the legislation to be considered by the full body as soon as next month.

The bill would allow people with disabilities to create special accounts where they could save up to $100,000 without risking eligibility for benefits like Social Security. Under the proposal, individuals would not lose Medicaid coverage no matter how much money is deposited in the accounts.

The ABLE Act has support from more than half the members of both the House and Senate, but key lawmakers said they would work together to find a way to pay for the measure before putting it up for a vote on the House floor.

Meanwhile, the Senate left town without voting on ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The treaty, which sets an international standard for disability rights similar to what’s already in place domestically through the Americans with Disabilities Act, was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July and disability advocates had lobbied heavily for a floor vote before the August recess.

Both the Senate and House will return to Washington in September.

Tim Sharp is an Australian artist and the creator of  superhero Laser Beak Man. When Tim was diagnosed with autism at 3 years of age, doctors advised his mother Judy to institutionalize him. She did no such thing and worked with Tim at home in the hope of one day hearing him speak. After several attempts to communicate with Tim, she tried drawing – he was immediately enamored. Soon Tim began drawing. Then his love of superheroes led him to create his own caped crusader in the form of Laser Beak Man – a duck with a cheeky sense of humor.

Now at 25, Tim speaks eloquently and his art has been seen in galleries all over the world. Laser Beak Man was even turned into an animated series that aired in Australia and on Cartoon Network. Watch the TED Talk above to learn how Laser Beak Man became a global sensation.

To see the Ted Talk click the link below.

Spotting False or Misleading Claims

April is National Autism Awareness Month, a fitting time to think about the growing need for concern and awareness about autism.

One thing that is important to know up front: There is no cure for autism. So, products or treatments claiming to “cure” autism do not work as claimed. The same is true of many products claiming to “treat” autism. Some may carry significant health risks.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plays an important role in warning these companies against making false or misleading claims.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about 1in 68 children has been identified with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ASDs are reported to occur in all racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups, and are almost five times more common among boys (1 in 54) than among girls (1 in 252).

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) describe autistic children as having difficulties with social interaction, displaying problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, exhibiting repetitive behaviors and having narrow, obsessive interests. These behaviors can range in impact from mild to disabling.

“Autism varies widely in severity and symptoms,” says Amy Taylor, M.D., M.H.S., a pediatrician at FDA. “Existing autism therapies and interventions are designed to remedy specific symptoms and can bring about improvement,” she adds.

In addition, FDA has approved medications that can help some people manage related symptoms of ASD. For example, the FDA has approved the use of antipsychotics such as risperidone and aripripazole to treat children 5 or 6 years of age and older who have severe tantrums or aggression and self-injurious behavior. Before using any behavioral intervention or drug therapy (prescription or over-the-counter), check with your health care professional.

The Association for Science in Autism Treatment (ASAT), a not-for-profit organization of parents and professionals committed to improving the education, treatment, and care of people with autism, says that since autism was first identified, there has been a long history of failed treatments and fads.

According to Gary Coody, R.Ph., FDA’s national health fraud coordinator, the agency has warned a number of companies that they are facing possible legal action if they continue to make false or misleading claims about products and therapies claiming to treat or cure autism. Some of these so-called therapies carry significant health risks and include:

• “Chelation Therapies.” These products claim to cleanse the body of toxic chemicals and heavy metals by binding to them and “removing” them from circulation. They come in a number of forms, including sprays, suppositories, capsules, liquid drops and clay baths. FDA-approved chelating agents are approved for specific uses, such as the treatment of lead poisoning and iron overload, and are available by prescription only. FDA-approved prescription chelation therapy products should only be used under medical supervision. Chelating important minerals needed by the body can lead to serious and life-threatening outcomes.
• Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. This involves breathing oxygen in a pressurized chamber and has been cleared by FDA for certain medical uses, such as treating decompression sickness suffered by divers. It has not been cleared for autism, among other conditions.
• Miracle Mineral Solution. Also known as Miracle Mineral Supplement and MMS, this product becomes a potent chemical that‘s used as bleach when mixed according to package directions. FDA has received reports of consumers who say they experienced nausea, severe vomiting and life-threatening low blood pressure after drinking the MMS and citrus juice mixture.
• Detoxifying Clay Baths. Added to bath water, these products claim to draw out chemical toxins, pollutants and heavy metals from the body, falsely offering “dramatic improvement” for autism symptoms.
• Coconut kefir and other probiotic products. These marketed products claim to treat autism and gastrointestinal illnesses associated with autism. They have not been proven safe and effective for these advertised uses.

