Archive for 2011
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on September 8, 2011
Research scientists have found low levels of serotonin 1B levels in patients with a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to the researchers, this is the first evidence of a potential drug target for the condition.
The study on biochemical changes within the brain associated with PTSDÂ is published in Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals..
Alexander Neumeister, M.D. at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and colleagues collaborated with the Yale Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Center to evaluate 96 patients: 49 with PTSD; 20 who were exposed to trauma but did not have PTSD; and 27 healthy adults.
All patients were injected with a tracer to provide a clear picture of levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin 1B. PET scans were then performed that produced advanced images of their brains.
Read in Full:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/09/08/low-levels-of-serotonin-1b-linked-to-ptsd/29253.html
PTSD Risk May Depend on Genetics
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on September 7, 2011
A new study suggests that in some cases, a particular genetic profile is associated with development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Researchers determined certain variants of a gene that helps regulate serotonin (a brain chemical related to mood), may serve as a useful predictor of risk for symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following a trauma.
“One of the critical questions surrounding PTSD is why some individuals are at risk for developing the disorder following a trauma, while others appear to be relatively resilient,†said lead author Kerry J. Ressler, M.D., Ph.D.
“It is known that genetic heritability is one component of the differential risk for PTSD, but the mechanisms remain relatively unknown.”
Read in Full:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/09/07/ptsd-risk-may-depend-on-genetics/29222.html
Using Technology to Treat OCD…A Good Idea or Not?
For people who are suffering for any reason, the internet can offer ready-made support. Those with OCD, for example, can visit blogs, forums, mental health sites, and individual health care provider sites dedicated to their disorder. Now it seems things have gone one step further. A recent pilot study of the effectiveness of ICBT (Internet Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) shows promising results. Twenty-three patients underwent a fifteen week ICBT program “with therapist support consisting of psychoeducation, cognitive restructuring and exposure with response prevention. At post-treatment, 61% of participants had a clinically significant improvement and 43% no longer fulfilled the diagnostic criteria of OCD. The treatment also resulted in statistically significant improvements in self-rated OCD symptoms, general functioning and depression.”
OCFighter, based in the United Kingdom, is a CCBT (Computer-aided CBT) program that has been used widely for over six years. While it began as a phone-interactive-voice response program that included a workbook, it is now in the process of being adapted to the internet. Shown to be quite successful in multiple studies, OCFighter has been used in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada.
Read More …
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=44501&cn=6
Successful Prevention Program For Postpartum OCD Developed By UM Researcher
The birth of a baby can elicit many emotions, from joy and excitement to fear and uncertainty. But it can also trigger unexpected difficulties with anxiety, in particular with postpartum Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Psychologist Kiara Timpano from the University of Miami (UM) and her collaborators developed an effective program for the prevention of postpartum obsessive compulsive symptoms. The findings are reported online ahead of print by the Journal of Psychiatric Research.
“Postpartum depression has received much attention, but anxiety related issues, especially obsessive compulsive symptoms, can also be devastating to mothers and their families,” says Timpano, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at UM College of Arts and Sciences and principal investigator of the study. “Many women experiencing these difficulties are not getting the services they need because they don’t even know that what they are experiencing has a label and can be helped.”
Read in Full:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/233058.php
Understanding Recovery Avoidance in OCD
Dan would sit in a chair for hours, “stuck” and unable to move. He couldn’t eat, socialize, or enter most buildings. My son was suffering from severe OCD, yet I couldn’t help but feel lucky. The reason? He was willing to do whatever it took to get better.
This is not always the case. In this wonderful article on recovery avoidance, the authors suggest that recovery avoidance is one of the main reasons why the majority of OCD sufferers do not receive appropriate treatment. I personally know of some young adults with significant OCD who are living at home and not receiving treatment of any kind. As an advocate for OCD awareness, I jumped at the chance to enlighten their families as to the benefits of Exposure Response Prevention Therapy. Turns out they already knew about this therapy and where and how to get help. But their loved one was not willing, or able, to accept this help. This can be heartbreaking for the entire family.
Read in Full:
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=44328&cn=6Using Technology
Structured Homeschooling Gets an A+
ScienceDaily (Sep. 8, 2011) — “There’s no place like home,” an iconic line uttered by Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, might apply to learning the ABC’s, math and other core subjects. A new study from Concordia University and Mount Allison University has found that homeschooling — as long as it’s structured or follows a curriculum — can provide kids with an academic edge.
“Structured homeschooling may offer opportunities for academic performance beyond those typically experienced in public schools,” says first author Sandra Martin-Chang, a professor in the Concordia Department of Education, noting this is among the first nonpartisan studies to investigate home education versus public schooling.
