Autism and the school system

Autism is the new word on teacher's and parent's minds. It is important to educate ourselves on what is Autism and what causes it.I came across this article and found it to be quite interesting. The thing is every minute there is some new research. Other research says the earlier found out the better to be able to help the child. I just do not not know what to think or believe. As a teacher I have taught autistic students. I believe that early intervention as with anything else can and will help the child as both educators and parents are  better able to plan.Tell me what you think.

Early autism screening puts children at risk: researchers

CARLY WEEKS

From Monday's Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Jun. 13, 2011 12:01AM

Routine screening for autism risks treating children like guinea pigs by exposing them to tests that haven’t been sufficiently studied or proven to be effective, a new Canadian study warns.

In a report published in the journal Pediatrics on Monday, researchers from McMaster University reject the idea that screening for autism should be incorporated into regular practice at doctors’ offices and that all children should be screened, even if they show no signs of the disorder.

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“Up to now, the evidence is not supporting a screening program,” said Jan Willem Gorter, a researcher at McMaster’s CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research.

There is no proof screening programs work, Dr. Gorter said, and they could do more harm than good by classifying non-autistic children as having the condition, and vice-versa.

The blunt assessment flies in the face of growing support for early screening programs and a recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics that all children undergo routine testing for autism.

Many medical experts have voiced support in recent years for programs to help identify autism in children before they reach age 2. The idea is that the earlier the disease is detected, the earlier the child can start treatment.

The AAP published a report in 2007 urging that all children be screened twice before age 2. The organization recommends looking for specific signs, such as failure to make eye contact or use non-verbal communications like waving or gesturing.

The recommendations sent shock waves through the research community and raised many questions about whether they should be adopted.

“We’ve really struggled with this,” said Wendy Roberts, a developmental pediatrician at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children.

The problem is that while certain signs can point to autism, such as a delay in learning to speak, there are no hard-and-fast rules for diagnosing the condition in babies. Attempting to make an early diagnosis can result in false positives, which would cause significant grief for parents and cause children to undergo therapies they didn’t need.

It’s also very difficult, ethically, to study the potential benefits of autism screening programs, because that would require some children to be screened while others would go without.

On the other hand, Dr. Roberts said, there is a growing amount of compelling evidence that early diagnosis and treatment are key to improving outcomes for autistic children. “We have increasing evidence that the earlier you pick up red flags, even before you get a formal diagnosis for a certain group of kids, it can really make a difference in outcome.”

Instead of setting up screening programs that may rely on untested methods, Dr. Roberts said, leading Canadian researchers are looking to train doctors and nurse-practitioners to ask parents questions in order to spot red flags. Work is continuing to determine the best methods for recognizing signs of the disorder early, she said.

Dr. Gorter said it does appear that screening programs can be effective. But at this point, the lack of evidence demonstrating how effective they are means they shouldn’t be applied to all children. Instead, efforts should be focused on figuring out the best methods for early diagnosis.

“If there’s no evidence, it doesn’t mean [screening] doesn’t work, but we have to find evidence supporting such a program,” he said.

Ignorance vs Literacy

Teen truly regrets making racist video, dad says

Emily Jackson and Valerie Hauch Staff Reporters

It may be two minutes she’ll regret for the rest of her life. That’s about the time it took a young white teen from Brampton to record a YouTube video in which she comes across as a racist.
The 16-year-old rants to a camera about how everyone in her Brampton high school “is brown,’’ equates “turbans’’ with “terrorists,’’ moans about having to move from Toronto to “Bramladesh,’’ asks white people to get in touch with her and advises brown people to “go back to your own country.’’
And now the teen — who made those comments in a recent YouTube-posted video gone viral this week with copies — faces death threats.
But her father says his daughter is truly sorry she made the video, which is “totally out of character,” and that she has struggled with depression and is now in hospital.
“She has some challenges,’’ said her father. (The Star has decided not to name the student or her family.)
He wanted to make it plain that he’s very sorry about the content and apologizes on behalf of his family “to anyone who’s been hurt by this video.”
“I’m angry at the content of the video — it’s not who she is as a person or how she was brought up,’’ said her father.
His daughter is definitely not a racist and has non-white friends. “The first thing she said, was ‘Dad, I’m not a racist. I don’t know why I did it. It was stupid,’” said the father, who’s not sure when his daughter made the video and posted it to YouTube.
He says he hasn’t been able to get an answer to why she made the video. “It might have been a cry for help. I don’t know ... an attention-seeking thing. I have no idea.’’
His main concern right now “is to help her with the challenges she’s going through.’’
Students at Brampton’s Turner Fenton Secondary School told the Star Tuesday that the teen had been jumped the day before by another student. Teachers had to call police to escort her from the school safely, the students said.
The Grade 11 student has not been at school since, and her Facebook and Twitter accounts, which she identified in her YouTube video, have been dismantled. Friends told the Star she’s dropped out of sight and no one has heard from her.
On Tuesday, her angry peers — most of whom aren’t white — don’t expect her back at school any time soon.
“That was blatantly racist,” said a Grade 10 student during the lunch hour. “She should have recognized that everyone here is from a different background.”
The video seemed to come out of the blue and doesn’t reflect on their school, which has people from all cultures and religions, students said. Everyone gets along, for the most part. Just two weeks ago, the school held a culture festival with presentations and food to celebrate its diversity.
A group of Grade 10 boys playing football said they didn’t take the video personally, but thought it was “ignorant.” One joked that he smells like Axe — not curry.
“I’m only offended about the ‘go back to your country’ part,” said one student, 16. “Most of us were born here.”
The students who spoke to the Star condemned any violence against the teen and hoped she has learned her lesson. Friends of various races expressed shock that she posted it in the first place.
Certainly the video has launched a firestorm of tweets and comments, overwhelmingly critical of the teen.
Const. George Tudos, media relations representative for Peel Police, confirmed the teen has had death threats and police are monitoring the situation. He said the police have had many emails and phone calls from people “who are outraged’’ about the video, which started circulating on Sunday, with posted copies gaining thousands of viewings. The original has been deleted from YouTube.
“It has created quite a stir,’’ he said.
Police have looked at the video and, while its contents are “disappointing,’’ Tudos said at this point they “don’t think there’s anything criminal in nature.’’ He said police don’t believe it qualifies as hate propaganda but the investigation is ongoing.
Further, the postings under the various copies of the YouTube video contain “hurtful’’ comments, he said. “There’s a back and forth ... kind of like a feud.’’
A request from the Star for comment from the teen’s school principal was refused on the grounds of privacy rules. Carla Pereira, acting manager of communications for the Peel District School Board, said she could not confirm that she was a student at the school or, if she was, whether she had been suspended.
But Pereira did acknowledge that Turner Fenton Secondary School made an announcement to all students Monday about “appropriate use of technology’’ and that students can face penalties if they don’t abide by the school code of contact.
In cases like this, involving suspect use of social media, she said school authorities would begin an investigation and contact police.
“We take reports like this very seriously,’’ Pereira said. “We expect all students to demonstrate appropriate online conduct and refrain from improper/unethical use of technology while at and away from school. That is the expectation in our schools’ codes of conduct. Students who do not abide by the code will be subject to appropriate progressive discipline.’’

