Better Than A Hearing Aid? Better Hearing With Bone Conducted Sound

The red marking shows bone conduction from one's own voice and from an implanted vibrator. The blue marking shows air conduction from one's own voice. (Credit: Image courtesy of The Swedish Research Council)

ScienceDaily (July 9, 2009) — New technology to hear vibrations through the skull bone has been developed at Chalmers University of Technology. Besides investigating the function of a new implantable bone conduction hearing aid, Sabine Reinfeldt has studied the sensitivity for bone conducted sound and also examined the possibilities for a two-way communication system that is utilizing bone conduction in noisy environments.

A new Bone Conduction Implant (BCI) hearing system was investigated by Sabine Reinfeldt. "This hearing aid does not require a permanent skin penetration, in contrast to the Bone-Anchored Hearing Aids (BAHAs) used today," she said.

Measurements showed that the new BCI hearing system can be a realistic alternative to the BAHA.

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New Alzheimer's Disease Treatment Promising

ScienceDaily (July 13, 2009) — Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that a compound called NIC5-15, might be a safe and effective treatment to stabilize cognitive performance in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. The two investigators, Giulio Maria Pasinetti, M.D., Ph.D. , and Hillel Grossman, M.D., presented Phase IIA preliminary clinical findings at the Alzheimer's Association 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease (ICAD) in Vienna on July 12.

NIC5-15's potential to preserve cognitive performance will be further evaluated in a Phase IIB clinical trial. Early evidence suggests that NIC5-15 is a safe and tolerable natural compound that may reduce the progression of Alzheimer's disease-related dementia by preventing the formation of beta-amyloid plaque, a waxy substance that accumulates between brain cells and impacts cognitive function.

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Difference In The Way Children With Autism Learn New Behaviors Described

ScienceDaily (July 6, 2009) — Researchers from the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have collaborated to uncover important new insights into the neurological basis of autism. Their new study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, examined patterns of movement as children with autism and typically developing children learned to control a novel tool. The findings suggest that children with autism appear to learn new actions differently than do typically developing children.

As compared to their typically developing peers, children with autism relied much more on their own internal sense of body position (proprioception), rather than visual information coming from the external world to learn new patterns of movement. Furthermore, researchers found that the greater the reliance on proprioception, the greater the child’s impairment in social skills, motor skills and imitation.

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Language Skills In Your Twenties May Predict Risk Of Dementia Decades Later

ScienceDaily (July 9, 2009) — People who have superior language skills early in life may be less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease decades later, despite having the hallmark signs of the disease, according to research published in the July 9, 2009, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

"A puzzling feature of Alzheimer's disease is how it affects people differently," said study author Juan C. Troncoso, MD, with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "One person who has severe plaques and tangles, the telling signs of Alzheimer's disease in their brains, may show no symptoms affecting their memory. Another person with those same types of plaques and tangles in the same areas of the brain might end up with a full-blown case of Alzheimer's disease. We looked at how language ability might affect the onset of symptoms."

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Alzheimer's Research Pinpoints Antibodies That May Prevent Disease

ScienceDaily (July 7, 2009) — Antibodies to a wide range of substances that can aggregate to form plaques, such as those found in Alzheimer's patients, have been identified in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid of healthy people. Levels of these antibodies decline with age and, in Alzheimer's patients, with increasing progression of the disease.

These findings by Stanford University School of Medicine researchers and outside collaborators, described in a paper to be published online July 6 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, raise the possibility that many of us are carrying antibodies in our blood that could be playing a role in staving off or slowing the progression of Alzheimer's disease. This seems to be true even when we are young and healthy and would presumably have had little or no exposure to the substances that build up in the brain to cause this disorder.

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Children With Autism Need To Be Taught In Smaller Groups, Experts Argue

ScienceDaily (July 4, 2009) — Since the 1970s, there has been much debate surrounding the fact that individuals with autism have difficulty in understanding speech in situations where there is background speech or noise.

At the annual meeting of the International Multisensory Research Forum (June 29th – July 2nd) being held at The City College of New York (CCNY), neuroscientists argue in favor of smaller class sizes for children with autism.

Speaking at the conference, Dr. John J. Foxe, Professor of Neuroscience at CCNY said: “Sensory integration dysfunction has long been speculated to be a core component of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but there has been precious little hard empirical evidence to support this notion. Viewing a speaker’s articulatory movements can greatly improve a listener’s ability to understand spoken words, and this is especially the case under noisy environmental conditions.”

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Hearing Manipulated By Electronics

ScienceDaily (July 7, 2009) — An implanted electronic ion pump in organic material can be used to carry signals to specific cells in the nervous system and in this way treat various illnesses. In a unique study, researchers at Linköping University (LiU) and Karolinska Institutet (KI) have used the pumps to successfully manipulate the hearing in laboratory animals.

The technique which is described in an article in the journal Nature Materials represents a breakthrough for the machine-to-brain interface, with opportunities for greater symbiosis between electronics and biological systems.

“In the future we envisage a wirelessly controlled and permanent implant”, says Magnus Berggren, Professor of Organic Electronics at LiU and one of the authors of the article.