Published in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, the investigation compared 74 children living in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick: 37 who were homeschooled versus 37 who attended public schools. Participants were between 5 and 10 years old and each child was asked to complete standardized tests, under supervision of the research team, to assess their reading, writing, arithmetic skills, etc.
Read More …
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110908104009.htm
Simple Teaching Tool Boosts Student Reading Performance, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Sep. 5, 2011) — Research from North Carolina State University shows that utilizing a freely available literacy tool results in significant advances in fundamental reading skills for elementary school students, without requiring schools to drastically overhaul existing programs. The research focused on children who were characterized as “struggling readers” at risk for a learning disability in reading.
“Our goal is to put effective tools in the hands of teachers,” says Dr. John Begeny, an associate professor of school psychology at NC State, lead author of the study and creator of the literacy tool. “This research shows that our program works, and it’s easy to use.”
Begeny developed the literacy program, Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS), to give teachers a new tool to promote reading “fluency.” Reading fluency is effectively a child’s ability to read with sufficient speed and accuracy, while also reading with good expression — for example, pausing at commas when reading out loud. When students read fluently, the have a greater capacity for understanding what they read, and they are also more likely to choose to read.
Read in Full:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110829114557.htm
Why Are Grades Highest at the Most Prestigious Schools?
A perk of being among the best
Published on August 27, 2011 by Ilan Shrira in The Narcissus in All of Us
Student grades have been rising steadily at many universities over the past few decades, according to a new report that tracks GPAs at more than 200 American schools. This grade inflation is a problem because it dilutes the meaning of grades as a measure of performance. If most students finish college with an ‘A’ average, potential employers and graduate schools have a tougher time distinguishing the most competent and hard-working of their applicants.
The causes of grade inflation have been debated for years, serving up a mishmash of explanations. However, far from clarifying its causes, this debate is often used as a platform to blame grade inflation on whatever the explainer thinks is wrong with universities, or society, in general. To give you a taste, grade inflation has been blamed on the way states fund their public universities, the way student evaluations affect faculty promotions, the increasing use of part-time instructors, too much compassion from instructors, student entitlement, a growing consumer culture, the Vietnam War, and greater diversity on college campuses. While we’re at it, why not blame global warming and the fall of the Soviet empire too?
Read in Full:
Fantasies Our Culture Feeds Us: Education Reform Is Going Great!
While we laud our educational efforts, our performance declines precipitously.
Published on August 27, 2011 by Stanton Peele in Addiction in Society
Americans are being fed the fantasy that we are revolutionizing education for the better — think NBC’s recurrent “Education Nation” feature, the film “Waiting for Superman” and the Harlem Success Academy and similar inner-city charter schools the movie lionizes, and the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” program and its adoption of the Bush “No Child Left Behind” doctrine. The underlying theme is that kids leap forward in their intellectual skills when we bring in tough-minded educators who demand students and teachers perform or else off with their heads.We need the fantasy that this approach will reverse our long-term educational decline relative to other countries which (a) value genuine intellectual engagement, (b) provide sufficient support for students’ lives to allow them to learn, (c) don’t elect government officials who believe the earth was created in six days, (d) don’t display a national fixation on everyone’s guardian angels.
Developmental disorders are usually thought about in terms of their impairments. But a welcome trend in recent years is to document their advantages too. I’m not talking about dramatic savant skills like calendar calculating, but rather advantageous manifestations of basic cognitive differences. For example, investigators have shown that children with Tourette’s syndrome – a condition involving involuntary tics – have superior cognitive control and timing, compared with children without Tourette’s. Now Sue Fletcher-Watson and her team have added to this literature with a new study showing that children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are quicker than neurotypical children and adults at detecting subtle changes to a visual scene.
The task required that children with ASD and neurotypical children (aged 11 to 16; most were male), and non-ASD adults, look at pictures of non-social scenes (e.g. a furnished room) on a computer. Each scene appeared for just under half a second, the screen would go blank, then the scene would reappear with one subtle change. The changes could be located centrally in the scene or in the periphery, and they could be a change in colour of an object, a change in an object’s presence or absence, or location. The participants’ task was to spot the change as quickly as possible and say what it was.
Read in Full:
by Thomas E. Brown, Ph.D.
We recently published a study of 117 high IQ children and adolescents with ADD. (Note: In this article, the term ADD is used to refer to both ADD and ADHD). All of these very bright students were struggling in school and often also in social relationships because of their ADD-related problems. Results from that study uncovered a pattern of vulnerabilities in executive functions, the management system of the brain, that caused these bright students to have chronic difficulty in focusing on their work, in getting their work done adequately, in keeping in mind what they had just heard or read, and in organizing and completing assignments. Some have been mystified as to how very bright students could suffer from ADD. They assume that being smart protects a person from the difficulties associated with ADD. This study shows that it doesn’t.
