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Farm Helping Women With Autism
KOAT
There’s a special place tucked into Albuquerque’s south valley: a four-acre farm devoted to helping women with autism.
Mandy’s Special Farm was founded in 2000 by Ruthie Robbins after a disappointing trip to a group home in California that wasn’t the right place for her daughter, who has autism.
“Her life was just difficult, and was going to stay difficult, until we found a place to meet her needs,” said Robbins. “Driving home, I’m depressed, my husband’s depressed, our daughter’s just out of control almost, from tantruming to not understanding what’s going on and I looked him in the eye somewhere in Arizona and said, ‘We can do this better.
‘”Mandy’s Special Farm is the only place of its kind in the United States. Four women currently live at the residential learning center, caring for animals and tending to gardens and orchards.
via Farm Helping Women With Autism – Health News Story – KOAT Albuquerque.
Posted on May 27, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism | Tags: adults with autism, Autism
Unified, Utah, offers monitors for those with cognitive conditions at risk of wandering
Salt Lake Tribune
The Unified Police Department is offering search monitors to people with cognitive conditions linked to wandering, such as Alzheimer’s, autism, Down syndrome and dementia.
The LoJack SafetyNet monitor emits a radio signal from a device worn on the ankle or wrist, police wrote in a news statement Monday. If the wearer is reported missing, officers can use the signal to find the person.
There is a $99 enrollment fee and a monthly fee of $30.
For more information, call 877-434-6384.
via Monitors offered for those with cognitive conditions – Salt Lake Tribune.
Posted on May 25, 2010 | 1 Comment | Category: Alzheimer's, Autism, Dementia, Down Syndrome | Tags: Alzheimer's, Autism, Dementia, Down Syndrome, LoJack SafetyNet, Wandering
Spouses face challenges in caring for themselves and their ailing partners
Washington Post
They met on a blind date in 1949 and married two years later. They lived in the same Cape Cod-style house in Silver Spring for nearly 50 years. So when Leonard Crierie was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2005, there was no question that his wife, Betty, would take care of him at home for as long as she could.
Betty led him into the shower, helped him dress each morning and took him everywhere with her because, once he started wandering, as some dementia patients do, she dared not leave him alone. She learned how to change the colostomy bag he wore since he’d survived rectal cancer years earlier. She slept, fitfully, with a monitor by her bed so that she could respond if he needed her at night.
“It was difficult, but I was able to take care of him,” says Betty, now 80. “Because it happens slowly, you don’t realize how bad it’s getting.”
She agreed to have Leonard attend an adult day program at nearby Holy Cross Hospital — he enjoyed socializing there — so that she could get a few hours’ break several times a week; she found a Holy Cross caregivers support group very useful. But she refused the pleas from her three adult children to hire an aide to help at home. “I always felt like I had it under control,” she explains, though her children thought the $18-an-hour cost also troubled a frugal woman who shops at dollar stores.
As the months passed, “we could see the stress level affecting her,” recalls her daughter Linda Fenlon. “The frustrating part was, we wanted her to have some independence, some quality of life. But she saw it as her duty in life to take care of him.”
For four years, Betty Crierie rarely asked for or accepted her family’s help, until a Wednesday last June. As she left her support group meeting, she remembers, “I got this funny feeling in my chest.” It worsened on the 10-minute drive home. She called her daughter and said, “I’m calling 911. I think I’m having a heart attack.”
via Spouses face challenges in caring for themselves and their ailing partners.
Posted on May 25, 2010 | 1 Comment | Category: Alzheimer's, Caregiving | Tags: Alzheimer's, caregiving stress
Autistic son sparks business plan for job-training
Chicago Tribune
Several days before Keita Suzuki started classes at the Kellogg School of Management, his 3-year-old son was diagnosed with autism. Suzuki began poring through medical journals but found the most inspiring research in the Harvard Business Review.
Thorkil Sonne, a Danish entrepreneur who also has an autistic son, had succeeded at building a firm employing high-functioning autistic adults who perform repetitive software tests and data entry. Suzuki began writing a business plan.
“Because my son is such a nice, nice kid, I could not believe that people like him couldn’t get a job,” he said.
Relying on donations from classmates and professors and a personal loan, he deferred a job offer and upon graduation last year launched Kaien, a for-profit business modeled after Specialisterne, Sonne’s company.
In a phone interview from Tokyo, where he lives, Suzuki said he was optimistic but unsure the venture would succeed.
Due to restrictions on laying off Japanese workers, Suzuki, 32, has temporarily abandoned the idea of direct employment in favor of a training program, which places autistic adults at companies trying to meet national quotas. (Under Japanese law, 1.8 percent of employees at companies with 56 or more workers are supposed to be disabled, but loopholes have weakened the effort.)
via Matt Moog’s Viewpoints Network snags another client – chicagotribune.com.
Posted on May 24, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism | Tags: Autism, employment
Exhibit features photos taken by autistic children
ABC7 Chicago
There are some wonderful photographs on exhibit in suburban Chicago — all taken by children with autism or other special needs.
A special photo exhibit featuring art created by autistic children is on display in Hinsdale.
The exhibit, Kids with Cameras, had the children capture the world the way they see it.
Jack Ebert, a suburban photographer and father of a son with autism, started a photography program for children with special needs in Hinsdale. He developed and framed each child’s photograph to display and sell at the third annual art show in his studio.
“It’s inspired them to be able to see things differently,” said Ebert.
via Exhibit features photos taken by autistic children | abc7chicago.com.
Posted on May 21, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism | Tags: activities, art, Autism, children with Autism, fundraising
Lower Merion, PA Police Captain Explains Why LoJack SafetyNet Will Benefit His Force and Community
The Lower Merion, PA Police Department is working in conjunction with the Main Line Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Main Line Program to implement LoJack SafetyNet, a new service that helps public safety agencies search for and rescue people at risk of wandering, including children with autism. The service will be available for caregivers and their loved ones living in Lower Merion Township and Narberth beginning in June 2010.
Captain John Dougherty of the Lower Merion Police Department discusses the value of LoJack SafetyNet and how it will help the Main Line community, as well as how it will benefit public safety agencies in their search and rescue operations
Captain John Dougherty of the Lower Merion Police Department gives examples of how LoJack SafetyNet will benefit his force in their search and rescue operations
Posted on May 20, 2010 | 1 Comment | Category: Alzheimer's, Autism, Caregiving, Search and Rescue, Wandering | Tags: Alzheimer's, Autism, LoJack SafetyNet, Lower Merion County, Main Line Community, Wandering
High divorce rate in autism families is a myth
WebMD
Parents of autistic children often hear that the divorce rate in families with autism is 80%, but a new study debunks that figure as a myth.
”There really weren’t any significant differences in terms of family structure when you consider children with autism and those without,” says study researcher Brian Freedman, PhD, clinical director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.
via Autism Families: High Divorce Rate Is a Myth.
Posted on May 20, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism, Caregiving | Tags: Autism, children with Autism, family, family caregiving, parents
Autism’s effect on siblings, a sister’s research
NorthJersey.com
Much of the research on the effect of autism on siblings is done by … adult researchers. This post is about a research project by a New Jersey 16-year-old who is the sister of a boy with autism.
When Gabby Abramowitz was younger, she was cautious about inviting new friends to the house. She wasn’t sure how they would react to her younger brother, Ben, who is autistic.
And she didn’t want a repeat of the Simpsons incident. That was the time she had a friend over for dinner, and Ben sat at the table reciting the entire “Treehouse of Horror” Simpsons Halloween special.Gabby pleaded with him to stop, but he persisted.”
My friend was like, ‘What’s going on?’ and then started laughing,” she said.
At that time, she was in elementary school and lacked the words and understanding to explain her brother’s condition. But with the help of her parents and through her own study, Gabby, now 16 and a sophomore at Tenafly High School, has grown to understand the nuances of autism and often speaks out to teach her peers while growing closer to Ben, 14.
Through her research, she found that her experiences, and those of others like her, often are overlooked. “I think the effect on siblings is underestimated. We get pushed into the background.”
via NorthJersey.com: Autism’s effect on the ‘normal siblings’.
Posted on May 19, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism | Tags: Autism, children with Autism, siblings
Autism group touts skateboarding’s benefits
Tuscaloosa News
Team sports are not for everyone. That doesn’t mean all sports are out. This mom found the perfect outlet for her son with autism – skateboarding. The sport has been so helpful to her son, she started a foundation, A.skate Foundation, that offers skateboarding clinics to children with autism
Skateboarding is considered “cool” for many kids, but for kids with autism, it can also be something more — a therapeutic outlet.
“It’s often really difficult for kids with autism to be part of organized sports,” said Chrys Worley, a West Blocton mom whose 7-year-old son has autism.
Autism, a developmental disability, often affects speech and social interaction. That is one reason skateboarding works well, because the kids can be independent. It’s a sport where uniqueness is celebrated, Worley said.
via Autism group touts skateboarding’s benefits | TuscaloosaNews.com.
Posted on May 18, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism | Tags: Autism, children with Autism, sports
California special-education teachers to get autism education
disability scoop
Facing an increasing number of students with autism, the state of California is sending thousands of long-time special educators back to the classroom to learn about the developmental disorder.
Under a new requirement, some 25,000 special education teachers in California must complete autism training by July 2011 in order to work with children who have the disorder. For many veteran teachers, the mandated training will be the first formal introduction they’ve had to the diagnosis.
via Veteran Educators To Hit The Books For Mandatory Autism Training – Disability Scoop.
Posted on May 18, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism |