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Meditation Workshop

For Parents and Others of Children with Disabilities

Monday

7/13/2009

6:00 pm-7:30 pm

Conducted by:

Arthur K. Stewart

Coordinator of Mediation

Virginia Department of Education

Presented by:

South Carolina Department of Education

Office of Exceptional Children

Location:

American Red Cross Bldg

2751 Bull Street

Columbia SC 29201

TOPICS:

When to Consider Mediation

How Does Mediation Work

What You Should Expect From a Mediator

What Mediators Will Never Do

Examples of Practice

This is a Free Workshop

Seating is Limited

Call to Register :(803)734-2833

Accommodation Notice:

Any person requiring special accommodations who wishes to attend this meeting should contact Dana Reed at 803-734-2833 at least 48 hours in advance.

PRO-Parents of SC

652 Bush River Road Ste 203

Columbia SC 29210

803.772.5688

800.759.4776 toll free

To visit the website, please click on the link above.

More Gene Mutations Linked To Autism Risk

ScienceDaily (June 28, 2009) — More pieces in the complex autism inheritance puzzle are emerging in the latest study from a research team including geneticists from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and several collaborating institutions. This study identified 27 different genetic regions where rare copy number variations – missing or extra copies of DNA segments – were found in the genes of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), but not in the healthy controls.

The complex combination of multiple genetic duplications and deletions is thought to interfere with gene function, which can disrupt the production of proteins necessary for normal neurological development.

"We focused on changes in the exons of DNA—protein-coding areas in which deletions or duplications are more likely to directly disrupt biological functions," said study leader Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and associate professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "We identified additional autism susceptibility genes, many of which, as we previously found, belong to the neuronal cell adhesion molecule family involved in the development of brain circuitry in early childhood." He added that the team discovered many "private" gene mutations, those found only in one or a few individuals or families—an indication of genetic complexity, in which many different gene changes may contribute to an autism spectrum disorder.

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Placebo Effects In Caregivers May Change Behavior Of Children With ADHD

ScienceDaily (June 30, 2009) — Stimulant medications, such as Ritalin and Adderall, are the accepted treatment to stem hyperactivity in children with attention deficit-hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and improve their behavior.

Now a recent review of research by University at Buffalo pediatric psychologists suggests that such medication, or the assumption of medication, may produce a placebo effect -- not in the children, but in their teachers, parents or other adults who evaluate them.

A placebo effect is a positive change in symptoms or behavior after a patient receives a "fake" medication or procedure; in other words, the belief can become the medicine. In this case, the review suggested that when caregivers believed their ADHD patients were receiving ADHD medication, they tended to view those children more favorably and treat them more positively, whether or not medication was actually involved.

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Importance Of Developmental Screening Tool For Identifying Delays In Pre-term Children Shown

Ryerson University Professor Hollie Hix-Small (left) and Dr. Kevin Marks, PeaceHealth Medical Group.

(Credit: PeaceHealth Medical Group)

ScienceDaily (July 1, 2009) — A new study finds that U.S. pediatricians have plenty of room for improvement when it comes to using a screening questionnaire to flag developmental delays in premature children.

The study was a collaboration between physicians at PeaceHealth Medical Group, led by pediatrician Dr. Kevin Marks, lead author, and co-author Professor Hollie Hix-Small, of Ryerson University’s School of Child and Youth Care, formerly of the Early Intervention Program at the University of Oregon. The study was published in the June issue of Pediatrics.

In the study, a group of 1,427 caregivers and children in the U.S. attending their 12- or 24-month well-child visits (regular screening for developmental delays by pediatricians) completed the Ages & Stages Questionnaire® (ASQ), a child development screening tool.

The study examined the number of lower-risk, pre-term (most who were born between 34 and 37 weeks gestational age) children versus the number of term children who were referred to an early-intervention agency. Higher-risk premature infants already involved with an early-intervention agency or previously identified with a delay were excluded.

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In 'Reading' A Gaze, What We Believe Changes What We See

ScienceDaily (June 26, 2009) — In primates including ourselves, the ability to register where others are looking is key in social circles. And, according to a new report published online on June 25th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, the way our brains process gaze-direction is much more sophisticated than a simple eyes-right versus eyes-left.

In fact, the way our brains code another's gaze-direction can hinge on what we already believe about that person's mental state, the new evidence shows.

"When we look at a face, it is not just a head or eyes pointing in some direction we see," said Greg Davis of the University of Cambridge. "Rather, our brain is coding another person's attention and intentions."

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Student’s Design Helps Piece Together Parts Of The Alzheimer’s Puzzle

Credit: Image courtesy of Kingston University

ScienceDaily (June 29, 2009) — A Kingston University design student has turned his coursework into a budding business venture, launching a jigsaw puzzle ideal for people living with dementia.

Ben Atkinson-Willes, 22, who is completing a degree in product and furniture design at Kingston University in South West London this year, was inspired to use his skills to create a specially-designed activity puzzle after his granddad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

“It’s important to keep people with Alzheimer’s as physically and mentally active for as long as possible, because it gives them a better quality of life in the long run,” Ben explained. “One thing my granddad loves doing is puzzles, but the products with fewer pieces were generally designed for very young children. I wanted to create something that would suit his need and respect his age.”

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