Archive for 2011
Article Date: 06 Jul 2011 – 9:00 PDT
Over two in five people in Ireland would not want to know if a loved one was experiencing depression according to findings in the 2011 Lundbeck Mental Health Barometer. Despite this, 93% of respondents agree that it is important that depression is discussed openly. However, when asked if they would find it difficult to discuss depression with their doctor 70% agreed.
The Barometer provides insights into Irish people’s attitudes towards mental health. This year’s research has illustrated that while people have become more aware of depression, they still do not have a clear understanding of what it is, and those who do experience it are reluctant to speak to a healthcare professional about it.
The research findings indicate that depression has become more visible over the past six years. In 2006 18% of those who personally had depression, or who had a family member with depression, said that many or some people would have been aware. This year that number has grown to 53% which may illustrate a greater degree of awareness around the condition.
Stigma continues to be an underlying issue with 60% of respondents saying that they consider depression to be stigmatising. Statistics in the research also revealed that almost a quarter (23%) of people believe that depression is not an illness but a “state of mind”. These findings indicate that while awareness of depression has grown, there is still a degree of ignorance around the condition.
Read in Full:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/230554.php
ScienceDaily (July 7, 2011) — Pupils with special needs and teachers in mainstream schools in the UK are often the victims of a “one size fits all” approach to schooling and education, a leading academic has claimed.
Professor Paul Cooper, a chartered psychologist and professor of education at the University of Leicester, said pupils with social, emotional and behavioural problems (SEBD) are at particular risk of under-achieving because schools are frequently ill-equipped to handle their problems.
Teachers need better training in the appropriate skills and methods for supporting pupils with special needs, while the children themselves require a more diverse range of provision to meet those needs both within and beyond mainstream schools.
In a new study, Professor Cooper and co-author Barbara Jacobs, also of the University of Leicester’s School of Education, argue that it is not children with special needs that present the problems for schools and teachers — but failings within the education system.
Professor Cooper, whose study also examines classroom strategies and approaches that have been found to be effective, said that too often “blanket assumptions” are made about pupils’ needs, and teachers frequently lack the skills and knowledge to be able to support them.
He said: “There should be a diverse range of educational facilities so that children can move between one or another as needs arise. Everyone should have the right to go to their local school, but they also have a right to be educated in accordance with their needs and aspirations.
“It is patently obvious that many of our schools experience difficulties in catering for the needs of all students, and demanding that they do so in the absence of appropriate training and resources is disheartening for teachers and disastrous for students — especially those who are most vulnerable.
Teachers are as much victims of this muddled approach as children, Professor Cooper argues.
“Initial teacher training has not changed sufficiently to accommodate the inclusion policy, leaving most teachers lacking in the skills required to deal with children with serious difficulties.
“This failure means that the most vulnerable pupils often do not tend to achieve educational success. There is also a knock on effect from this, whereby teachers facing the most challenging circumstances find themselves locked into a fire fighting role, which has a negative effect on the learning experience of all students.”
Read in Full:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110707101959.htm
Published: Wednesday, June 29, 2011; Last Updated: Wed. Jun 29, 2011, 5:36pm
OLD SAYBROOK (AP) — Federal law enforcement officials say an early-learning center in Old Saybrook has agreed to pay more than $7,000 to settle allegations that it terminated the enrollment of a toddler because he has autism.
The U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday that Beach Babies Learning Center LLC denied it discriminated against the child who was 2 years old at the time. Authorities did not say when the discrimination allegedly occurred.
Beach Babies agreed to implement t policies and procedures to ensure disabled children benefit from its programs. It also agreed to pay $7,341 in damages to the child’s parents, Ali and Josh Linkov.
A call to Beach Babies was not immediately returned.
The Justice Department investigated allegations that the learning center violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Source:
http://middletownpress.com/articles/2011/06/29/news/doc4e0a8a39e9207505492679.txt
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For 40 years, ‘inclusion’ has been the buzzword for special-needs education. Now radical reforms will mean fewer disabled children in mainstream schools. Is this what families want? Sarah Cassidy reports
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Ten-year-old Olivia Locke has not been to school for two years. When she did attend classes, she became so anxious that she felt physically sick – complaining of headaches, stomach- and leg-pains – and then refused to go back.
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By the time her parents removed her at the age of eight, Olivia had refused to attend a nursery, three state primaries and one private school.
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Olivia has Aspergers syndrome – a form of autism that causes difficulty in processing and understanding language – but also a generalised anxiety disorder, a combination that, her parents argue, makes attending mainstream school impossible.
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Her mother, Kay Locke, 45, says: “We are being told by our local authority that her needs can be met in a normal mainstream secondary school. But all the reports we have had say she needs specialist provision. My sadness is that, as parents, we felt very much labelled as being inadequate. They said: ‘Just bring her into school and it will all be fine’, but we felt they just didn’t understand the situation. Unfortunately, there is a real culture of blame and it quickly turns into ‘you and them’.” The family – which is from Stockport – is now taking its local authority to a tribunal in an attempt to get Olivia a place at a specialist unit, but the process has caused a huge amount of stress and anguish for everyone.
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It is families such as the Lockes that the Coalition Government hopes to help with its radical shake-up of provision for children with special needs or a disability. The consultation on its Green Paper closes today. The document boasts that the proposals will mean the biggest reform in the education and health support for children with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities in 40 years. This is a package of reforms that has been influenced heavily by the Prime Minister’s own personal views and experiences.
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David Cameron, whose late son Ivan was severely disabled, personally drafted the Conservative manifesto pledge to end the “bias towards the inclusion” of children with special needs in mainstream schools. In a wide-ranging Green Paper published in March, Children’s Minister, Sarah Teather, unveiled proposals that also promised to remove this “bias” from the system, as well as reforming everything from statementing to teacher training and giving new rights to – and choices for – parents.
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Around two million children and young people have been identified as having a special educational need or disability. The aim of the Green Paper – called Support and Aspiration – was to respond to the frustrations of these young people, their families and the professionals who work with them, who have complained that the system is bureaucratic, bewildering and adversarial, and that there is limited choice about the best schools and care.
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According to the Council for Disabled Children, on average a disabled child experiences 32 assessments as they grow up, which ministers describe as being “unacceptable” and “inefficient”.
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The most radical proposal would see the statement – the foundation of the SEN system for more than 30 years – scrapped and replaced with a “combined education, health and care plan”, which would last until the age of 25. Ministers also hope to speed up the process by reducing the time limit for statutory assessments.
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The “school action” and “school action plus” categories for children with SEN – but without a statement – will also be axed.
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Read in Full:
Tracy Rosen
July 4, 2011
The school bells rang their final song of the 2010-2011 school year in Eastern Ontario last Wednesday. For many people it marked the beginning of 8 weeks of relaxation and fun in the sun with no thought to school. For others, especially those with children who have special needs, it is a time to garner energy and resources to help their children out for the next school year.
Here is a list of some resources available in the Ottawa area and online for parents of children with special needs. If you know of others, please add them in the comments and they will be added to the list!
Ottawa Special Education – Parents Helping Parents: The best resources often come from those who know of your experiences first hand. “The [website’s] goal is to provide parents with information to help them support their exceptional children.”
Navigating the Special Education System: A PowerPoint presentation (presented as a pdf document) from Diane Wagner, Manager of Public Policy, Client Services & Training, Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario
Read in Full:
Doctors at certain practices refuse to treat kids whose parents refuse immunization schedule
July 6, 2011
A small but growing number of parents think vaccines against childhood diseases are unsafe and are refusing or delaying shots for their children, despite the discrediting of a medical study linking vaccines and autism that stirred alarm.
Ground zero in the debate is the pediatrician’s office.
Some frustrated pediatricians are drawing a line in the sand by requiring parents in their medical practices to vaccinate their children or seek health care elsewhere, a position that rubs some medical professionals the wrong way.
Among those taking a stand are the eight pediatricians of Northwestern Children’s Practice in Chicago. They no longer see children whose parents refuse to follow the childhood immunization schedule developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics. A letter and email sent to parents this year announced the policy, which went into effect in June.
“All of the available research shows that the safest and most effective way to vaccinate children is on the schedule set by the CDC and AAP,” said Dr. Scott Goldstein, one of the pediatricians. “To go against that schedule goes against proven scientific research and puts patients who do follow the schedule at risk.”
So far, fewer than a dozen families have chosen to leave the practice of about 5,000 to 6,000 patients, said Goldstein, who participates in the Illinois Immunization Patient Advocacy Leadership Initiative run by the Illinois chapter of the AAP.
Statistics show that the vast majority of parents support vaccination, regarded by many physicians as one of the greatest success stories in public health. But the number of parents resisting shots for their children has been increasing.
Read in Full:
http://www.ky3.com/news/ct-x-0706-vaccine-refusal-20110706,0,3968732.story
Lots of people experience panic attacks. For some people, it can get so bad that they also get agoraphobia — the fear of leaving one’s house. So I’m happy to introduce Panic About Anxiety with Summer Beretsky, a blog that will explore panic, agoraphobia and even topics about general anxiety in upcoming entries.
If you’re not familiar with Summer, you can check out her archives at the World of Psychology blog. She is a graduate of the University of Delaware, where she received her Master of Arts degree in Communication. She enjoys writing about her experiences with anxiety, panic, and Paxil. She contributes to the World of Psychology blog here on PsychCentral and has written for the Los Angeles Times. You can follow her on Twitter @summerberetsky. You can read more about her here.
We’re happy to have Summer join the Psych Central Blog Network. Please give her a warm welcome over on the new blog now, Panic About Anxiety.
Source:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/06/24/introducing-panic-about-anxiety/
ScienceDaily (June 28, 2011) — People with Asperger syndrome have problems with social interaction and attentiveness, and are also sensitive to noise and light. Several of these characteristics were evident to parents during their child’s first two years, reveals Petra Dewrang’s thesis in psychology at the University of Gothenburg.
In her thesis, Dewrang investigated how individuals with Asperger syndrome aged 14-24 perceive themselves relative to their diagnosis. The thesis is based on interviews, tests and self-evaluations. A questionnaire for parents also resulted in important descriptions of these individuals’ behaviour and development from infancy onwards.
The results show first and foremost that the similarities are greater than the differences when the Asperger group and the comparison group describe their lives.
“But the differences that do exist are vital for understanding how people with Asperger syndrome stand the best chance of getting by,” says Dewrang.
The Asperger group were as content with themselves and their lives as the comparison group.
But they found it harder to build relationships with other people, and their plans for the future were less “adventurous.” Parents and siblings were more present in their lives than is normal for this age group, even after they had left home. On the other hand, they were just as good at social cognition as the comparison group when they had to explain why the key person in a story reacted in a certain way. However, the ability to theoretically understand other peoples’ thoughts and feelings are not always enough for making friends in real life.
Journal Reference:
- 1. Dewrang, P. & Dahlgren Sandberg, A. Repetitive behaviour and obsessive-compulsive features in Asperger syndrome: Parental and self-reports. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 5, 1176-1186
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110628111850.htm
Today, on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness Day, we recognize the millions of Americans who suffer from this debilitating condition. PTSD affects a wide range of people, from new mothers to our country’s service men and women.
PTSD affects about 5.2 million adult Americans, but women are more likely than men to develop it. PTSD occurs after an individual experiences a terrifying event such as an accident, an attack, military combat, or a natural disaster. Some people recover a few months after the event, but other people will suffer lasting or chronic PTSD.
HHS’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) offers a variety of resources to help people who suffer from PTSD and to help their families and friends better understand and deal with trauma and its aftermath.
We have a responsibility to help Americans who have lived through trauma, especially our nation’s service men and women who may be dealing with PTSD. We owe them the care and resources they need to get well.
One of our key programs is our partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide military veterans and service members, along with their families, assistance with the effects of PTSD through the confidential toll-free Veterans Crisis Hotline, a service that also offers support through a confidential one-on-one online chat service.
Read in Full:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/229767.php
Jun
30
Simple fact. Most of what we needed to know to succeed in business we learned on the playground, but now ignore or forget.
Here are 7 childrens’ books that will teach you as much as any 7 bestselling business books about what it takes to succeed in business…and life. And, unlike most business books, they’re short and sweet, have large type and pictures.
1. The Lorax – On respecting people and natural resources along the way.
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not….
Now all that was left ‘neath the bad-smelling sky was my big empty factory…
the Lorax… and I.
The Lorax said nothing just gave me a glance. Just gave me a very sad, sad backward glance.
He lifted himself by the seat of his pants and I’ll never forget the grim look on his face as he hoisted himself and took leave of this place through a hole in the smog without leaving a trace and all that the Lorax left here in this mess was a small pile of rocks with one word.
UNLESS”
2. Winnie the Pooh – On the power of simplicity and serving needs.
“I
t is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?””
“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”
“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
“Before beginning a Hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it.”
3. The Little Prince – On the role of compassion and intuition.
“It
is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
“What makes the desert beautiful,†said the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well…”
“Well, I must endure the presence of two or three caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.”
“All men have the stars,” he answered, “but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travellers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all the stars are silent. You–you alone–will have the stars as no one else has them–“
4. Where the Wild Things Are – On the dance between quest, emotion, fear and solace. But one of the biggest business lessons—perseverance—comes from what happened to the book when it first came out.
“A
ccording to Sendak, at first the book was banned in libraries and received negative reviews. It took about two years for librarians and teachers to realize that children were flocking to the book, checking it out over and over again, and for critics to relax their views. Since then, it has received high critical acclaim. Francis Spufford suggests that the book is ‘one of the very few picture books to make an entirely deliberate, and beautiful, use of the psychoanalytic story of anger.’ Mary Pols of Time magazine wrote that ‘[w]hat makes Sendak’s book so compelling is its grounding effect: Max has a tantrum and in a flight of fancy visits his wild side, but he is pulled back by a belief in parental love to a supper ‘still hot,’ balancing the seesaw of fear and comfort.'” – Wikipedia.
5. The Giving Tree – On giving without expectation of reciprocation.
Ben Jackson, professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University shared: “Is this a sad tale? Well, it is sad in the same way that life is depressing. We are all needy, and, if we are lucky and any good, we grow old using others and getting used up. Tears fall in our lives like leaves from a tree. Our finitude is not something to be regretted or despised, however; it is what makes giving (and receiving) possible.
The more you blame the boy, the more you have to fault human existence. The more you blame the tree, the more you have to fault the very idea of parenting. Should the tree’s giving be contingent on the boy’s gratitude? If it were, if fathers and mothers waited on reciprocity before caring for their young, then we would all be doomed.”
Read in Full:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/awake-the-wheel/201106/the-7-childrens-book-mba