Article Date: 10 Nov 2009 – 6:00 PST

Teachers and parents must be vigilant in observing difficulties with language comprehension, reading and spelling in children and young people with autism, Asperger’s syndrome and ADHD. “It is important that pupils are offered the support to which they are entitled”, says Jakob Ã…sberg in a new thesis at the University of Gothenburg.

“Pupils with these neuropsychiatric disorders are often reported as having problems with spoken and written activities. However, relatively little research has been carried out within the field. Considering how important such skills are for coping independently in school and in working life and society in general, it is of great importance that we become better informed about these issues”, considers Jakob Ã…sberg, who is publicly defending his thesis in psychology.

Among other things, the findings in the five studies that comprise the thesis demonstrate that pupils with autism or Asperger’s syndrome often have problems with comprehension, in particular with continuous texts such as stories. However, it was common that these children and young people were able to read individual words correctly and with a satisfactory flow, even though there was significant variation within the group in this respect.

Source: Lena Olson
University of Gothenburg 

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/170456.php

 

November 6, 2009

Traumatic memories can last a lifetime, but a recent study shows that these memories can be undone by interfering with perineuronal nets.

Steve Pogonowski
Faculty of 1000: Biology and Medicine

It is well known that fear memories are permanent. However, a recent paper in Science, evaluated by three Faculty Members for F1000, reports an extraordinary finding that supports the use of a drug to control recollections of traumatic incidents.

The researchers demonstrated that, in mice, proteins known as extracellular matrix chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans form ‘neural nets’ in the brain that protect against the erasure of memory. They also reported that, when these mice were given a drug called chondroitinase ABC, fear memories were more likely to disappear than for those mice in the control group.

This finding has important therapeutic implications for sufferers of anxiety disorders, as it could allow doctors to erase the fear memories of patients who have had extremely traumatic experiences, such as survivors of war.

In his review for F1000 Medicine, David P. Wolfer said, “The identification of cellular mechanisms that … control the stability of fear memories is extremely important for the development of new and better therapies for anxiety disorders.“

Commentating on the research anxiety disorders expert Gregory Quirk, said, “Once we know how perineuronal nets are regulated, it may be possible to … allow fears in adults to be erased by extinction-based therapies.“

Washington Post Service

“It’s sort of like being the absent-minded professor times five,” says Tim Page. After a lifetime of struggling to relate to fellow human beings, he received a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome at age 45. Seven years later, Page, then the music critic for The Washington Post, revealed his condition in an essay in the New Yorker, which he has expanded into a new memoir, Parallel Play: Growing Up With Undiagnosed Asperger’s (Doubleday, $26).

Page is scheduled to discuss his book at 2 p.m. Sunday at Miami Book Fair International (www.miamibookfair.com).

Asperger’s is one of several autism spectrum disorders. Symptoms may include an inability to understand people’s feelings, clumsy motor movements and repetitive behavior. Many patients have an unrelenting interest in a single topic — in Page’s case, music — and “an encyclopedic memory for dates,” Page says.

“The diagnosis was helpful in a lot of ways — mostly in explaining some of the things that had proved difficult, sometimes even impossible, for most of my life,” he says. “And I didn’t exactly `give in’ to the condition, but being aware that I had it helped me make smarter choices.

“It also helped to explain a weird childhood that included an easy mastery of all sorts of data — the dates of every president and president’s wife, which I could recite forwards or backward upon request . . . — yet also included an absolute inability to concentrate on subjects that didn’t interest me. It was also enormously difficult for me to make friends, and overstimulation would send me into fairly frightening meltdowns.”

Read in Full:  http://www.miamiherald.com/living/story/1324940.html

 

10. November 2009 01:41

Kennedy Krieger researchers suggest improvements are possible by targeting letter formation, fine motor control training

Handwriting skills are crucial for success in school, communication, and building children’s self-esteem. The first study to examine handwriting quality in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has uncovered a relationship between fine motor control and poor quality of handwriting in children with ASD, according to research published in the November 10, 2009, issue of Neurology-, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study, conducted by researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, compared handwriting samples, motor skills, and visuospatial abilities of children with ASD to typically developing children. The researchers found that overall, the handwriting of children with ASD was worse than typically developing children. Specifically, children with ASD had trouble with forming letters, however in other categories, such as size, alignment, and spacing, their handwriting was comparable to typically developing children. These findings build on previous studies examining motor skills and ASD conducted in 2009 by Kennedy Krieger researchers.

