“Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D. Of Autism Speaks Appointed To ... - Medical News Today” plus 2 more |
- Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D. Of Autism Speaks Appointed To ... - Medical News Today
- Toronto autism expert educates about disorder - Herald-Star
- The advantages of autism - New Scientist
| Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D. Of Autism Speaks Appointed To ... - Medical News Today Posted: 03 May 2010 12:55 AM PDT Main Category: Autism Article Date: 03 May 2010 - 1:00 PDT Autism Speaks, the nation's leading autism science and advocacy organization, is pleased to announce the appointment of Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., its chief science officer, as a public member of the NIH Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC). Dr. Dawson was appointed to the IACC by Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. The IACC was established in accordance with the Combating Autism Act of 2006 to provide advice to the Secretary of Health and Human Services regarding federal research activities related to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), to facilitate the exchange of information on and coordination of autism spectrum disorder activities among federal agencies and organizations, and to increase public understanding of the federal government's' activities, programs, policies, and research by providing a public forum for discussions related to ASD research and services. It is chaired by Thomas Insel, M.D., director, National Institute of Mental Health. "I am delighted that Secretary Sebelius has expanded the IACC to include more public members," said Dr. Insel. "As a coordinating committee, the IACC should be even more effective by including the perspectives of additional foundations and individuals supporting autism research and services." "We are honored that Dr. Dawson has been given this well-earned opportunity to represent Autism Speaks and the entire autism community on the IACC, and to contribute her remarkable breadth of experience and knowledge to guiding federal activities related to autism," said Bob Wright. "The recent CDC prevalence study demonstrated that autism continues to grow as a public health crisis, and more than ever, the work of the IACC is critical to focus expanded resources and attention for the greatest impact." "Working with the IACC is an extraordinary collaborative opportunity," said Dr. Dawson. "My hope is for the IACC to facilitate accelerated research so that causes will be discovered and effective treatments will be available to families that will make a real difference for persons with autism and their families." Dr. Dawson, who has served as the scientific leader of Autism Speaks since January 2007, will support the work of the IACC as it explores critical concerns for those affected by ASD including, diagnosis, biology, risk factors, treatment, services and outcomes for the future. As Chief Science Officer at Autism Speaks, Dr. Dawson works with its Scientific Affairs Committee, Scientific Advisory Board, and the science staff to expand and communicate the organization's scientific vision and strategy, as well as oversees the work of the Autism Genome Resource Exchange, the world's largest database of autism genetic data, and the Autism Tissue Program which provides brain tissue to researchers around the world. Dr. Dawson oversees Autism Speaks annual research portfolio which funds more than $30 million in research on causes and treatment of autism annually. Dr. Dawson is Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, University of Washington, and Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University. Dr. Dawson served on the Scientific Advisory Board for Cure Autism Now from 1996-2007. She is a former Director of the UW Autism Center of Excellence, National Institutes of Health Autism Centers of Excellence program (2007-2008), Founding Director, UW Autism Center, University of Washington (2000-2007), and from 2003 -2008, served as Director, UW Center of Excellence in Autism Research, National Institutes of Health STAART (Studies to Advance Autism Research and Treatment) Network. She holds a B.S. in Psychology and a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology/Child Clinical Psychology, both from the University of Washington. Dr. Dawson has been widely published in academic journals, including her most recent study, "Randomized, Controlled Trial of an Intervention or Toddlers With Autism: The Early Start Denver Model" which appeared in Pediatrics, November 30, 2009. Two of Dr. Dawson's articles in Archives of General Psychiatry presented evidence for autistic regression in about 25 percent of autism cases in the United States. Dr. Dawson has edited or authored several books about autism spectrum disorder which have been translated into multiple languages, including Early Start Denver Model for Young Children with Autism, Promoting Language, Learning, and Engagement, co-authored with Sally J. Rogers, PhD., as well as Autism: Nature, Diagnosis, and Treatment; Human Behavior, Learning, and the Developing Brain; and A Parent's Guide to Asperger's Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism. Dr. Dawson has testified twice on behalf of families of individuals with ASD at the US Senate and played a key role in the Washington State Autism Task Force. About Autism: Source: Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Toronto autism expert educates about disorder - Herald-Star Posted: 04 May 2010 07:13 AM PDT TORONTO - Charlene Starr, an intervention specialist and autism consultant, has made it her life's work to not only help those with the disorder but also to educate the public about autism. Starr, who has many years of professional experience dealing with individuals with autism, led a seminar April 14 at Trinity Medical Center to provide health care providers tips and suggestions on how to make a person with autism's visit to medical providers easier for patient and provider. The seminar was partially inspired by April being Autism Awareness Month, said Starr. "Over the years I've gone to physicians with my students," said Starr. "A lot of times autism isn't their area of expertise, and I thought I could offer (health care providers) advice on how to make (those with autism) office visits more pleasant." While Starr said no two cases of autism are exactly alike, and those diagnosed with the sensory disorder process information in different ways, sometimes making it difficult for a person with autism to communicate what they may be feeling or thinking. "Some persons with autism are verbal, while others are non-verbal," Starr said, adding each case of autism