Coody offers some quick tips to help you identify false or misleading claims.

• Be suspicious of products that claim to treat a wide range of diseases.
• Personal testimonials are no substitute for scientific evidence.
• Few diseases or conditions can be treated quickly, so be suspicious of any therapy claimed as a “quick fix.”
• So-called “miracle cures,” which claim scientific breakthroughs and secret ingredients, may be a hoax.

The bottom line is this—if it’s an unproven or little known treatment, talk to your health care professional before buying or using these products.

This article appears on FDA’s Consumer Updates page, which features the latest on all FDA-regulated products.

Paula Tyrie’s family is moving to a house just two blocks from the Rahway River, and she already has her emergency plan:

If her 10-year-old autistic son goes missing, one of her teenage twins will look in the park. The other will head to the river.

That’s because half of all children with autism are prone to wandering, and their fascination with water puts them at risk for drowning.

To address this double-whammy of danger, the advocacy group Autism Speaks is funding private swim lessons in hopes of imparting a life-saving skill.

“High five!” instructor Johanna Safranski urges Nick, her student, at a recent private lesson at the Center for Lifelong Learning in Parlin. By reaching his arm out of the water to slap her palm, he’ll mimic the beginning of the crawl stroke.

“I want him to be able to enjoy himself, and if he’s ever in a situation where he’s in water unexpectedly, to try to save himself,” said Tyrie, watching the lesson from the bleachers.

Parents like Tyrie point to the case of Avonte Oquendo, the severely autistic Queens teenager who bolted from his school last year. After a city-wide search, his remains were found washed up on the shore of the East River three months later.

Autism expert Walter Zahorodny said he doubts children with autism are drawn to water any more that all children are. What makes them different is the inability to grasp its inherent danger, and a delay in processing safety rules, he said.

For example, while Nick Tyrie’s mother said he loves playing in the pool, he really doesn’t distinguish between the shallow end and the deep end — to his peril.

“That’s what scares parents — the lack of fear,” said Safranski, the swimming teacher.

A 2012 study found that half of children with autism had attempted to leave their home, school, or other supervised setting at least once after the age of 4. Of those, half were missing long enough to cause concern. Some parents even reported their child attempted to bolt several times a day.

“Many children with autism, especially between the ages of 4 and 12, have a greater likelihood of walking away, leaving their home, or leaving the secure area where the family is vacationing,” said Zahorodny, director of the New Jersey Autism Study and a faculty member at Rutgers University’s New Jersey Medical School in Newark. “And of course that causes panic with the parent.”

More than a third of wanderers do not have the language skills to communicate their name, address, or phone number.

In another survey, two out of three parents of wanderers reported a “close call” with traffic.

While encounters with traffic caused plenty of concern, drowning caused the majority of deaths from wandering from 2009 to 2011.

The Autism Speaks scholarships pay for four private half-hour lessons.

Nearly 5 years old, Cayden Rinehart speaks only a handful of words, yet appears to understand all of his swimming teacher’s instructions — even if he sometimes ignores them.

His grandparents have a pool that he loves, said his mother, Christy Rinehart, of South Amboy. Yet, they have to put on his swim vest the minute he arrives at their house, because otherwise he’ll jump right in without it.

