Week in Review - July 25, 2014

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WEEK IN REVIEW

NewNASETPublications and Articles of Interest in Special Education and Disabilities That Were Reported This Week

July 25, 2014 - Vol 10, Issue 30

 

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TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEK

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Dear NASET News,

Welcome toNASET'sWEEK in REVIEWHere, we provide you with the latest publications fromNASETto read and or download, as well as some of the most interesting articles that have happened this week in the field of special education. We hope you enjoy this publication.  Feel free to send us articles for this publication or let us know your thoughts about theWEEK in REVIEWatnews@naset.org.Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,


NASETNews Team

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New This Week on NASET

NASET's ADHD Series
July 2014
School Accommodation and Modification Ideas for Students who Receive Special Education Services

Some students with disabilities who receive special education services need accommodations or modifications to their educational program in order to participate in the general curriculum and to be successful in school. While the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and its regulations do not define accommodations or modifications, there is some agreement as to what they mean. This issue ofNASET'sADHD serieswas written by the Center for Parent Information and Resources and focuses on school accommodation and modification ideas for students who receive special education services.
To read or download this issue -  Click here(login required)
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SeeNASET'sLatest Job Listings

Researchers See Link Between Dyslexia, Abuse

Adults with dyslexia are more likely to report that they were physically abused as children or teenagers than people who don't have the learning disorder, according to a new study. Dyslexia, which affects up to 10 percent of people, causes problems with reading and writing. Researchers found that 35 percent of adults with this condition said they suffered physical abuse during their childhood, compared to 7 percent of those without dyslexia. "Even after accounting for age, race, sex and other early adversities such as parental addictions, childhood physical abuse was still associated with a sixfold increase in the odds of dyslexia," study co-author Esme Fuller-Thomson, a professor at the University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, said in a university news release. To read more,click here

Delaware Ponders How to Test Children with Special Needs

A stinging report from the U.S. Department of Education saying Delaware "needs intervention" in special education has put the state under pressure to exempt fewer special-needs students from national standardized tests. While Gov. Jack Markell's administration says it is pushing to fix the problem, advocates for those students say there's more to the issue than simply getting the tests right. Delaware was one of just three states, along with California and Texas, to receive the "needs intervention" label last week in a report that said the state has significant room to improve when it comes to educating students with disabilities. To read more,click here

'Bad' Video Game Behavior Increases Players' Moral Sensitivity: May Lead to Pro-Social Behavior in Real World

New evidence suggests heinous behavior played out in a virtual environment can lead to players' increased sensitivity toward the moral codes they violated. The current study found such guilt can lead players to be more sensitive to the moral issues they violated during game play. Other studies have established that in real life scenarios, guilt evoked by immoral behavior in the "real-world" elicits pro-social behaviors in most people.To read more,click here

Study Links Autism to Higher Steroid Levels in Womb

Autism in childhood may be linked to higher levels of steroid hormones in the womb during early fetal development. These hormones, which play a key phase in brain development at three to four months of pregnancy, may also explain why the condition is far more common among males than females, they said. But it was too early to say whether higher hormone levels were a cause of autism, the team wrote, and cautioned against hormone screening or treatment based on their preliminary findings. Scientists at the University of Cambridge in Britain and Denmark's Statens Serum Institute analyzed hormone levels among nearly 20,000 stored samples of amniotic fluid, which surrounds the fetus in the uterus. To read more,click here

Disability Group Slams European Disneyland for Prejudice

"Mickey Mouse treats us like we are crazy", a French disability organization complained on Thursday, after announcing that it has lodged a legal complaint against Disneyland accusing the theme park of "intolerable acts against people with learning difficulties". A charity in France has accused Disneyland of "institutionalized discrimination" against disabled people and has announced its intention to file a lawsuit against the theme park near Paris. The National Union of Charities for Parents with Disabled Children (UNAPEI) is taking Disneyland to court for what it describes as "intolerable acts against people with learning difficulties". To read more,click here

