Lookout Call - An App for Motorists with Disability

Disabled World - Disability News for all the Family:
Information provided by Andrew Lawn - Published: 2011-12-08

Disabled motorists urged to stay App–solutely safe - Disabled motorists are being urged to stay safe, with the help of a new iPhone app which allows peace of mind for loved-ones, without compromising the independence of the user.

Lookout Call, which is already widely-used commercially by lone workers across the UK, is being opened up to individual use and made available via Apple's App Store, in a bid to improve the safety of disabled motorists.

To celebrate the launch Lookout Call are offering a limited one-week free subscription, allowing individuals to try out the app for themselves, alongside the chance to win one of 10 iTunes gift cards.

With millions of disabled motorists, across the UK, their safety is of paramount concern to loved-ones.

It is here that Lookout Call comes into its own, allowing friends and family to be reassured that their loved-one has the tools to help enhance their safety, without being an overbearing presence in their lives.

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What is Web Accessibility?

Article Updated May 1st, 2011
Joe Dolson

It is a common mistake to believe that accessibility refers exclusively to the relationship between people with disabilities and their environment. That is, that making a building, website, or other device "accessible" is merely the process of ensuring that a person with a disability will be able to use it. This is not precisely wrong; it is merely incomplete.

Making a website accessible goes well beyond providing access to the most obvious market, which is users with visual disabilities. What I'm going to describe in this article are general descriptions of the areas where accessibility needs must be taken into consideration and a brief discussion of some of the techniques used to accomplish those needs.

Technology Problems

Yes, one of the biggest barriers to the use of a website can be technology itself. If the entire world was using a single browser on one computer, then technology would cease to be an issue. However, this is very far from the case!

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Discrimination Against Disabled Children

Medical News Today--Article Date: 05 Dec 2011 - 0:00 PST

Many disabled children fail to reach their full potential because they continue to be marginalised in schools, health and social care, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

"We found that disabled children often experience discrimination, exclusion and even violence," say Professor Dan Goodley and Dr Katherine Runswick-Cole, who implemented the study at the Manchester Metropolitan University. "The biggest barriers they meet are the attitudes of other people and widespread forms of institutional discrimination."

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Why Do We Dream? To Ease Painful Memories, Study Hints

National Geographic News, Published November 29, 2011 -- "Dreaming may act like a type of overnight therapy, taking the edge off painful memories, a new study says.
In a recent experiment, brain scans of people who viewed emotionally provocative pictures and then went to sleep showed that the part of the brain that handles emotions powered down during rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep—the stage in which dreams occur.
What's more, the subjects reported that the images had less of an emotional charge the morning after. This suggests that REM sleep may help us work through difficult events in our lives, the researchers say.
Why we sleep is still unknown, and even more elusive is the relationship between sleep and our emotional well-being, said study leader Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley.
There's already anecdotal evidence for sleep's therapeutic benefits—such as the oft-repeated adage that a person will go to bed and feel better in the morning, Walker said.
And clinical data show that psychiatric mood disorders, from anxiety to post-traumatic stress disorder, can lead to sleep abnormalities.
"Despite that suggested interplay, we've understood remarkably little about the basic brain science that may underlie a relationship between our emotional lives and our sleeping lives," he said.
As his new research now suggests, "it's not time that heals all wounds—it's REM sleep."

Eating Fish Reduces Risk of Alzheimer's Disease, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — People who eat baked or broiled fish on a weekly basis may be improving their brain health and reducing their risk of developing mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease, according to a study presented November 30 at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

"This is the first study to establish a direct relationship between fish consumption, brain structure and Alzheimer's risk," said Cyrus Raji, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "The results showed that people who consumed baked or broiled fish at least one time per week had better preservation of gray matter volume on MRI in brain areas at risk for Alzheimer's disease."

Alzheimer's disease is an incurable, progressive brain disease that slowly destroys memory and cognitive skills. According to the National Institute on Aging, as many as 5.1 million Americans may have Alzheimer's disease. In MCI, memory loss is present but to a lesser extent than in Alzheimer's disease. People with MCI often go on to develop Alzheimer's disease.
To read the entire article, please click the above title.