Safranski said children with autism tend to be visual learners, so she shows them what she wants them to do instead of merely telling them. She may even move their legs back and forth in addition to telling them to “kick.”

“You just have to do it ten different ways until something works,” she said. “We do things over and over and over and over.”

The biggest challenge, it turns out, is discouraging her students from drinking the water. Cayden’s a drinker, constantly trying to slurp up the puddles along the pool edge. He even requires constant parental vigilance when he’s taking a bath, his mother said.
At home, he’s learning how to spit out toothpaste, which they hope will translate into the ability to blow bubbles while under water.

It was Safranski who heard about the Autism Speaks swim scholarships and applied for a $2,500 grant. Aquatics and Fitness Center program coordinator Katelyn Dauphinee said that after handing out flyers, they got 100 applications for 42 slots. They are hoping to run a second set of lessons soon.

“It’s a life skill they need,” she said.

For the original article published on www.nj.com visit the link below:

https://www.nj.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2014/07/autism_drowning_risks_tackled_with_swim_program.html

(July 11, 2014) – Blockbuster prequel “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is in theaters today and it is jam-packed with dazzling special effects. Some of those scenes were done by digital artists on the autism spectrum. 20^th Century Fox contracted six distinguished students from Exceptional Minds to work on 43 shots in the film. Exceptional Minds is a non-profit vocational school for young men and women with autism preparing for careers in movie post-production.

This isn’t the first time Exceptional Minds students have worked on big Hollywood films.  In the past three years the school has worked on 5 productions, like Oscar-nominated “American Hustle.”

“Upon meeting the students, and seeing all their inspired work and devotion to their craft, I knew they would be a great fit for (post-production) for ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,’” said Ryan Stafford, the film’s visual effects producer with 20th Century Fox.

Movie industry professionals started Exceptional Minds in September 2011 with the mission of helping young people with autism transition from high school into digital arts careers. A 2012 Family Services Community Grant from Autism Speaks of $25,000 helped the vocational school fulfill their goal of proving to the world – the film industry in particular – that young adults with autism could perform highly skilled visual effects and animal work and earn a living. The grant funded their job development program and has allowed them to launch the careers of the first group of graduates – six of which worked on “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes!”

Famed actor and autism advocate Ed Asner was on hand at the graduation ceremony to hand the students their diplomas. Watch the graduation below.

Autism Speaks, the Simons Foundation and the Autism Science Foundation have launched “It Takes Brains,” the new donor registration site for Autism BrainNet.

Autism Speaks Chief Science Officer Rob Ring joined Autism BrainNet Director David Amaral and the Simons Foundation’s Marta Bennedetti in making the announcement at the annual Stakeholders Luncheon at the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR), in Atlanta today.

A year ago, the Simons Foundation and Autism Speaks announced their collaboration in establishing Autism BrainNet to collect, store and distribute the precious brain tissue needed to advance scientific understanding and treatment of autism. The new foundation grew out of the Autism Speaks Autism Tissue Program.

As Autism BrainNet’s outreach program, the “It Takes Brains” website encourages families affected by the disorder to register as future donors.

“I would encourage any family to register to be donors,” says BrainNet family participant Valerie Hund, of Livermore, California. “Although we could not have anticipated losing our son to a seizure, for us, in that moment, we gave back and did something that felt right. So now Grayson can be a pioneer in helping make this next quantum leap in research. Out of something bad, something good came about.” (Also see “Meet the Matthews,” a video message from a newly registered family, below.)

The critical need for brain donations
A severe shortage of human brain tissue has hindered the pace of autism research. At the same time, these precious donations have led to recent breakthroughs.

For instance, research has revealed structural differences between brain tissue from individuals affected by autism and typically developed brains. Other studies have highlighted differences in the numbers and sizes of brain nerve cells, or neurons. Still other research has picked up signs of increased inflammation in brain tissue from individuals affected by autism. In addition, studies have uncovered differences in how genes are expressed inside their brain cells.