Stimulants Used to Treat ADHD May Increase Cardiovascular Risk

Each year, thousands of children are diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and put on stimulant medications to help them better focus. While these drugs have proven successful in many children, they have been linked cardiovascular health problems. New data published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology suggests that stimulant drugs like Ritalin and Adderall can accelerate heart disease that will often not be recognized until later in life. Researchers followed more than 700,000 children born in Denmark between 1990 and 1999. They found that while cardiovascular events were rare, they were twice as likely to occur in stimulant users than those who did not take the drugs. To read more,click here

NASET Sponsor - Purdue University

TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEK

THE TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEK WILL RETURN ON AUGUST 1, 2014

Who Will Binge-Drink at Age 16? Teen Imaging Study Pinpoints Predictors

Neuroscientists leading the largest longitudinal adolescent brain imaging study to date have learned that predicting teenage binge-drinking is possible. In fact, say the researchers in the group's latest publication, a number of factors -- genetics, brain function and about 40 different variables -- can help scientists predict with about 70 percent accuracy which teens will become binge drinkers. The study appears online July 3, 2014 as an Advance Online Publication in the journal NatureFirst author Robert Whelan, Ph.D., a former University of Vermont (UVM) postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry and current lecturer at University College Dublin, and senior author Hugh Garavan, Ph.D., UVM associate professor of psychiatry, and colleagues conducted 10 hours of comprehensive assessments -- these included neuroimaging to assess brain activity and brain structure, along with other measures such as IQ, cognitive task performance, personality and blood tests -- on each of 2,400 14-year-old adolescents at eight different sites across Europe.To read more,click here

Behavioral Therapy Added to Pediatric Antidepressant Treatment Reduces Likelihood of Relapse

Cognitive behavioral therapy in addition to medication improves the long-term success of treatment for children and adolescents suffering from depression, a new UT Southwestern Medical Center study indicates. Based on the results of a clinical trial conducted at UT Southwestern and Children's Medical Center of Dallas, depression relapse rates were substantially lower in a group of youth who received both forms of treatment versus medication alone. "Continuation-phase strategies designed to reduce the high rates of relapse in depressed youths have important public health implications, as recurrence of depression is more likely in youths with multiple episodes," said Dr. Betsy Kennard, Professor of Psychiatry at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study published June 17 in The American Journal of Psychiatry. To read more,click here

Gifted 'Cluster' Grouping to Take Place at Arizona Elementary School

To meet the needs of students who easily master new concepts, Lake Valley Elementary School will initiate a school-wide gifted cluster model when school begins in August. Traditionally in Humboldt Unified School District elementary schools, gifted students receive more complex lessons during a half-to-one-hour pullout session a couple times weekly with other gifted students. "Now they can be challenged all day long," said LVES Principal Tusanne Cordes at the June 10 HUSD governing board meeting. Cordes presented a proposal for the school's signature model, Gifted Academy, requesting approval for $15,000 to be spent on training and materials, which the board approved unanimously.To read more,click here

Why Schools' Efforts to Block the Internet Are So Laughably Lame

As schools around the country have rolled out one-to-one computer initiatives, handing out tablets and laptops to their students, a sour note has often intruded on the triumphant fanfare heralding these programs. Within days, even hours, of the devices' distribution, their young users have figured out how to circumvent the filters meant to block access to games, social networking, and other noneducational activities (not to mention offensive or inappropriate content). In Greenwood, Indiana, hundreds of students managed to reprogram their school-issued tablets on the same day they received them. In Los Angeles, where the school district has begun giving out a planned 600,000 iPads, entrepreneurial students sold a workaround to classmates for $2 a pop. And in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a middle school pupil had a ready answer when his father, Thom McKay, asked him how he got on Facebook even though his school had banned it. "Pretty easy, Dad," his son replied, as quoted in the New York Times. "Don't be an idiot. We know more about computers than the teachers do." To read more,click here