Violent Video Games Alter Brain Function in Young Men

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — "A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis of long-term effects of violent video game play on the brain has found changes in brain regions associated with cognitive function and emotional control in young adult men after one week of game play.The results of the study were presented November 30 at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
The controversy over whether or not violent video games are potentially harmful to users has raged for many years, making it as far as the Supreme Court in 2010. But there has been little scientific evidence demonstrating that the games have a prolonged negative neurological effect.
"For the first time, we have found that a sample of randomly assigned young adults showed less activation in certain frontal brain regions following a week of playing violent video games at home," said Yang Wang, M.D., assistant research professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. "These brain regions are important for controlling emotion and aggressive behavior."
For the study, 22 healthy adult males, age 18 to 29, with low past exposure to violent video games were randomly assigned to two groups of 11. Members of the first group were instructed to play a shooting video game for 10 hours at home for one week and refrain from playing the following week. The second group did not play a violent video game at all during the two-week period.
Each of the 22 men underwent fMRI at the beginning of the study, with follow-up exams at one and two weeks. During fMRI, the participants completed an emotional interference task, pressing buttons according to the color of visually presented words. Words indicating violent actions were interspersed among nonviolent action words. In addition, the participants completed a cognitive inhibition counting task.
The results showed that after one week of violent game play, the video game group members showed less activation in the left inferior frontal lobe during the emotional task and less activation in the anterior cingulate cortex during the counting task, compared to their baseline results and the results of the control group after one week. After the second week without game play, the changes to the executive regions of the brain were diminished."
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Free Webinar on Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Research

Designing Effective AAC Technologies for Beginning Communicators

PRESENTER: Janice Light, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Penn State University

DATE: Tues., January 10, 2012
TIME: 12:00 - 1:30 PM E.T.
SESSION FEE: No Charge
OVERVIEW: To date there are few guidelines to support clinicians and manufacturers on the design of effective AAC systems for beginning communicators. When AAC systems are well designed they may enhance communication and language outcomes for beginning communicators with complex communication needs. This webinar will present research results from recent studies that address the design of AAC technologies, and will suggest clinical guidelines to improve design based on this research. Each study will be presented briefly with a focus on research results and their implications for beginning communicators. Examples will be used to illustrate key points.

NOTE: You can review the complete webinar abstract by clicking on the title above.

The South Carolina Assistive Technology Workshops

The SC Assistive Technology Program and the SC Department of Education Assistive Technology Specialists are offering the workshops below in December. The workshops are free of charge, but require pre-registration.

12-5-11 – Columbia Boardmaker Studio Basics<http://www.sc.edu/scatp/trainings/midlandsfreeattrainings.html> – Val Gioia

Register for the Boardmaker Studio Basics workshop online<http://www.sc.edu/scatp/forms/trainingregform_12-7-11.html>


12-7-11 – Low Country Windows 7 Accessibility Features<http://www.sc.edu/scatp/trainings/lowcountryatstrainings.html> – Stacy Springer
Register by emailing Stacy Springer sspringer@ed.sc.govsspringer@ed.sc.gov>:

1. Your Name/Email/Contact Number

2. Your District/Position

3. The Training Title & Date

12-13-11 – Coastal Free Literacy and Study Aids<http://www.sc.edu/scatp/trainings/Coastal%20AT%20Trainings.pdf> – Stacy Springer
Register by emailing Stacy Springer sspringer@ed.sc.govsspringer@ed.sc.gov>:

4. Your Name/Email/Contact Number

5. Your District/Position

6. Training Title & Date

Saving For People With Disabilities May Soon Be Tax-Free

Disability Scoop, November 15, 2011 - "A bill that’s expected to be introduced in Congress Tuesday would give families a new way to save money for people with disabilities without jeopardizing government benefits.

The legislation known as the Achieving Better Life Experience Act, or ABLE Act, would create savings accounts that could be used to pay for education, health care, transportation, housing and other expenses for people with disabilities.

A bipartisan group of legislators plans to announce that they will introduce the bill in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate at a noon press conference Tuesday on Capitol Hill where they will be joined by representatives of the National Down Syndrome Society, Autism Speaks, The Arc and other groups.

Under the legislation being proposed, up to $100,000 could be deposited into a so-called ABLE account without compromising access to government benefits from Social Security, Medicaid and other programs.

The accounts are modeled after the popular 529 college savings plans, which can be opened at any financial institution. Interest earned on funds within the accounts would be tax-free.