is unique. "Even some of those with autism who process information on a high level may not be able to process what someone is telling them quickly." Starr also said many persons with autism often are misdiagnosed as having other disorders. She added there also is a misconception persons with the disorder have a lower intelligence level, but that isn't the case, and most with the disorder simply process information differently. During the seminar Starr said she told health care providers to "be pro-active, be prepared and be aware of their needs. Persons with autism are concrete thinkers, and anything abstract is difficult for them." She added using a picture storyboard preparing persons with autism for a physician's visit can often help reduce anxiety. The story, shown to those with the disorder, typically includes a description of what they can expect on their visit, including activities such as weighing, height measurement, the taking blood pressure readings and other medical procedures. She also advised medical providers to speak slowly and use short phrases when speaking to those diagnosed with autism. "I told the (medical providers) to speak to (those with autism) as well as the guardian during a visit," she said, adding sometimes a person with autism may have difficulty expressing they are feeling a sensation such as pain. "By using short phrases when speaking you avoid sensory overload. Just because they may have difficulty communicating doesn't mean they don't understand." Other advice included allowing enough wait time and not to rush when dealing with persons with autism; providing a basket of fidgets to occupy their time and lessons anxiety during waiting; play soft music in waiting rooms; and schedule those with autism either first or last during the day. "Dimming fluorescent light in (treatment rooms) also helps," she said, adding some with the disorder are highly sensitive to fluorescent lighting. Starr stressed she was just trying to give health care providers practical information to make visits less stressful for patient and caregiver. She also said the same type of suggestions and advice could be used by the public when encountering persons with the disorder She said anyone with questions about autism could contact her at starr74@sbcglobal.net or by calling (740) 381-2046. (Miller can be contacted at mmiller@heraldstaronline.com.) Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| The advantages of autism - New Scientist Posted: 04 May 2010 10:19 AM PDT MICHELLE Dawson can't handle crowded bus journeys, and she struggles to order a cup of coffee in a restaurant because contact with strangers makes her feel panicky. Yet over the past few years, Dawson has been making a name for herself as a researcher at the Rivière-des-Prairies hospital, part of the University of Montreal in Canada. Dawson's field of research is the cognitive abilities of people with autism - people such as herself. She is one of a cadre of scientists who say that current definitions of this condition rely on findings that are outdated, if not downright misleading, and that the nature of autism has been fundamentally misunderstood for the past 70 years. Medical textbooks tell us that autism is a developmental disability diagnosed by a classic "triad of impairments": in communication, imagination and social interaction. While the condition varies in severity, about three-quarters of people with autism are classed, in the official language of psychiatrists, as mentally retarded. Over the past decade or so, a growing autistic pride movement has been pushing the idea that people with autism aren't disabled, they just think differently to "neurotypicals". Now, research by Dawson and others has carried this concept a step further. They say that auties, as some people with autism call themselves, don't merely think differently: in certain ways they think better. Call it the autie advantage. How can a group of people who are generally seen as disabled actually have cognitive advantages? For a start, research is challenging the original studies that apparently demonstrated the low IQ of people with autism. Other studies are revealing the breadth of their cognitive strengths, ranging from attention to detail and sensitivity to musical pitch to better memory. More recently, brain imaging is elucidating what neurological differences might lie behind these strengths. Entrepreneurs have even started trying to harness autistic people's talents (see "Nice work if you can get it"). "Scientists working in autism always reported abilities as anecdotes, but they were rarely the focus of research," says Isabelle Soulières, a neuropsychologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, who works with Dawson. "Now they're beginning to develop interest in those strengths to help us understand autism." The fact that some people with autism have certain talents is hardly a revelation. Leo Kanner, the psychiatrist who first described autism in the early 1940s, noted that some of his patients had what he termed "islets of ability", in areas such as memory, drawing and puzzles. But Kanner's emphasis, like that of most people since, was on autism's drawbacks. Today it is recognised that autism varies widely in terms of which traits are present and how prominently they manifest themselves. The cause remains mysterious, although evidence is pointing towards many genes playing a role, possibly in concert with factors affecting development in the womb. A single, elegant explanation capturing all that is different about the autistic mind has so far proved elusive, but several ideas have been put forward that attempt to explain the most notable traits. Perhaps one of the best known is the idea that autistic people lack theory of mind - the understanding that other people can have different beliefs to yourself, or to reality. This account would explain why many autistic people do not tell lies and cannot comprehend those told by others, although the supporting evidence behind this theory has come under fire lately. Verbal cuesPeople with autism are also said to have weak central coherence - the ability to synthesise an array of information, such as verbal and gestural cues in conversation. In other words, sometimes they can't see the wood for the trees. The idea of the autistic savant, with prodigious, sometimes jaw-dropping, talents has taken hold in popular culture. Yet savants are the exception, not the rule. The usual figure cited is that about 1 in 10 people with autism have some kind of savant-like ability. That includes many individuals with esoteric skills that are of little use in everyday life - like being able to instantly reckon the day of the week for any past or future date. The reality is that children with autism generally take longer to hit milestones such as talking and becoming toilet-trained, and as adults commonly struggle to fit into society. Only 15 per cent of autistic adults have a paying job in the UK, according to government figures. The mainstream medical view of autism is that it represents a form of developmental brain damage. But what if that view is missing something? The first way in which Dawson challenged the mainstream view was to address the association between autism and low IQ. In 2007, Dawson and Laurent Mottron, head of the autism research programme at the University of Montreal, published a study showing that an autistic person's IQ score depends on which kind of test is used. With the most common test, the Weschsler Intelligence Scale, three-quarters of people with autism score 70 or lower, which classifies them as mentally retarded, as defined by the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases. But when the team administered a different, yet equally valid, IQ test known as the Raven's Progressive Matrices, which places less weight on social knowledge, most people with autism scored at a level that lifted them out of this range (Psychological Science, vol 18, p 657). If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to. Have your sayOnly subscribers may leave comments on this article. Please log in. Not ConvincedThu Apr 29 15:52:15 BST 2010 by Eric Kvaalen "With the most common test, the Weschsler Intelligence Scale, three-quarters of people with autism score 70 or lower, which classifies them as mentally retarded, as defined by the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases. But when the team administered a different, yet equally valid, IQ test known as the Raven's Progressive Matrices, which places less weight on social knowledge, most people with autism scored at a level that lifted them out of this range" Not a very convincing argument to say that autism is not associated with low IQ! That only says that more than 50% have an IQ (according to one test) above 70. "Normal" people are mostly above IQ 99., Personally, this article didn't tell me much that was new to me, and didn't change my opinion that autism is a disability in spite of the fantastic abilities some autists have. Think about what a society would be like if it were made up of all the autists that we have and no one else. Not ConvincedMon May 03 19:15:17 BST 2010 by coran sloss Within the current society, yes, autism probably is primarily a disadvantage but I still hold the belief that autistic people are no better or worse than anyone else, just different. In a society of autistic people (which is a fundamentally flawed theory due to the different forms of autism being hugely varied and not entirely compatible), you would likely struggle as much as they do in yours. In other words, in an autistic world, you would be the one considered disabled. Not ConvincedTue May 04 08:41:23 BST 2010 by Eric Kvaalen Yes, or course I would struggle! But I'm saying that even if I weren't there, and no non-autistic person were there, that society could not work. It's not like a society where everyone is left-handed for instance. Not ConvincedTue May 04 05:50:54 BST 2010 by Norrie gee, that's like saying gays are nice people but think about what it would be like if everyone were gay. The reality is that THIS MIX is the MIX THAT WORKS, that is, with a certain (and fairly stable) proportion of the population gay, a certain proportion Aspie, a certain proportion hopelessly enslaved by tribal signals, and so on. THIS IS THE MIX THAT WORKS. Evolution doesn't pander to discriminatory prejudices Not ConvincedTue May 04 07:58:55 BST 2010 by Eric Kvaalen At the risk of getting a bit off the subject, let me say that I don't think whatever exists is good. In other words, just because we find human society to be in a particular state, we can't insist that that state is best, or that it is what "works". We have arrived at our present state through evolution, yes, but evolution defined in a very broad way. It's not just a matter of physical evolution, there's also cultural evolution. For instance, the present emphasis on homosexuality is a recent development, and quite different, say, from what was accepted in ancient Greece or in the Middle Ages. We can no more say that our present society is optimal (or "what works") than that Medieval society was optimal. "wood For The Trees"Mon May 03 19:08:00 BST 2010 by coran sloss It took me the entire article to realise that when you talk about "not seeing the wood for the trees" you mean "not seeing the forest for the trees" rather than the inverse whereby one cannot see the tree bark because they are too busy looking at the tree as a whole. The reason the set phrase is not the one you used is because of the ambiguity caused by the two meanings of the word "wood". It would be good to avoid this in the future. "wood For The Trees"Tue May 04 14:08:52 BST 2010 by Daemynnur "It would be good to avoid this in the future." Why? There's nowt wrong with "Wood for the trees" It's standard British English, in use for 100s of years,.. Wanna speak english?,.. learn it! "wood For The Trees"Tue May 04 14:25:01 BST 2010 by Rob A difficulty with metaphorical language is an autistic trait, Coran... one I occasionally experience too! I work with adults who are profoundly affected by autism. I also subscribe to the social model of disability - disability exists in the relationship between the individual and society. (e.g. a paraplegic is disabled by stairs and not by paralysis) However, a lot of our service users also have associated learning disabilities or are profoundly autistic. No amount of ABA or CBT or visual support systems or timetables or calendars or PECS or irlen lenses (uurgh) or chelation therapy (BIG uuurgh) is going to make them more able to prepare breakfast on time. It is an Autism Spectrum, remember... a wide gamut of experiences and abilities with some few commonalities and a range of vectors of causation. We must always remember that, but not forget the massive contribution the hidden auties have made to society as architects, mathematicians, etc... just because an autie shares a common experience with someone else who is profoundly affected by autism, does not mean that the high functioning autie is the same as them. We need a more complex and nuanced lexicon to describe these individuals and their experiences All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us. If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support. Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Add Images to any RSS Feed To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 comments:
Post a Comment