Generation of Entitlers

 I keep wondering to myself if it's me just getting old or am I mad when I talk about what is happening with this generation, and the sad part of parents just not parenting. Parents seem to want to be their child's friend. But every now and then I talk to  someone or read something that make me realise I am not so carzy after all.

I came across the following article in the Globe and Mail and thought to myself at least there are some adults among us who see that something is definitely wrong with the path we are taking,especially when you  deal with parents and children on a daily basis.

I have said it before and will say it again, Parents you are not growing children but adults, STOP! enabling your children and start disciplining them . They will hate you now for it but thank you a thousand times over in their adult years.


             Frankentweens don't create themselves...  

Elizabeth Renzetti

You’re probably thinking: Kids these days, no self-control! Haven’t their parents taught them any patience? Discipline? But it wasn’t the children who flouted the rules and sharpened their elbows while the Easter Bunny covered his eyes in shame. It was the parents, determined that their little darlings would not go home chocolate-free. Perhaps the parents were just responding to the little-known 17th Commandment: “Gather ye chocolate in greater abundance than thine neighbour, else smite him with thine plastic basket.”

So here’s a radical suggestion for the Easter egg hunt organizers of Bancroft Park the next time they’re planning their Christian festival of one-upmanship: Ban the parents. It’s the only way to restore civility. In fact, ban parents from most aspects of children’s lives, since we seem to be ruining it for them.

Everywhere you turn, parental neurosis fills the air, more common than chicken pox and twice as contagious. In the United States, parents are taking out bank loans to ensure their children get into the “right” private kindergarten (where the bite marks on the toys are much more even). British parents are no less susceptible: Children starting as young as 5 are privately tutored for years to improve their chances of getting into the best secondary schools. And, somehow, I don’t think it’s the kids who’re begging to get into St. Stuffy’s.

When your babies are tiny, the doctor tells you about the dangers of sleeping in the same bed: One bad turn in the night and you’ve got a crushed infant sandwich. But after that, no one warns you about suffocating them, even though the danger becomes more real. So now we’ve got parents who phone professors when their university-age children get a bad grade on an essay, or those who count the lines of dialogue in the school play to ensure that all the kids have the same size role. Never mind helicopter parenting, this is pillow parenting – as in, “Hey, mom? I can’t actually breathe with this thing on my face.”

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a fascinating story about the research being done on middle-class family life by academics at the University of California at Los Angeles. It was alarming, in the way that looking in the mirror after a hard night can sometimes make you scream. What the scholars identified in comfortable American families was something called “dependency dilemma”: In essence, the children couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do anything for themselves, from minor chores to cutting their own food. And the reason they didn’t is that parents didn’t expect it from them.

In the other cultures the researchers studied, children were much more self-sufficient and capable of self-denial: Samoan kids waited on their older relatives during meals; rural Peruvians plucked papaya from high trees, without the benefit of mountain-climbing harness or a 10-page waiver from their school. In Southern California, meanwhile, an eight-year-old boy waited for his dad to put on his shoes. One of the problems, the academics noted, is that family life in the West has become too child-focused.

Let’s be clear: The kids aren’t to blame. Frankentweens don’t create themselves – they’re made out of leftover bits of their parents’ status anxieties. (As the much-indulged baby of the family, I was famous among my siblings for stamping my foot and saying, “But I didn’t spoil me!”)

Adults used to have a broader range of concerns than just their kids. Will Brezhnev bomb us? Will the garbage get picked up this month? Do I have the right maxi dress for the key party? Parents and children regarded each other with healthy suspicion, and kept their distance. But that, as my husband likes to say, was before “parent” became a verb.

Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb wrote a popular piece for The Atlantic Monthly last year called How to Land Your Kid in Therapy, about the overwhelming fixation on children’s happiness and self-defeating desire to cushion them form all of life’s knocks. “Parental overinvestment,” she writes, “is contributing to a burgeoning generational narcissism that’s hurting our kids.”

In other words, they need to be saved from us, their saviours. They need to be released into the wild, among the pimply and pierced who are their own kind, where they will be fine. Probably.