Parents of children with ASD are often the first ones to observe their child’s poor handwriting quality. This study identifies fine motor control as a root source of the problem and demonstrates that children with ASD may not experience difficulties across all domains, just forming letters. By identifying handwriting as a legitimate impairment, parents, teachers and therapists will now be able to pursue techniques that will improve children’s handwriting.

“The ability to keep up in classes and convey ideas through handwriting is fundamental to life,” said Christina Fuentes, lead study author and researcher at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. “Knowing the causes of impairment allows us to strategically identify techniques that will help children with ASD improve their handwriting. Our study suggests that teaching children how to form letters, in combination with general training of fine motor control through techniques that include stabilizing the arm and the use of proper writing utensils, may be the best direction for improving handwriting performance.”

Source: Kennedy Krieger

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20091110/Children-with-ASD-have-problem-with-handwriting-Study.aspx

 

Apparently first impressions are important when the intent is to communicate personality through appearance.

The finding, by University of Texas researchers is significant given the ubiquity of social media communication opportunities.

According to background information in the article, the role of physical appearance in creating first impressions has not been thoroughly investigated.

Psychologists Laura Naumann of Sonoma State University and Sam Gosling address this issue as the authors examined the accuracy of personality impressions based on appearance alone.

Their findings will be published in the December issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

“In an age dominated by social media where personal photographs are ubiquitous, it becomes important to understand the ways personality is communicated via our appearance,” says Naumann.

“The appearance one portrays in his or her photographs has important implications for their professional and social life.”

In the study, observers viewed full-body photographs of 123 people they had never met before. The targets were viewed either in a controlled pose with a neutral facial expression or in a naturally expressed pose.

The accuracy of the judgments was gauged by comparing them to the aggregate of self-ratings and that of three informants who knew the targets well, a criterion now widely regarded as the gold standard in personality research.

Even when viewing the targets in the controlled pose, the observers could accurately judge some major personality traits, including extraversion and self-esteem. But most traits were hard to detect under these conditions. When observers saw naturally expressive behavior (such as a smiling expression or energetic stance), their judgments were accurate for nine of the 10 personality traits.

The 10 traits were extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness, likability, self-esteem, loneliness, religiosity and political orientation.

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/11/04/when-first-impressions-count/9329.html

First Impressions Are Important For Trusting Relationship 

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor

In relationships built on trust, a bad first impression can be harder to overcome than a betrayal that occurs after ties are established, a new study suggests.

While betraying trust is never good for a relationship, the results show that early violations can be particularly devastating, and plant seeds of doubt that may never go away, said Robert Lount, co-author of the study and assistant professor at Ohio State University.

“First impressions matter when you want to build a lasting trust,” Lount said.

“If you get off on the wrong foot, the relationship may never be completely right again. It’s easier to rebuild trust after a breach if you already have a strong relationship.”

While the importance of first impressions may seem obvious, Lount said there is still a common theme in popular culture that suggests many great relationships start off badly.

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/01/08/first-impressions-are-important-for-trusting-relationship/3600.html

Related Articles

• Positive First Impressions Made More Quickly
• Brain Response to First Impressions

 

By CHELSI MOY of the Missoulian | Posted: Wednesday, November 4, 2009 11:00 pm

For most people, raking leaves is just another household chore. Heather Stone, on the other hand, genuinely enjoys the work.

Lately, she’s been enjoying it a lot, in fact, raking upward of three lawns each week, sometimes well past dark, in exchange for a couple of bucks or a hot meal.

But despite her cheery demeanor, Stone probably has more reasons to hate raking leaves than anyone.

Stone, 33, is blind and autistic, and in recent weeks has used leaf raking as a way to earn enough money to go somewhere she absolutely despises: the dentist.

Stone hasn’t seen a dentist in more than a decade. Twelve years ago, the last time she sat in a dentist’s chair, a team of medical professionals physically restrained Stone in order to perform the necessary care, disregarding her cries for help when the numbing agent wasn’t strong enough. Stone felt everything, and afterward, vowed never to return.