Read in Full:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-mysteries-add/201108/the-mysteries-add-and-high-iq
10 September 2011 by MacGregor Campbell
Allowing anyone to design compelling video games and characters could open up a new world of gaming
CONQUERING a video game can be bittersweet: glory soon fades into the sad realisation that there are no more frontiers to explore, no more demons to battle. But that could soon change, with the creation of a game that turns gamers into game developers.
Called Storybricks, the game, developed by London-based Namaste Entertainment, uses artificial intelligence software to allow people to program their own characters and storylines – some of which may continue forever.
The popularity of social games like LittleBigPlanet, which allow players to design their own puzzles, have shown that gamers enjoy manipulating virtual environments and like to share their creations. But building characters at home is difficult because it requires planning for almost endless minutiae. Want to make a character fetch something from a house? First it has to walk to the house, check if the door is open, open it if it’s closed, walk in, and so on. Dealing with rules and conditions like these isn’t fun.
To get round this, Storybricks splits behavioural software commonly used for games into user-friendly “bricks” that can be connected together. Instead of defining the details of how to walk into a house, for example, a player can define character traits in advance so that a character “wants” to be “inside the house” and the software takes care of the rest.
This is all made possible by behaviour trees, linked sets of actions and conditions, such as “if the character is near the house, hide inside”. Behaviour trees are used in many games, like Halo, but Storybricks builds on the idea by giving characters the capacity to “remember” how a player interacts with them, for example, and change their mood accordingly. The more bricks a player assigns to each character, the more actions and behaviours are open to them.
Such bricks include a number of drives that can be programmed into any character, such as “want” or “fear”. These are in turn influenced by more general traits that players can assign – such as “dishonest”, “flirtatious” and even concepts like “love”. All of these modules are then associated with actions – like “steal” or “give” – that become available depending on game events. Players can use these to build specific action sequences and dialogue to drive the story along.
For example, a player might create a scenario in which a queen has left her crown at her lover’s house and asks the player to retrieve it. At the same time, the king sends a spy to follow the player. In a typical game, this scenario would be the set-up for a duel, but in Storybricks players are free to create all sorts of ways – like lying to the spy, say – to get the crown back without being caught.
This goes for any in-game scenario. “If you really want to seduce the tavern wench or whatever, you can. We can add depth to characters on the fly,” says lead designer Stephane Bura.
The game’s designers hope Storybricks, due to launch early next year, will inspire players to devise characters, scenarios and emergent stories that Namaste’s staff could never have envisioned. If the concept is successful, it could spawn a vast landscape of bespoke, user-generated games – any of which could be endlessly tweaked by a group of friends.
Alexander Shoulson, a PhD student studying game AI at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, finds the idea intriguing. By hiding much of the detail involved in programming character behaviour beneath intuitive modules, Storybricks could provide a new kind of playing experience, he says.
Playing by social rules
“Social gaming” usually means games with basic interactions, but Namaste Entertainment hopes its new game, Storybricks, will change that. In it players work together to solve challenges that involve social rules – using tact, charm or coercion to gain an item from an adversary, say.
“We’re actually talking about social game play here, literally playing with social rules,” says Phil Carlisle of Namaste.
Such play could be useful for more than just entertainment, says Justine Cassell of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who has used virtual characters to help children with autism learn to socialise.
Source:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128295.500-no-end-of-fun-make-your-own-video-games.html
On Wednesday AmericanIdol’s
James Durbin Working on Debut Album was a top story. Here is the recap: (hennemusic) American Idol rocker James Durbin now has his record deal. Wind-up Records announced Tuesday it has signed Durbin and that his debut album will be released in November.
The 22-year old Santa Cruz native rocked thestage of Idol every week with his signature high-pitched scream and touched the hearts of America throughout the season as he opened up about his Asperger’s and Tourette’s syndrome. Fans and critics alike flocked to Durbin in praise and inspiration as his love of rock prevailed, despite Idol’s producers attempts to influence a change in his course.James is mid-way through recording his debut album with Grammy nominated producer, famed rock producer Howard Benson (Daughtry, P.O.D, 3 Doors Down). “Wind-up Records isn’t a label, it’s a family and I wanted to be a part of that,” says Durbin. “They are true music fans that want to see me have a long career as an artist. I couldn’t have asked for more when signing a record deal.” – more on this story
Source:
http://www.antimusic.com/news/11/sep/ts07American_Idols_James_Durbin_Working_on_Debut_Album.shtml
A DISABLED data expert from Northampton will be handed £25,000 in compensation after a judge found he was refused a job in the NHS because of his Asperger’s syndrome.
Although Dale Morgan, aged 28, was already working on a temporary contract as an information analyst, he was offered the permanent job by an NHS Northamptonshire interview panel in 2009 before the offer was later withdrawn.