However, researchers have not been able to adequately confirm these findings – in part due to the long-standing shortage of donations.

Autism Speaks ATP continues through Autism BrainNet
Through Autism BrainNet, the resources of Autism Speaks Autism Tissue Program will continue to be available for the highest quality research. The Autism BrainNet staff will also continue the ATP’s tradition of close communication with donor families. This will include program updates and news about ongoing brain research.

“Since it was launched in 1998, the Autism Speaks Autism Tissue Program has been committed to providing the rare and precious resource of brain tissue to many highly qualified scientists,” Dr. Ring said. “The launch of Autism BrainNet enables us to continue this mission and expand the number of available collection sites and represents an unprecedented investment ensuring that researchers have access to the brain tissue they need to answer the big questions about autism.”

Autism BrainNet’s founding members
Autism BrainNet is a consortium of academic sites funded collaboratively by the Simons Foundation and Autism Speaks. Together they will collect, store and distribute the donated brain tissue needed to advance scientific understanding of the neurobiology and genetics of autism.

As inaugural members, the following institutions will become collection and storage sites:

* Harvard University/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston;

* The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City;

* The University of California MIND Institute, Sacramento; and

* The University of Texas at Southwestern Medical School, Dallas.

Each site will adhere to standard protocols for clinical data and brain acquisition, preparation, storage and distribution to researchers. Plans call for additional sites worldwide.

“Studies on brain tissue represent the best way for researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the genetic, cellular and molecular causes of autism spectrum disorder,” Dr. Amaral said. “This research takes us important steps closer to effective treatments that will lessen disability for affected individuals.”

For more information, visit the It Takes Brains website or call: 1-877-333-0990.

To read the original article published on Autism Speaks website see the link below

https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/autism-brainnet-launches-%E2%80%98it-takes-brains%E2%80%99-donor-registration-website

With Insurance Payments Being Cut, What’s Happening to the Autism Industry?

Autism is big business in Indiana.

Since 2001, when Indiana became the first state to require health insurers to cover autism therapy in a meaningful way, a cottage industry of therapists and other service providers has sprung up.

Indiana boasts one of the highest concentrations of autism-focused therapists and even sports a new magazine, Autism Companion, supported by advertisers and subscribers in Indiana.

“I didn’t even go out and do any market research at all because the demand was so great,” said Jane Grimes, who, before starting the magazine in 2013, was enrollment director at the Applied Behavior Center for Autism, which is expanding to six locations around the state.

But now Indiana’s autism therapists say their prospects are cloudier after the state’s largest health insurer, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, cut payments 40 percent and took a harder line on paying for therapy for school-age children.

One Indianapolis therapy provider, The Hope Source, nearly closed its doors in March because it couldn’t make payroll, although its finances have since rebounded a bit. Most other therapists have cut staff or services.

“We’re just scrambling around—all the centers,” said Carl Sundberg, executive director of the Behavior Analysis Center for Autism, which operates locations in Fishers, Zionsville and Elkhart. After Anthem’s cuts to reimbursement and hours, his center let go of 15 people, nearly 10 percent of its staff.

“If they were to cut again, we’re all done. The whole system’s done,” Sundberg said. “If the rates were cut again, we would have to provide a service that I wouldn’t want to have my name on.”

For most autism therapists, the Anthem changes began two years ago, when the Indianapolis-based insurer said children age 7 and older need to receive a chunk of their autism therapy from public schools, as state and federal laws for disabled Americans requires.

“Anthem cannot duplicate coverage for services that are available through the public school system,” Anthem stated in a May 2012 letter to parents of autistic children. The letter reiterated Anthem’s commitment to provide coverage for autism therapy. It has physicians review therapists’ treatment plan for each patient and, while it might deny some of the proposed terms, rarely issues a complete denial of coverage.

That meant Anthem would pay for fewer hours of therapy—many providers say 20 hours per week, instead of 40. Therapists say such a policy is fine for children who are ready or nearly ready to do school work with peers of the same age.

However, for children more severely affected, public schools are ill-suited and ill-funded to be the major source of therapy, noted Jim Monroe, whose son Evan, 7, has autism.

“That would be a disaster. Because the townships don’t have the resources,” said Monroe, an accountant in Indianapolis who also runs a side business helping families with autism plan vacations to Disney theme parks.

Anthem’s policy change, which Monroe unsuccessfully appealed, caused him to switch his health insurance coverage to UnitedHealthcare to continue to get coverage for his son’s therapy.

“Without the insurance mandate, it’s basically just impossible to get therapy for your child,” Monroe said.

Public school funding

The state provides public schools an extra $8,350 for each student with autism. That’s consistent with national averages, according to a study led by Harvard University researchers that was published in the journal Pediatrics in March.

However, the cost of full-time private therapy is estimated at $50,000 to $60,000 annually, according to a review of studies by the Indiana Health Law Review.

The cut to hours hit The Hope Source particularly hard because 85 percent of its clients are age 9 and over. And founder Julie Brant Gordon said she was determined not to send those school-age kids away.

To help a bit, Gordon signed a partnership with the Indiana Cyber Charter School, so she can enroll all her full-time, school-age clients in that school and, thereby, receive the extra state funding for their “at school” care. But since the school operates virtually, her clients continue to do their therapy at The Hope Source center, as they always have.

But that arrangement still is not enough to make up for the cuts in hours and reimbursement from Anthem. Hope Source dropped its health benefits for employees last year to make ends meet.

“What Anthem needs to understand is that the funding to the schools is so limited, that it’s still not as much as what I’m losing,” Gordon said. “I wish that Anthem wouldn’t have simultaneously cut reimbursement rates and cut hours. And abruptly. Usually, if they’re going to go down, they don’t go down 40 percent—overnight.”

Anthem instituted its reimbursement cuts in January 2013 for applied behavior analysis therapy—the leading approach to helping autistic children overcome their deficits in cognitive, social or behavioral skills.

“There was a need to bring those rates more in line with our fee schedule,” Anthem spokesman Tony Felts wrote in an email. “In some cases, we were paying therapists almost twice as much on autism claims as we were paying MDs for an office visit.”

But many therapists contend autism therapy does not fit well with the “medical model,” because face-to-face time with a therapist is only a fraction of the treatment these centers provide.

Sundberg said most of his time is spent working on the reports and plans necessary to provide individualized treatment to each patient. Such specific treatment is necessary in autism because each patient’s collection of symptoms is distinct.

Vibrant cluster

In many ways, the cuts from Anthem are taking the Indiana autism-provider community back to where it was a decade ago. At that time, few patients knew to take advantage of the insurance mandate, so most payment was strictly private.

The autism insurance mandate is one of the most liberal in the country, according to a 2011 assessment by the Indiana Health Law Review. Now, 30 other states also have mandates, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, with most of those added since 2007.

But even Indiana’s strong mandate is limited. It applies only to what is called full-risk health insurance, which accounts for only 21 percent of the 4.2 million Hoosiers who have private health insurance, according to 2012 figures from Citi Research and the Census Bureau.

The rest are covered by employers who insure their own health benefits—and as a result fall under federal, rather than state, regulations. The Indiana Medicaid program pays for autism services for low-income Hoosiers that qualify for its coverage.

Even so, the autism mandate likely has increased the cost of full-risk health insurance in Indiana about 1 percent, according to a 2007 estimate by the Council for Affordable Health Insurance.

With fully insured health insurance premiums totaling $3.7 billion per year, according to Citi Research, that estimate suggests the bill in Indiana for autism therapy is $37 million each year.