“Our tax code currently provides advantages to help Americans save for college and retirement, yet people with disabilities do not enjoy those same financial planning tools,” said Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., who’s sponsoring the House bill. “No longer would individuals with disabilities have to stand aside and watch others use IRS-sanctioned tools to lay the groundwork for a brighter future. They would be able to as well.”
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People With Early Alzheimer's Disease May Be More Likely to Have Lower BMI

ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2011) — Studies have shown that people who are overweight in middle age are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease decades later than people at normal weight, yet researchers have also found that people in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease are more likely to have a lower body mass index (BMI). A current study examines this relationship between Alzheimer's disease and BMI.

The study, published in the November 22, 2011, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, examined 506 people with advanced brain imaging techniques and analyses of cerebrospinal fluid to look for biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease, which can be present years before the first symptoms begin. The participants, who were part of the Alzheimer's Disease. Neuroimaging Initiative, included people with no memory problems, people with mild cognitive impairment, or mild memory problems, and people with Alzheimer's disease.

The study found that in people with no memory or thinking problems and in people with mild cognitive impairment, those who had the Alzheimer's biomarkers were also more likely to have a lower BMI than those who did not have the biomarkers.

For example, 85 percent of the people with mild cognitive impairment who had a BMI below 25 had signs of the beta-amyloid plaques in their brains that are a hallmark of the disease, compared to 48 percent of those with mild cognitive impairment who were overweight. The relationship was also found in people with no memory or thinking problems.

"These results suggest Alzheimer's disease brain changes are associated with systemic metabolic changes in the very earliest phases of the disease," said study author Jeffrey M. Burns, MD, MS, of the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Kansas City and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "This might be due to damage in the area of the brain called the hypothalamus that plays a role in regulating energy metabolism and food intake. Further studies should investigate whether this relationship reflects a systemic response to an unrecognized disease or a long-standing trait that predisposes a person to developing the disease."

To read more about Alzheimer's disease, please click the above title.

Support and Resource Group for Students and Parents & Educators of Students with Learning Differences

December 13, 7:30 pm Glenforest School 1041 Harbor Drive West Columbia, SC

We will discuss ADD/ADHD – the brain mechanisms involved, behavioral outcomes, and strategies for teachers, parents, and students. It will be a very open environment in which everyone will be welcome to share their experiences and any strategies they have found useful.

For information or directions call (803)718-3532 or e-mail elizabethmyers@landmark.edu

Max From NBC’s ‘Parenthood’ Talks Asperger’s

Disability Scoop (Nov. 9, 2010)- When NBC’s “Parenthood” premiered in March, viewers quickly learned that 8-year-old Max Braverman has Asperger’s syndrome. Since then, autism has emerged as a central part of nearly every episode of the drama, which focuses on the experiences of three generations of a California family.

The Asperger’s storyline follows the family’s journey to accept Max’s diagnosis and help him progress, all while dealing with their own emotions. The show’s heavy focus on life with a developmental disability is believed to be a first and so far audiences both with and without ties to autism seem to be responding.

“While not all parents are dealing with autism or Asperger’s, what I do find is all parents are dealing with something with their kids,” says Jason Katims, the show’s creator who himself has a son on the autism spectrum.

At the heart of the “Parenthood” drama is actor Max Burkholder, 13, in the role of Max Braverman. Nearly halfway through the show’s second season, Burkholder opens up to Disability Scoop about what it’s like to play a character with Asperger’s.

Disability Scoop: How did you land the role of Max on “Parenthood”?

Max Burkholder: I went in to audition and I really liked it a lot, so I was hoping that I would get called back. I had no idea what autism was before so I wanted to be able to learn more. It’s hard sometimes thinking of stuff that a person with autism might do in any given situation, but it’s still really fun.

Disability Scoop: What’s it like to play a character with Asperger’s syndrome?

Max Burkholder: It’s quite a bit harder because I have to figure out a way of expressing what Max is feeling without making it seem that he doesn’t have Asperger’s.

Disability Scoop: What goes through your mind to get into character?

Max Burkholder: I just think what Max might be feeling. He has special interests, like he loves bugs, anything about bugs. So whenever there’s something about bugs I try to seem really interested. But he doesn’t like to be touched so I make myself think that if this person touches me, it’s going to hurt a lot.

To read the entire interview, please click on the above title.

SC Adult Sibling Leadership Network Newsletter

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