Jobs Report: June Shows More Bad News for People With Disabilities

Despite lasting gains for Americans without disabilities in the June jobs report, Americans with disabilities continue to lag in the economic growth, according to today's National Trends in Disability Employment -- Monthly Update (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and University of New Hampshire's Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). Initiatives are underway to expand employment opportunities for people with disabilities. In the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Jobs Report released Thursday, July 3, the employment-to-population ratio decreased from 26.4 percent in June 2013 to 25.6 percent in June 2014 (down 3.0 percent; 0.8 points) for working-age people with disabilities. For people without disabilities, the employment-to-population ratio increased from 71.2 percent in June 2013 to 72.2 percent in June 2014 (up 1.4 percent; 1.0 percentage points). The employment-to-population ratio, a key indicator, reflects the percentage of people who are working relative to the total population (the number of people working divided by the number of people in the total population multiplied by 100). To read more,click here

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Autism and Transition to Adulthood - Advice to Parents

Changing from a teenager to an adult can be one of the most stressful times in an autistic person's life. Therefore they need the best help and support they can possibly get from their parents. Being a parent is hard, and knowing the right thing to do can be even harder. Below are some tips to help make this transition easier. Parents need to accept that their child is becoming an adult. Often they will try and treat the young adult as if they are still a child. This can come across as patronizing, and also makes it difficult for the child to grow up. To read more,click here

Overloaded: Approaches to Assess Cumulative Effects of Food Additives on Brain Development

In 2011, Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported about the upward trend in the prevalence of developmental disabilities including autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other developmental delays in a 12-year period. Approximately 1 in 6 children has a developmental disability requiring more health care and education services. Why is this happening? A common cause of neurodevelopmental problems is exposure to chemicals during brain development. The brain is such an exquisite organ that even very small or short disruptions to its normal development during the critical prenatal and early childhood periods can have terrible consequences years or decades later. The most pervasive source of chemicals is food; commonly known as "food additives",  these are chemicals allowed to be added directly to food or that are in contact with food through packaging, manufacturing, or processing. Every time we eat, we are exposed to a complex mixture of chemicals; exposure begins even before we are born via our mom's diet and it last our lifetime.To read more,click here

Leading Hypothesis for Miscarriages, Birth Defects Ruled Out

Washington State University reproductive biologists have ruled out one of the leading thoughts on why older women have an increased risk of miscarriages and children with birth defects. The 46-year-old "production-line hypothesis" says that the first eggs produced in a female's fetal stage tend to have better connections or "crossovers" between chromosomes. The hypothesis asserts that as a woman ages and ovulates eggs produced later, these eggs will have more faulty chromosomes -- leading to miscarriages and developmental abnormalities. But after counting the actual chromosome crossovers in thousands of eggs, WSU researchers found those of eggs produced early in the fetal stage were no different from those produced later.

Abnormal cells early and late. To read more,click here

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NASET MEMBER'S BENEFIT -

Board Certification in Special Education Available to NASET Members

Through an agreement with The American Academy of Special Education Professionals(AASEP), NASET members now have the opportunity to achieve AASEP Board Certification in Special Education - (B.C.S.E.) at a reduced fee.  AASEP Board Certification in Special Education - (B.C.S.E.) is a voluntary choice on the part of the candidate. The candidate for Board Certification wishes to demonstrate a commitment to excellence to employers, peers, administrators, other professionals, and parents. From the standpoint of the Academy, board certification will demonstrate the highest professional competency in the area of special education. Board Certification in Special Educationestablishes a much needed standard for professionals, across disciplines, who work with exceptional children.

 

For more information on Board Certification in Special Education,click here

Insulin Pumps Result in Better Blood Sugar Control than Multiple Daily Injections in People with Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is usually controlled by diet and medication, but most people with advanced disease also end up needing insulin therapy to achieve control of their blood sugar. However, roughly a third of these patients struggle to achieve the right level of blood sugar control with insulin injections many times a day. The growing obesity epidemic is adding to the problem by leading to greater insulin resistance. Insulin pumps are portable devices attached to the body which deliver constant amounts of rapid or short acting insulin via a catheter placed under the skin. Previous randomized trials comparing the efficacy of insulin pump therapy and multiple injections in people with type 2 diabetes have not provided consistent evidence, and the benefits of pump therapy continue to be debated.To read more,click here

Honor Society for Special Education Teachers

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jobsNASET's Latest Job Listings

* