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Archive for January 22nd, 2011

 

ScienceDaily (Nov. 22, 2010) — Insomnia is bad news for software engineers’ quality of life and deserves greater recognition and attention, according to new research by Sara Sarrafi Zadeh and Khyrunnisa Begum from the University of Mysore in India. Their work shows that poor sleep has a bearing on quality of life — affecting physical and mental health in particular — in this group with high levels of job-related stress.

The paper is published online in Springer’s journal Applied Research in Quality of Life.

Insomnia, a disorder of insufficient or poor quality sleep, has been shown to have adverse daytime consequences ranging from fatigue, irritability and memory impairment to loss of productivity and relationship difficulties. Left untreated, it has also been linked to severe depression and coronary heart disease. Because the majority of insomniacs do not seek medical treatment, poor sleep is also thought to affect quality of life.

Sarrafi Zadeh and Begum believe that a high incidence of insomnia, alongside minimal recognition of the problem by healthcare professionals, has led to the tangible consequences of chronic insomnia being underestimated.

They studied the relationship between the amount of sleep and the quality of life of 91 software engineers aged between 21 and 45, working for a software company in Mysore, in order to determine the prevalence of insomnia among this group particularly prone to job-related stress. The participants completed two questionnaires: The first looked at insomnia and sleep quality; the second assessed their quality of life.

The authors found that 56 percent of the participants had mild (35 percent) or severe (21 percent) insomnia, compared to 23 percent in the general population. In contrast to what other studies have shown, younger engineers were more likely to be insomniacs than their older counterparts. In terms of gender differences, more women suffered from mild insomnia than men while more men suffered from severe insomnia than women.

Quality of life in general, and mental and physical health in particular, were significantly lower in subjects with insomnia than in other participants. The association between insomnia and poor quality of life was particularly strong for mental health. There were no gender differences in the effects of poor sleep on quality of life.

The authors conclude: “In view of the serious health consequences of insomnia in software engineers who are at high risk, suitable awareness programs should be developed as a preventative measure. Sleep assessment should be included as part of routine medical check-ups so that management of the problem is easier in the early stages. Lifestyle management programs which include sleep hygiene and care should be incorporated as a policy matter in the IT industry.”

Source:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101122093108.htm



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I’ve just revisited the indifferent indie classic Child Psychology by British band Black Box Recorder that has perhaps the only description of ‘selective mutism’ in pop music.

Selective mutism is a curious psychological disorder where children refuse to speak, or refuse to speak in certain situations (like school), despite having no speech problems.

The first verse of ‘Child Psychology’ describes the experience from the child’s perspective:

I stopped talking when I was six years old
I didn’t want anything more to do with the outside world
I was happy being quiet
But of course they wouldn’t leave me alone
My parents tried every trick in the book
From speech therapists to child psychologists
They even tried bribery
I could have anything, as long as I said it out loud

I’ve never been able to find out whether the singer is describing a real experience or it’s just poetic license for the sake of the song.

Rather ironically for a song about selective mutism, the song was banned from radio and MTV because of the chorus which goes “Life is unfair, kill yourself or get over it”.

Read in Full:  http://mindhacks.com/2010/11/20/i-stopped-talking-when-i-was-six-years-old/



 Scott Huff participates in Project Search by working in the print shop at the materials management facility for Carilion Clinic. He is one of 12 students in the program in this region.

 Photo by JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Project Search provides opportunities to students with disabilities, and employers can consider hiring them after their internships end.

By Sheila Ellis

Tamara Thomas, 18, has her own office complete with a leather-bound navy blue diploma from William Fleming High School atop her metal filing cabinet and a photo of her boyfriend on her desk.

It’s hard for her high school counselor to believe, because when Thomas was a freshman, she was painfully shy and uninterested in school, said Cindy Goldstein, transition specialist at William Fleming.

Thomas has a milder variant of an autistic disorder called Asperger’s syndrome. It affects her social skills mostly, said her mother, Katina Thomas. It’s hard for shy, introverted Tamara Thomas to make eye contact with people.

During Thomas’ senior year, Goldstein advised her to apply for a national program called Project Search, aimed at giving students with disabilities on-the-job training through internships to compete for jobs. She is now one of 12 students in the Roanoke Valley involved in the competitive program’s first year in Roanoke.

Thomas is an unpaid intern at a materials management facility for Carilion Clinic. There she keeps track of medical supplies for health care facilities.

“I really like my job here. People are so nice and treat me with respect,” she said.

Thomas’ goal is to get a permanent job with benefits and to be independent, she said.

Students such as Thomas rotate through work sites at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, the Carilion Clinic materials management facility and the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. They work in various departments including nursing, materials management and food service.

Because Thomas is in a work environment where she has to communicate with people around her, she is talking more and becoming less shy, her mother said.