That money goes to treat the one in 77 Hoosier children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, including a high-functioning form known as Asperger’s Syndrome, as well as what are known as pervasive developmental disorders, according to 2013 data from the Indiana Department of Education.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimated in 2012 that one in every 88 U.S. children was on the autism spectrum. This year, however, the CDC released new data claiming that one in 68 American children has autism.

The rates of autism have skyrocketed nationally the past two decades, which some attribute to a rise in trained professionals who can make such a diagnosis but may also be due to other unknown factors.

In Indiana, 197 organizations now provide autism therapy—or three organizations for every 100,000 Hoosiers, according to a database kept by the Autism Society of America.

Among states with at least 100 therapy providers, Indiana ranks seventh for the most per resident.

Grimes, publisher of the Noblesville-based Autism Companion magazine, had an intuitive sense of those numbers because every time she had helped open an autism therapy center, there had been “overwhelming demand.” Grimes, who has a 15-year-old daughter with autism, also used to run an autism parent support group in Hamilton County.

Now she’s experiencing the same thing with her magazine, which is published in association with IBJ Media Custom Publishing, an affiliate of Indianapolis Business Journal.

“We can’t keep them on the shelves fast enough,” Grimes said of the magazine, which is printed quarterly. She said 10,000 copies are distributed at retail stores or mailed to subscribers’ homes, and another 7,000 are printed from the Autism Companion website. The website receives 500,000 unique views each quarter.

Autism Companion’s advertisers have jumped from 10 in the first issue in September to 26 in the most recent issue. They include not only therapists, but also photographers, lawyers, dentists and schools with a focus on special-needs children. Even Monroe, the accountant and vacation planner, has an ad under the organization he works for, HiHo Vacations.

“From the business sector, it’s been surprising, and we are happy about that,” Grimes said, noting that she’ll be able to add paid staff this fall. “It’s come together really, really nicely.”•

The fourth round of the AGI Residential/Daily Living Support Course will begin Monday, June 23rd! This first-of-its-kind course, funded by a 2011 Autism Speaks grant to the Autistic Global Initiative of the Autism Research Institute, was developed by a team of 15 curriculum experts from across the United States and is instructed by world-renowned faculty. The Autistic Global Initiative is comprised of a committee of adults diagnosed with autism and is dedicated to fostering the development of adults on the autism spectrum and those who work with and for them.

The 12-week online course, hosted by the Houlton Institute, provides evidence-based practices to those who support people with autism and related disabilities in daily living and residential settings. The course provides parents, siblings, family members, in-home support workers, agency support providers and volunteers from the community the foundational knowledge, competencies and tools necessary to support the daily living needs of transition aged students, young adults and adults with autism. The program is self-paced, facilitated by professors and includes lectures, videos, moderated discussions, activities, chat rooms, reading activities and more.

The 12 topics covered include person-center approach to support adults with autism, learning and implementing evidence-based practices in residential settings, citizenship and community life, supporting safety. The cost of the course is $300 but scholarships are available.

For the original article visit: https://www.autismspeaks.org/news/news-item/online-course-caregivers-adults-autism-begin-next-week

The World’s Largest Genomic Database on Autism

Autism Speaks, an autism science and advocacy organization, is launching a program to develop the world’s largest database of genomic sequence information on people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their families.

It’s partnering with Google to store the database, called the Autism Speaks Ten Thousand Genomes Program (AUT10K), on Google’s Cloud Platform.

AUT10K will serve as an open resource to support autism research. Autism Speaks includes the largest private collection of DNA samples from 12,000 autism cases with diagnoses and detailed phenotyping, which researchers have been using for more than 15 years.

“This is a really exciting time for us,” Rob Ring, chief science officer at Autism Speaks, told CBS News, adding that without the partnership with Google, the project would not have been possible to execute.

“The goal is to build an open-access database for the entire research community,” Ring said.

But how secure is it to store data in the Google Cloud?

“This is as secure as it gets,” Ring said. “The important thing is that the data has been deidentified,” with names and other personal information stripped out, he explained, and researchers who will be using it will have to agree with certain terms of use.

“This announcement represents an unprecedented intersection of business, science and philanthropy that will drastically accelerate the pace of autism research,” Bob Wright, co-founder of Autism Speaks, said in a statement. “The insight and expertise the Google team brings to the table is unmatched. Utilizing Google Cloud Platform further advances Autism Speaks’ commitment to advancing cutting-edge science.”

“Modern biology has become a data-limited science. Modern computing can remove those limits,” David Glazer, engineering director for Google Genomics, said in a statement. “We are excited … about the opportunity for Google Cloud Platform to help unlock causes and treatments of autism.”

Autism Speaks launched the AUT10K project in collaboration with the Hospital for Sick Children’s Centre for Applied Genomics in Toronto.

“The Autism Speaks AUT10K Program is a remarkable achievement,” Dr. Steve Scherer, who directs the Center and who will be the director of AUT10K, said in a statement. “The collaboration between a pioneering tech company and the foremost autism science organization has the potential to transform the autism research landscape in exceptional ways. No other organization outside of major health institutions and academia has accomplished this much this quickly.”

To see the original article visit www.cbsnews.com

The parents of children with autism often have to cut back on or quit work, and once they reach adulthood, people on the autism spectrum have limited earning potential.

Those income losses, plus the price of services make autism one of the costliest disabilities – adding $2.4 million across the lifespan if the person has intellectual disabilities and $1.4 million if they don’t, according to a new study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

“We’ve known for a long time autism is expensive, but we’ve really never had data like this to show us the full magnitude of the issue,” said Michael Rosanoff, associate director of public health research for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, which funded the research. “These are on top of the costs to care for a typically developing individual.”

Jackie Marks knows the problem firsthand. The Staten Island, N.Y., mom has 13-year-old triplets, all on the spectrum and all with intellectual deficits.

Everything about their care costs more money, she says, from the diapers and wipes she still has to buy to the specially trained babysitters she has to hire every time she wants to go out. For karate classes, she has to pay for one-on-one lessons; the therapist helping with social skills costs $150 an hour per child.

“I enjoy my children immensely,” Marks said. “I have a wonderful husband. That, at the end of the day makes it all worth it. But is it like a typical experience? No.”

Marks quit her job with the state as a bank auditor to care for Tyler, Dylan, and Jacob. Her husband’s job not only has to cover day-to-day needs, but he has to put away enough money to pay for both her and the boys after he retires. She hopes the boys will be able to work someday, but they’ll never have the kind of earnings that will sustain them, she said, and will probably receive modest Social Security benefits once they turn 18.

Four things need to change to bring down the cost of autism for families and society, according to David Mandell, director of research for the Center for Mental Health Policy and Services at the University of Pennsylvania.

Adults on the spectrum need more job opportunities. There are many small success stories of individuals or small groups of people with autism who are employed, but “we need to be more creative about thinking about employment on a large scale,” Mandell said.

Adult care must be improved so only people who really need expensive residential care get it, and everyone else can find support in their own community, he said. “I think in too many cases, these residential settings represent a failure of our society to provide community-based, cheaper options,” he said. “More flexible, cheaper options would be a way to bring these costs down.”

Families with autism need more opportunities to stay in the workplace. “Issues that face autism ultimately face all families,” Mandell said. “If we had more family-friendly workplace policies, we might see substantial change in the way families were able to manage the work-life balance when they had children with (all kinds of) disabilities.”

Society needs to take the long view, he said. Spending money diagnosing and helping young children on the spectrum will probably save money when they are older, by reducing disability and improving employability. “We often talk about the cost of care, and we don’t spend much time talking about the cost of not caring,” he said.

NUMBERS:

•Cost of supporting someone with an autism spectrum disorder plus intellectual disability: $2.4 million in the USA and 1.5 million pounds in the United Kingdom ($2.2 million in U.S. dollars)

•Cost of supporting someone with an autism spectrum disorder but no intellectual disability: $1.4 million in the USA and .92 million pounds in the United Kingdom ($1.4 million)

A new study reveals that exposure to environmental pollution may cause autism or schizophrenia.

While the link pollution and autism has previously been investigated, researchers from the University of Rochester have uncovered the biological mechanism that may explain how pollution can put people at a higher risk for both autism and schizophrenia.

“From a toxicological point of view, most of the focus of air pollution research has been on the cardiopulmonary system – the heart and lungs,” study author Deborah Cory-Slechta, professor of environmental medicine at the University of Rochester, told FoxNews.com. “But I think it’s becoming increasingly clear that the adverse things happening there are also happening in the brain, and this may be adding to risks for neurodevelopmental disorders like autism that we hadn’t thought about before.”

To conduct the experiment, Cory-Schleta and her colleagues exposed a group of baby mice to levels of air pollution equivalent to those seen in rush hour traffic.

After four hours of pollution exposure during two four-day periods, the group of mice exposed to pollution exhibited significant changes in behavior compared to mice living in an environment with clean hair.

“We see changes in learning produced by these exposures in males and females, and in levels of activity, and we saw deficits in memory in both males and females,” Cory-Slechta said. “We also had a measure of attention, looking at impulsive-like behaviors, which we only tested in males, and there too we saw the effects of postnatal exposure.”

Researchers discovered the effects lasting, reporting behavioral differences between the groups of mice ten months after the exposure. The brains of the mice exposed to pollution had experienced inflammation and “enlargement of the ventricles,” or the chambers on either side of the brain containing cerebrospinal fluid, which, if found in humans, are symptomatic of a neurological impairment called ventriculomegaly. Ventriculomegaly is often associated with damage to the corpus callosum, which connect the two sides of the brain.

“[The corpus callosum] are important for processing cognitive kinds of behaviors, social behaviors and emotional behaviors,” Cory-Slechta said. “And autism is thought to be a disease in which that kind of connectivity is lost, and you also see ventricular enlargement in autism and schizophrenia as well.”

“That kind of air pollution produces inflammation, it is going to produce inflammation peripherally and in the brain as well. And when you produce inflammation in the brain, you can kill cells there,” Cory-Slechta said.

According to national statistics, 1 in 88 children will be diagnosed with autism this year. Males are affected by neurological disorders 4-1 in comparison to females.

“I think in particular autism has been very difficult to discover the ideology of, so to speak, we know there are genetic underpinnings but they don’t fully account for [everything], and the leads in terms of, ‘Are there environmental exposures?’ have been relatively few,” Cory-Schleta said. “And it might be interesting if it turns out air pollution can contribute.”

Geneticist Wendy Chung says that while there are certainly many underlying factors, genes play the largest role in autism– something that parents can do little about. However, she says that a variety of interventions are available to help children and their families affected by autism.

Chung says while there are a plethora of helpful medications available,, educational strategies are just as, if not more, important.

“People diagnosed with autism are wired differently, they learn in a different way, and they absorb their surroundings in a different way,” she said. “We need to educated on how to educated so that we can respond to them in a way that serves them best.”

However, Chung says that while there is much doctors know about autism, there is much more that they don’t know. Consequently, she believes it’s important for the community to use collective wisdom to make a difference.

“We need to join together to become a solution to autism,” she stated. “But it will take a lot of us to focus on what is important; what’s going to be a meaningful difference? As we think about something that will be potentially be a solution, how well does it work? We need to strive to make an impact, to allow those living with autism to live fuller, richer lives.”

– See more at: https://www.gospelherald.com/articles/51516/20140607/autism-schizophrenia-linked-environmental-pollution-according-new-study.htm#sthash.KAjwo1Mz.dpuf

To see the original article visit https://www.gospelherald.com/articles/51516/20140607/autism-schizophrenia-linked-environmental-pollution-according-new-study.htm