Archives
Adults with autism train for work with soup business in Phoenix
ABC15.com
The Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center has started a job training program for adults with autism.
An eight-week pilot program is under way with help from Arizona Public Service.The students taking part in the program are part of the Entrepreneurial Center for Special Abilities.
They have a station set up in the building to sell soup to employees and the general public.
Posted on March 31, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism | Tags: adults with autism, employment
May Institute, LoJack Promote Autism Awareness on the MBTA
LoJack SafetyNet
What does autism look like? Millions of commuters in Massachusetts will find out during April – National Autism Awareness Month – thanks to a powerful public awareness campaign that features photos and stories of children with autism as well as important information about the disorder.
The campaign – What Does Autism Look Like? – was created by May Institute, a national nonprofit organization that serves individuals with autism and other special needs, and is being sponsored by LoJack Corporation and its LoJack SafetyNet service. What Does Autism Look Like? will be launched today at a press conference at 11 a.m. at South Station in Boston.
This year’s campaign includes more than 1,000 informational pieces on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) system – 125 platform posters in dozens of subway and commuter rail stations, and 900 educational car cards displayed in subway cars and buses. As many as 1.3 million riders use the MBTA each day.
“May Institute and our National Autism Center are committed to increasing public awareness about autism,” said President and CEO Walter P. Christian, Ph.D., ABPP. “We are delighted to partner with LoJack Corporation on this campaign. We know that increased awareness results in earlier diagnosis and treatment – critical components for the future success of children with autism.”
“May Institute is a highly regarded organization,” said John Paul Marosy, General Manager of LoJack SafetyNet. “LoJack is very pleased to support the Institute’s efforts to generate awareness of autism and other cognitive conditions through this campaign.”
Posted on March 31, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism | Tags: Autism, Boston, LoJack SafetyNet, May Institute
“Dancing Hands” and Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer's Reading Room
Dancing Hands is a program that uses hand tapping and music to engage Alzheimer’s patients. I think providing music in a group setting, combined with the creative outlet of producing “taps”, illustrates that persons suffering from Alzheimer’s enjoy engaging in creative activities.
via Alzheimer’s Reading Room: Can “Dancing Hands” Help Alzheimer’s Patients Be “More There”?.
Posted on March 30, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Alzheimer's, Dementia | Tags: activities, Alzheimer's, Dementia, music therapy
Florida Keys artist doesn’t let Down syndrome stand in her way – Florida Keys – MiamiHerald.com
Miami Herald
In 1971, a doctor told Barbara Edgar she might as well put her 9-day-old daughter, Cinnamon, in an institution right away because that’s where children with Down syndrome end up.
“That was horrible to say,” said Jean Eyster, Cinnamon’s grandmother. “And if it happened, oh, what we would have missed.”
Today, Cinnamon Edgar — now 38 — has her own business, Florida Keys Art by Cinnamon. She sells her colorful watercolor paintings, note cards and scenic photography of sunsets, palm trees and wildlife to about 55 clients from Key Largo to Marathon. Four years into the business, she’s sold about 20,000 note cards and art pieces at luxury resort gift shops, souvenir stores, visitor centers and art festivals.
One of her photos — of a palm-tree lined beach — adorned the cover of The Real Yellow Pages in 2008 for the Florida Keys.
via Florida Keys artist doesn’t let Down syndrome stand in her way – Florida Keys – MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on March 30, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Down Syndrome | Tags: art, Down Syndrome, Forida
Therapeutic gardens for Alzheimer’s disease
The Palm Beach Daily News
A landscape architect talks here about designing a garden for an Alzheimer’s patient – with an eye on reducing wandering and anxiety and increasing the garden’s therapeutic value. From the Palm Beach Daily News:
A rose is a rose is a rose…
But a garden can be many things.
And, most especially, therapeutic.
Well, of course it is. Isn’t sitting in a quiet spot surrounded by a profusion of brilliantly colored flowers, or long, flowing leaves, or loudly gurgling fountains, therapeutic?
It depends on whether you are basically healthy, or autistic, or suffering with Alzheimer’s disease. How you view a garden will differ drastically depending on how you view the world.
That’s why landscape architect Elizabeth “Libby” Marshall takes her mission to design special, therapeutic gardens so seriously. It’s her passion and as natural to her, she says, as breathing.
Posted on March 30, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Alzheimer's, Dementia | Tags: Alzheimer's, Dementia, gardening
Alzheimer’s disease and sexuality
Danbury News Times
At a recent educational conference on dementia sponsored by the Connecticut Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, I was running late, passing packed rooms where sessions were just beginning.
“I’ll never get a seat,” I thought as I rounded the corner and entered the room where the “Sexuality and Dementia” program was getting under way. Interestingly, it was sparsely attended.
The first slide up on the screen was of an expressionless aged couple sitting side by side. In cartoon bubbles, he’s asking her “Whatever happened to our sexual relations?” and she’s responding, “I don’t know. I don’t even think we got a Christmas card from them this year.”
via Love life changes with spouse who has Alzheimer’s – NewsTimes.
Posted on March 30, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Alzheimer's, Caregiving, Dementia | Tags: Alzheimer's, Caregiving, Dementia, family caregiving, spouses
Comparing how people with and without autism view “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”
Public Radio International’s Studio 360 has an interesting audio post and slide show on a Yale School of Medicine study that compares how people with and without autism viewed the movie “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” Eye-tracking technology showed that the two groups looked at entirely different things, sometimes in surprising ways.
Science is looking for ways to better understand an autistic person’s perception of the world. Using laser technology, Ami Klin and Warren Jones of the Yale School of Medicine screened “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and tracked the gazes of autistic viewers precisely, to study how they perceive social interactions. Biologist David Gruber visited their lab to learn about the technique.
Posted on March 30, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism | Tags: adults with autism, Autism, movies, research
Yoga helping kids with Down syndrome, autism
KTVT
DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ― With some breathing and stretching, the children in a Dallas yoga class are making leaps and bounds, overcoming developmental disorders like autism and Down syndrome.
via Yoga Helping Dallas Kids Overcome Disorders – cbs11tv.com.
Posted on March 29, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism, Down Syndrome | Tags: activities, Autism, Down Syndrome
Duquesne professor working to help autistic people work
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A young man was cleaning an elevator at a local hotel recently when some guests entered the car.
“Say hi,” said a young woman standing near the man. She wasn’t being rude; she was just doing her job. The woman was a Duquesne University student who was assigned to mentor the young man, who had a high-functioning form of autism and was working at his first full-time employment.
via The Thinkers: Duquesne professor working to help autistic people work.
Posted on March 29, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism | Tags: Autism, employment
Information seminars held in N.J. on autistic children transitioning into adulthood
The Star-Ledger
LIVINGSTON — Danielle is seated at a cafeteria table, a visitor to a Livingston High School club built around the special needs of her and her classmates from The Children’s Institute, a school for those with socialization and language disorders often born of autism. And she’s brimming with revelations about what makes Danielle, well Danielle.
“I can make peas. I can make cookies. I can make brownies. I can make cakes,” 18-year-old Danielle says.
Then, like life itself, the topic suddenly takes a turn.
Posted on March 29, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism, Caregiving | Tags: adults with autism, Autism, children with Autism, New Jersey