“Already in a short time, I have seen her coming out of her shell,” she said.

There are more than 40 Project Search programs nationwide. Roanoke’s program is one of five in the state and boasts the largest and most diverse collaborative effort in Virginia.

Partners in the program include school systems in Roanoke and Roanoke County, Botetourt and Franklin counties, and Salem; the Virginia Department of Rehabilitative Services; Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare; local parent representatives; Goodwill Industries of the Valleys; Carilion Clinic; and Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute.

Funding for the program comes from each school district and the Department of Rehabilitative Services. Goodwill operates the program.

Students in the program must have a developmental and/or other significant disability, communicate effectively, meet state eligibility requirements and have independent daily living skills among other criteria.

Students attend morning classes at the Virginia Tech Carilion medical school that teach them career and life skills before heading to their internships for the rest of the day. Each student has a job coach on-site to help him or her develop skills. Students are encouraged to get to work on their own.

The program allows students to be treated like everyone else, said Michele Wells, vocational rehabilitation counselor for Project Search.

“It allows students to see what they can do for a company and the company to see what the students can do for them,” she said.

Carilion Clinic is the program’s sole corporate sponsor, and coordinators said they are seeking more businesses to become involved.

Project Search allows a company that may not have considered hiring someone with a disability to do so at little to no cost.

Hiring employees with a disability is a strength for a company, Goldstein said.

“It’s all about acceptance,” Goldstein said. “We need to focus on each student’s unique strengths instead of their disabilities.”

Source:  http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/268389



 

BY LAINIE STEELMAN
GATEHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
Published Nov. 21, 2010 @ 10 p.m.

On a recent Monday morning at West Prairie South Elementary in Colchester, Ill., Ray Hart, 11, used a stylus to trace a small “t” on an iPad screen. After he successfully traced the letter, the tablet computer made a cheering sound. Ray looked up at his teacher, Lori Thompson, and smiled.

Working on the iPad, which was released by Apple in April, has helped Hart dramatically improve his handwriting and boost his confidence.

“The first time I showed this to one little guy — and he is verbal — he was able to start writing letters, and that’s carried over into his paper work,” Thompson said.

Most of the students in Thompson’s special needs classroom have autism, a developmental disorder that makes communication and social interaction difficult.

“We’re always looking for new ways to help our students come up with ways to communicate and be motivated,” Thompson said. “We have another (non-verbal) student who uses an augmentative communication device that’s very heavy and bulky and hard to carry around, so we were looking for an alternative.”

Thompson’s two iPads were received after West Prairie Superintendent Jonathan Heerboth suggested the idea.

“There was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that talked about iPads as a useful communication tool for children on the autism spectrum who could not otherwise communicate,” Heerboth said. “I knew that Mrs. Thompson had experimented with a similar idea on her iPod Touch.”

After Thompson researched the idea, an Apple sales representative met with Heerboth, Thompson and one of her students after the new school year started in August. Soon, Thompson was able to buy two iPads – at a considerably lower cost than other augmentative communication devices.

“The other devices are from $3,000 to $5,000 dollars apiece,” Thompson said. “iPads cost, depending on how much memory you get, $500 and up.”

Thompson’s non-verbal student uses the iPad with a text-to-speech application called Proloquo2Go. Using this application, Thompson’s non-verbal student can easily participate in class and answer questions by touching the appropriate icon on the iPad, which then voices a response.

“If it’s their day to be calendar helper, they can tell us,” Thompson said. “They can pick the day of the week, they can tell me what the weather is (and) they can participate in the Pledge of Allegiance all by the touch, and that’s very exciting for them.”

Another application on Hart’s iPad called ABC PocketPhonics not only teaches him how to write a letter, but it teaches him the sound. Stories2Learn teaches social cues, something kids with autism find difficult to pick up on. With this application, Thompson can create a simple story using a combination of photos and her own text that shows a specific skill, such as eye contact. If she chooses, Thompson can also narrate the stories with her own voice.

Thompson can create her own pages for the iPad. If she’s doing a lesson on spiders, for example, she can create a page about spiders in about 15 minutes.

“The apps are easy to download from iTunes and some other places as well,” Thompson said. “It’s a lot easier than some of the DynaVox (communication) systems I’m used to programming.”

Many of these applications can also be downloaded onto an iPhone or iPod Touch, and most are inexpensive. ABC PocketPhonics costs just $1.99 on iTunes, for example, and Stories2Learn is available for $13.99. Proloquo2Go, a more specialized application, costs $189.99.

The iPads stay in the classroom and do not go home with the students. They are recharged at the end of the day and, if needed, Thompson updates them with new material.

Kathy Olesen-Tracey, an educator with the Center for Application of Information Technology at Western Illinois University, said current research is showing that the use of technologies such the iPad, and even smart phones like the iPhone, improves student test scores. She cited one recent study that showed high school students who used math applications with smart phones received higher standardized test scores in math.

Tracey says “assistive technology,” like the iPad, doesn’t replace teaching in classrooms, it reinforces it.

Read in Full:  http://www.behealthyspringfield.com/sections/local-news/autistic-students-find-help-with-ipad



 

Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. Updated: Nov 23rd 2010

If you haven’t given it intentional thought yet, make it a point right now to:

Stop

Take a Breath

Consider what in life you are grateful for…

It’s likely that half the people reading this right now will roll their eyes, saying, “Not that gratitude thing again.” This thought crashes down the experience to engage in something that research has proven will make us feel more satisfied with life.

Robert Emmons and Michael McCollough (2003) conducted a study a while back called Counting Blessings versus Burdens. He split up a few groups of people and had one group count 5 blessings per day, one group count 5 burdens per day and one group just write about neutral events. As you may have guessed, the ones who counted blessings, experienced less stress and more feelings associated with well being.

Thanksgiving is upon us and for some it is a time of celebration and for others it is a time of difficulty with family feuds or loneliness.

Thanksgiving by itself is not a good or bad holiday, but what it can be is a reminder to connect with some part of the good in your life.

Don’t let your automatic judgments mind enslave you and give this a shot.

Here are 5 steps to count your blessings:

  1. Count the blessings you have in this life. The more specific the better, rather than saying “health,” say how you feel healthy, for example, a strong heart, lungs, etc…

  2. Wish these blessings onto someone you care about in the form or, “May you be healthy” or whatever your blessing was.

Read More … http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=41223&cn=110



 

Article Date: 23 Nov 2010 – 0:00 PST

More than 80 percent of university students are struggling with psychological distress with almost one-fifth of these classified as having a serious mental illness, according to a UQ study.

Further, the rate of psychological distress among university students surveyed (83.9 percent) is almost three times higher than in the general population (29 percent).

The study, published in the November edition of Australian Psychologist, found rates of serious mental illness among the sample (19.2 percent) were more than five times higher than in the general population (three percent).

Study author Dr Helen Stallman, a clinical psychologist and researcher with UQ’s Schools of Medicine and Pharmacy, said she was not only worried and surprised that so many students were distressed but that only one-third (34.3 percent) of the most seriously affected reported consulting a health professional.

Her study of almost 6500 Australian university students found the typical profile of a distressed student to be undergraduate students in their second, third or fourth year, and aged between 18 and 34.

Dr Stallman said the seriously affected group reported reduced capacity or total impairment for 10 days of the previous month.

The study found 83.9 percent of students surveyed reported elevated distress levels with 64.7 percent of these exhibiting mild to moderate symptoms mental illness. Only 16 percent of the sample were classified as not having any mental distress, Dr Stallman said.

Dr Stallman said of the 34.3 percent of the serious group who reported seeking help, most (67.3 percent) visited their general practitioner while only 9.3 percent consulted a psychiatrist, 20 percent a psychologist and 30.4 percent a counsellor.

The study revealed a number of protective factors associated with a lower the risk of mental health problems among students.

These included: students living in a situation where there was a higher connectedness and interrelatedness such as in university housing or with parents or a partner.

“Both life experience and experience as a student also seem to be protective factors,” Dr Stallman said.

“Older students and postgraduate students seem more resilient, perhaps because of increased coping strategies, or at postgraduate level, self-selection of students who have effective coping measures.”

Dr Stallman said the study highlighted a need for universities to be proactive in promoting the mental health and wellbeing of students in addition to specific traditionally targeted areas such as alcohol abuse.

 
Source:
University of Queensland   

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/208877.php



 

Sonja Perren email, Julian Dooley email, Therese Shaw email and Donna Cross email

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health 2010, 4:28doi:10.1186/1753-2000-4-28

 
Published: 23 November 2010

Abstract (provisional)

Background

Cyber-bullying (i.e., bullying via electronic means) has emerged as a new form of bullying that presents unique challenges to those victimised. Recent studies have demonstrated that there is a significant conceptual and practical overlap between both types of bullying such that most young people who are cyber-bullied also tend to be bullied by more traditional methods. Despite the overlap between traditional and cyber forms of bullying, it remains unclear if being a victim of cyber-bullying has the same negative consequences as being a victim of traditional bullying.

Method

The current study investigated associations between cyber versus traditional bullying and depressive symptoms in 374 and 1320 students from Switzerland and Australia respectively (52% female; Age: M = 13.8, SD = 1.0). All participants completed a bullying questionnaire (assessing perpetration and victimisation of traditional and cyber forms of bullying behaviour) in addition to scales on depressive symptoms.

Results

Across both samples, traditional victims and bully-victims reported more depressive symptoms than bullies and non-involved children. Importantly, victims of cyber-bullying reported significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms, even when controlling for the involvement in traditional bullying/victimisation.

Conclusions

Overall, cyber-victimisation emerged as an additional risk factor for depressive symptoms in adolescents involved in bullying.

The complete article is available as a provisional PDF. The fully formatted PDF and HTML versions are in production.

http://www.capmh.com/content/4/1/28



SPECIALIST: The New Elizabethan School

The New Elizabethan School, Hartlebury

By Claire Fry »

A SCHOOL saved from closure by a worried parent is hoping to become Worcestershire’s first free school.

The New Elizabethan School in Hartlebury, near Kidderminster, which currently offers specialist provision for gifted and talented pupils and for children with ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and ASD is taking its place at the forefront of the county’s free school movement.

If its plans are accepted by the Government the school, which currently charges about £2,500 per child per term, would provide specialist education for 100 pupils free of charge.

Source:  http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/8677358.Now_saved_school_wants__free__status/



Page Last Updated: Saturday November 20, 2010 12:00am PST

A Washoe County school bus driver has been fired and an aide is on probation after an incident on a special needs school bus involving a 6 year old student who has autism.

A videotape shows the bus driver and the aide covering the child’s face with a rag after she began spitting on the bus.

After almost a month long investigation the school district fired the driver yesterday, but the student’s parents say more needs to be done and they are pressing for criminal charges to be filed.

“It was really disturbing for me, because you see my daughter begging for her mother while the bus driver is repeatedly insisting she’s going to the police.” said Jeremy Hagblom, 6 year old Tierstan Hagblom’s father.

Hagblom says he and his wife were shocked to see what happened to their daughter on the school bus home from Caughlin Ranch Elementary School on October 22nd.
“On that tape the bus driver and aide were trying to stop my daughter from spitting by repeatedly placing a rag over her face, nose and her eyes.”

In a school district incident report…the driver says quote, “we just want to protect other students from contamination from her since we don’t know if she has any issues about health, such as hepatitis or HIV.”

Tierstan was having a “stimming” episode something that happens to children with autism when they are overstimulated or upset.

Her father says they were notified an incident had taken place by the district over the phone that afternoon, but he became much more concerned after seeing the video from the bus almost two weeks later.

“I feel like the video was more serious than the picture painted over the phone.”
Hagblom says not only did the employees make the wrong call with the rag over his daughter’s face, he says she is still traumatized by the verbal threats that were made as well about the police.

“I feel like she’s been acting out more. In addition, occasionally we’re still getting the question whether or not she’s going to be arrested. She doesn’t know how to process that information.”

The Washoe County School District says the bus driver was removed immediately from his job the day after the incident, and was officially terminated yesterday for his actions.

“In our opinion there wasn’t intent to hurt the child in any way and again in some ways we looked at the situation and the driver was trying to protect other kids, just making some real poor choices,” said senior administrator Rick Harris.

Harris says both the district’s legal department and school police investigated the incident over the last few weeks and found no cause for criminal charges to be filed.
He says school bus drivers are thoroughly trained and this incident was extremely unfortunate and unusual.

“Between fifteen to 30 thousand kids ride buses everyday, 99 percent of the time the drivers make good choices unfortunately in this instance the choice was not good.”
The Hagbloms are happy to hear the bus driver has been fired and the aide put on probation, but still would like to see the driver prosecuted for assault.

Read in Full/View Video:  http://www.mynews4.com/story.php?id=32495&n=122



 

Steve Pavilanis Updated: Nov 3rd 2010

When you’re feeling anxious and depressed, your self-confidence takes a nosedive. You don’t feel up to facing any challenges or pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone. You tell yourself that once you start feeling better and more confident, then you’ll be ready to conquer your fears.

The tricky part is that we’re never really “ready” to face our fears. Instead, we have to muster up the courage to push ourselves towards our fears. Once we do this, the confidence flows like a waterfall!

I’ll say it loud and clear: Voluntarily facing your fears is the BEST way to build self-confidence and belief in yourself.

Here’s an example from my life…to conquer my fear of riding crowded trains at rush hour in Chicago, I started small. I began riding the train just a few stops over my lunch break when it was mostly empty. I gradually increased the difficulty over several weeks, riding trains with more passengers for longer rides, building my confidence. Eventually, I graduated to riding packed trains at rush hour with little difficulty.

The day may never come when you wake up and magically feel up to finally facing your greatest fears. It just doesn’t work that way. Instead, start pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone every day taking baby steps. Each small victory conjures up positive feelings and belief in yourself, which continues to build as you repeat this process and tackle more challenging situations.

Read in Full:  http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=41058&cn=1