Since then, Stone has gone to great lengths to care for her teeth, brushing three times daily for exactly two minutes and swishing with anti-plaque and anti-cavity mouthwash for exactly a minute and 30 seconds each day. (She counts the length of time in her head.)

Still, today, Stone has nine cavities and five teeth that need pulling. The dental visit will require hospitalization – a visit that will cost $12,000.

…

This Saturday, Nov. 7, is the club’s fundraising day, where members of the UM women’s rugby team are teaming up with the Neuro Networking Club to rake leaves.

They are also asking local businesses to donate items to create gift baskets, which will be placed in stores around Missoula beginning next week. The baskets will be auctioned off in a silent auction to the highest bidder.

Anyone interested in having their lawn raked in exchange for a donation should contact Bittinger at treva.bittinger@grizmail.umt.edu, or by phone at 543-0003.

Anyone interested in sending a donation should make checks payable to the Neuro Networking Club and mailed to Phoebe Hunter, ASUM Office Manager, University Center 105, 32 Campus Drive, UM, Missoula, MT 59812. All donations will go to Stone’s dental bill.

Read in Full:  http://www.missoulian.com/news/local/article_0d0d3038-c9ce-11de-b586-001cc4c03286.html

 

 

More…

BBC © MMIX

Rachel Feldman – University of Haifa

Use of cannabinoids, the active chemicals in cannabis (marijuana), could assist in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder patients according to a recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

In most cases, the result of experiencing a traumatic event – a car accident or terror attack – is the appearance of medical and psychological symptoms that affect various functions, but which pass. However, some 10%-30% of people who experience a traumatic event develop post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition in which the patient continues to suffer stress symptoms for months and even years after the traumatic event. Symptoms include reawakened trauma, avoidance of anything that could recall the trauma, and psychological and physiological disturbances. One of the problems in the course of treating trauma patients is that a person is frequently exposed to additional stress, which hinders the patient in overcoming the trauma.

The present study, conducted by Dr Akirav and research student Eti Ganon-Elazar of the Learning and Memory Lab at the University of Haifa’s Department of Psychology, aimed to examine the efficiency of cannabinoids as a medical treatment for coping with post-traumatic stress. The researchers used a synthetic form of marijuana, which has similar properties to the natural plant, and they chose to use a rat model, which presents similar physiological responses to stress to that of humans.

The first stage of the research examined how long it took for the rats to overcome a traumatic experience, without any intervention. A cell colored white on one side and black on the other was prepared. The rats were placed in the white area, and as soon as they moved over to the black area, which they prefer, they received a light electric shock. Each day they were brought to the cell and placed back in the white area. Immediately following exposure to the traumatic experience, the rats would not move to the black area voluntarily, but a few days later after not receiving further electric shocks in the black area, they learned that it is safe again and moved there without hesitation.

Next, the researchers introduced an element of stress. A second group of rats were placed on a small, elevated platform after receiving the electric shock, which added stress to the traumatic experience. These rats abstained from returning to the black area in the cell for much longer, which shows that the exposure to additional stress does indeed hinder the process of overcoming trauma.

The third stage of the research examined yet another group of rats. These were exposed to the traumatic and additional stress events, but just before being elevated on the platform received an injection of synthetic cannabinoids in the amygdala area of the brain – a specific area known to be connected to emotive memory. These rats agreed to enter the black area after the same amount of time as the first group – showing that the cannabinoids cancelled out the symptoms of stress. Refining the results of this study, the researchers then administered synthetic cannabinoids injections at different points in time to additional groups of rats, and found that regardless of when exactly the injection was administered, it prevented the surfacing of stress symptoms.

Dr Akirav and Ganon-Elazar also examined hormonal changes in the course of the experiment and found that the synthetic cannabinoids prevent increased release of the stress hormone that the body produces in response to stress.

According to Dr Akirav, the results of this study show that cannabinoids can play an important role in stress-related disorders. “The results of our research should encourage psychiatric investigation into the use of cannabinoids in post-traumatic stress patients,” she concludes.

Ganon-Elazar E, Akirav I. Cannabinoid receptor activation in the basolateral amygdala blocks the effects of stress on the conditioning and extinction of inhibitory avoidance. J Neurosci. 2009 Sep 9;29(36):11078-88   [Abstract]