Listening To Pleasant Music Could Help Restore Vision In Stroke Patients, Suggests Study

ScienceDaily (Mar. 25, 2009) — Patients who have lost part of their visual awareness following a stroke can show an improved ability to see when they are listening to music they like, according to a new study published March 23 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Every year, an estimated 150,000 people in the UK have a stroke. Up to 60% of stroke patients have impaired visual awareness of the outside world as a result, where they have trouble interacting with certain objects in the visual world.

This impaired visual awareness, known as 'visual neglect', is due to the damage that a stroke causes in brain areas that are critical for the integration of vision, attention and action. Visual neglect causes the patient to lose awareness of objects in the opposite side of space compared to the site of their brain injury.

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Photovoice: The Issue, The Image, The Voice, The Solution

Wednesday, April 1

5:30-7 p.m.

Russell House Ballroom

You are cordially invited to a photography and creative writing exhibit focusing on the experiences of students with disabilities at the University of South Carolina. Through photographic images and the written word, Photovoice will offer an insider’s view of the strengths displayed by this unique student population, as well as the challenges they face. An American Sign Language interpreter will be present at this event.

An American Sign Language interpreter will be present at this event.

This exhibit is sponsored by:

Arts Institute

Student Disability Services, Campus Wellness

Art Department, English Department

The University of South Carolina is and equal opportunity institution.

If you have questions or need special accommodations, please contact Lauren Hastings at (803) 777-3656, hastings@mailbox.sc.edu

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Epilepsy: Seizures Caused By Intractable Epilepsy Reduced By More Than 50 Percent

ScienceDaily (Mar. 25, 2009) — Epilepsy is a common medical condition characterized by convulsions and short periods of confusion. It affects more than 50 million people worldwide. But intractable epilepsy, which affects more than 1 million Americans and is often resistant to drug treatment and surgery, is arguably worse.

But in a just completed clinical trial, a unique nerve-stimulation treatment for intractable epilepsy reduced the number of seizures by more than 50 percent. In the March edition of the journal Neurology, UCLA neurology professor Christopher M. DeGiorgio and colleagues report the results of the long-term pilot trial, which demonstrated the effectiveness of the new treatment, called trigeminal nerve stimulation (TNS).

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Inconsistent Performance Speed Among Children With ADHD May Underlie How Well They Use Memory

ScienceDaily (Mar. 24, 2009) — Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show more variable or inconsistent responses during on ‘working’ or short-term memory tasks when compared with typically developing peers, a study by UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute Julie Schweitzer has found.

“We think poor working memory is a characteristic present in many children and adults with ADHD,” said Schweitzer, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

“Our study helps explain why working memory may be fine at one moment and poor at another, just as one day a child with ADHD seems to be able to learn and focus in class and on another day seems distracted and not paying attention,” Schweitzer said.

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Auditory Regions Of Brain Convert To Sense Of Touch, Hearing Loss Study Finds

ScienceDaily (Mar. 25, 2009) — Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine researchers have discovered that adult animals with hearing loss actually re-route the sense of touch into the hearing parts of the brain.

In the study, published online in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of March 23, the team reported a phenomenon known as cross-modal plasticity in the auditory system of adult animals. Cross-modal plasticity refers to the replacement of a damaged sensory system by one of the remaining ones. In this case, the sense of hearing is replaced with touch.

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Curbing Impulsivity In Children With ADHD

ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2008) — Central Michigan University researchers are one step closer to helping children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder improve their self-control.

ADHD is one of the most commonly diagnosed chronic psychiatric conditions in today's school-aged children and is based on such behavioral criteria as impulsivity, hyperactivity, inattention and learning disabilities.

CMU associate professor of psychology Mark Reilly, along with experimental psychology graduate students Andrew Fox and Dennis Hand, recently published a study that investigated impulsivity in two strains of rat.

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Nanotechnology Coating Could Lead To Better Brain Implants To Treat Diseases

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — Biomedical and materials engineers at the University of Michigan have developed a nanotech coating for brain implants that helps the devices operate longer and could improve treatment for deafness, paralysis, blindness, epilepsy and Parkinson's disease.

Currently, brain implants can treat Parkinson's disease, depression and epilepsy. These and the next generation of the devices operate in one of two ways. Either they stimulate neurons with electrical impulses to override the brain's own signals, or they record what working neurons are transmitting to non-working parts of the brain and reroute that signal.

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Genetic Determinants Of ADHD Examined

ScienceDaily (Jan. 13, 2009) — A special issue of American Journal of Medical Genetics (AJMG): Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics presents a comprehensive overview of the latest progress in genetic research of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The issue covers major trends in the field of complex psychiatric genetics, underscoring how genetic studies of ADHD have evolved, and what approaches are needed to uncover its genetic origins.

ADHD is a complex condition with environmental and genetic causes. It is characterized by developmentally inappropriate levels of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity that has an onset in childhood. It is one of the most common psychiatric diseases, affecting between 8-12 percent of children worldwide. The drugs used to treat ADHD are highly effective, making ADHD one of the most treatable psychiatric disorders.

 However, despite the high efficacy of ADHD medications, these treatments are not curative and leave patients with residual disability. Because ADHD is also has one of the most heritable of psychiatric disorders, researchers have been searching for genes that underlie the disorder in the hopes that gene discovery will lead to better treatments for the disorder.