A tribunal judge has now found that, despite Mr Morgan discussing his Asperger’s in the interview, the health bosses were influenced by an unfavourable reference from a previous employer that mentioned his condition. As a result, the trust has been found liable at an employment tribunal of discriminating against Mr Morgan on the grounds of his disability.
Mr Morgan said: “After more than two years of stress in dealing with this case, I am relieved that the tribunal has found in my favour.
“After the job offer was withdrawn, I attempted to open a dialogue with the trust to ascertain why this was the case.
“But they completely shut down and wouldn’t speak to me. With all the resources at the trust’s disposal, I am shocked that they chose to handle the situation in the way they did.
“I hope that by speaking up about this it will help other disabled job seekers who have or will face similar discrimination.”
NHS Northamptonshire was found to have failed to make reasonable adjustments for Mr Morgan’s Asperger’s syndrome, which is a condition on the autistic spectrum.
Paul Quinn, of the law firm Stephensons, which represented Mr Morgan, said: “Instead of unswervingly adhering to their own ‘two satisfactory references policy’ the trust should have also given consideration to their own guidance on this issue. If they had, they then could have considered a whole host of adjustments that were not likely to be expensive, time consuming or difficult to arrange.
“It is unfortunate that an NHS trust would discriminate against an individual based on their disability and this cannot be ignored.”
An NHS Northamptonshire spokesperson said: “NHS Northamptonshire is committed to equality and diversity. This commitment goes far beyond just meeting statutory obligations.
“The lessons learned from this case have already been incorporated in the way we continue to deliver our equality and diversity commitment.”
Source:
Pupils from the NAS Helen Allison school for young people with autism and Asperger syndrome have unleashed their ‘inner Spielbergs’ thanks to a special film-making course, the first of its kind to empower children with autism and give them a voice whilst improving their ability to work with others.
The students from our school in Meopham, Kent, were split into two teams of six and worked together to create storylines, act parts, operate a camera, edit footage and add soundtracks. The end result was a set of two minute-long films, which were then screened to parents, carers and teachers.
Dian Buckley, Performing Arts Teacher at Helen Allison, and Kashif Nijabat, Film Director at iMedia, were the brains behind the project, and are now hoping to raise funds to enable it to continue and benefit other children with autism.
Dian said: “The whole process has been amazing and really inspiring. The students have come on leaps and bounds in their confidence. We now desperately need more funding to enable this project to continue. It is so vital that children and young people with autism are given the same educational opportunities in life as others, but this will only be possible if we can raise funds to take this forward.”
Pupil Daniel Burrow, who took part in the course, said, “It was the best experience ever” and fellow student Cameron Carr added, “It was inspiring creating the film and working with the other students, and I want to become a film director”.
Helen Allison School supports and encourages students to reach their full potential in life, providing education for children from 5 to 19 years old. The school has an excellent understanding and awareness of autism and Asperger syndrome and using this personal and specialist knowledge they have designed a curriculum that meets the specific learning needs of each individual child.
For more information visit www.autism.org.uk/helenallison
Source:
http://www.autism.org.uk/news-and-events/news-from-the-nas/helen-allison-student-films.aspx
Sondra Williams
Sep 10, 2011
LANCASTER — As the number of children diagnosed with autism continues to increase, a local organization is gearing up to provide more information to the community about how to better assist and educate people with the developmental disorder.
For the second year in a row, the Southeastern Ohio Center for Independent Living will offer a series of free educational programs beginning next week and continuing through May that deal with various topics related to autism.
The programs are for everyone, including parents, caregivers, educators, child-care providers, social workers and resource specialists.
This is the second year SOCIL will offer an autism series to the community. Linda McDonald, community outreach coordinator for SOCIL, said the previous series proved to be informative and well-attended.
“Last year, we had 35 to 40 people in attendance on average for each program,” McDonald said. “There were just so many people wanting to learn more about autism.”
McDonald said the goal of the series is to provide attendees with resources and information that will give them direction and encouragement and also put their minds at ease.
The topics for the programs range from toilet training to dealing with stress to applying for funding and find services.
Each of the programs is led by educators, therapists or parents who have expertise in the field of autism.
“We thank the speakers for their time and efforts — many are helping with research and teaching, and we appreciate them sharing their information to help people here in Fairfield County and surrounding counties,” McDonald said.
Among the speakers who will present a program this year is Sondra Williams, a Columbus woman with high-functioning autism who has four children with Asperger’s syndrome.
Williams will kick off the series Thursday when she speaks at the Ohio University Lancaster Campus about adaptations and building foundations in the classroom and at home.
McDonald said Williams was a popular speaker last year — more than 180 people listened to her share her story at OU-L.
“People are still talking about that one, I think because she’s been there,” McDonald said. “She talks about her everyday experiences and about raising kids with Asperger’s.”
Read More …
http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011109100301