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Hyperbaric Treatment For Autism Reports Significant Clinical Improvements

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — Hyperbaric treatment for children with autism has reportedly led to improvements in the condition, though previous studies were uncontrolled. Now, a new study is the first controlled trial to report clinical improvements.

Hyperbaric therapy traditionally involves inhaling up to 100% oxygen at a pressure greater than 1 atmosphere (atm) in a pressurized chamber. In the first randomized, controlled, double-blind multicenter trial, Dan Rossignol and colleagues, from six centers in the USA, studied 62 children, aged 2-7 years, to assess the efficacy of hyperbaric treatment in children with autism.

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Doctors Test Targets For Deep Brain Stimulation In Parkinson Surgery

ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2009) — Doctors may be able to tailor a specialized form of brain surgery to more closely match the needs of Parkinson patients, according to results from the first large-scale effort to compare the two current target areas of deep brain stimulation surgery, or DBS.

Called the COMPARE Trial, the National Institutes of Health-funded study conducted at the University of Florida evaluated 45 patients for mood and cognitive changes related to DBS.

UF investigators found that DBS in either brain target effectively treated motor symptoms such as tremors, stiffness and slowness.

However, DBS also produced unique effects depending on the target location, especially in patients' moods and mental sharpness.

The discoveries, in the March 13, 2009 issue of Annals of Neurology, may have an impact on the selection of DBS patients, especially those with pre-existing memory, cognitive or mood disabilities.

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Brain Abnormality Found In Boys With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

ScienceDaily (Mar. 18, 2009) — Researchers trying to uncover the mechanisms that cause attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and conduct disorder have found an abnormality in the brains of adolescent boys suffering from the conditions, but not where they expected to find it.

Boys with either or both of these disorders exhibited a different pattern of brain activity than normally developing boys when they played a simple game that sometimes gave them a monetary reward for correct answers, according to a new study by a University of Washington research team.

The research focused on two brain areas, the striatum and anterior cingulate cortex. The striatal region is a network of structures in the mid brain that motivates people to engage in pleasurable or rewarding behavior. The anterior cingulate is higher in the brain and normally activates when an expected reward stops.

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New Devices Aid Deaf People By Translating Sound Waves To Vibrations

ScienceDaily (Mar. 2, 2009) — Lip reading is a critical means of communication for many deaf people, but it has a drawback: Certain consonants (for example, p and b) can be nearly impossible to distinguish by sight alone.

Tactile devices, which translate sound waves into vibrations that can be felt by the skin, can help overcome that obstacle by conveying nuances of speech that can't be gleaned from lip reading.

Researchers in MIT's Sensory Communication Group are working on a new generation of such devices, which could be an important tool for deaf people who rely on lip reading and can't use or can't afford cochlear implants. The cost of the device and the surgery make cochlear implants prohibitive for many people, especially in developing countries.

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ABA Workshop: Teaching People with Autism

Teaching People with Autism:

Evidence-Based Practices for Promoting Independence and Enjoyment

June 8, 2009

Columbia Conference Center

169 Laurelhurst Ave., Columbia, SC

Dennis H. Reid, Ph.D., BCBA

Dr. Dennis Reid is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and has worked with children and adults with autism for 35 years. He has published over 100 journal articles and authored or co-authored seven books. Dr. Reid is a Fellow in the Association for Behavior Analysis International and recipient of the 2006 International Research Award of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. He is the founder and director of the Carolina Behavior Analysis and Support Center in Morganton, North Carolina, and currently works with people who have autism in schools, residential centers, and community living. His company has also employed adults with autism in a supported work capacity for the last 14 years

Workshop 9AM – 4PM (registration begins at 8AM)

This workshop will summarize evidence-based practices for teaching meaningful skills to children and adults with autism. A particular focus will be on teaching strategies that are usually enjoyed by learners with autism, as well as specific ways to help make teaching sessions enjoyable in general. Following a summary of basic teaching procedures that have a scientific evidence base to support their effectiveness, new developments in teaching processes will be presented. The latter will include, for example, how to teach skills in a rapid or intensive fashion, embedding brief teaching procedures within ongoing interactions in natural settings, preference-based teaching, and simulation teaching for helping adolescents and adults with autism acquire skills to succeed in supported work. Teaching approaches will be described in a step-by-step manner followed by instructor demonstrations and where relevant, audience practice in role-play situations.

 

Objectives

As a function of attending this workshop, attendees will be able to:

1. Describe what constitutes a scientific evidence-base for demonstrating the effectiveness of teaching procedures.
2. Demonstrate proficient use of a three-step prompting strategy.
3. Identify four strategies to include within teaching sessions to promote learner enjoyment with the teaching.
4. Describe a protocol for teaching intensively to promote rapid acquisition of learner skills.
5. Demonstrate a subtle prompting and reinforcement strategy for teaching naturalistically in community settings.
6. Describe how to design a teaching session around learner preferences.
7. Describe how to develop a simulated instructional program for teaching functional work skills.
8. Identify three strategies for promoting application of skills acquired in circumscribed teaching sessions within real-world situations.   

 

Registration fee   $75 (for workshop only & includes lunch)

CEU fee (Optional)   $20 (for 6 CEU’s from BACB)

To view workshop information, please click on the link above.

For registration information go to www.scautism.org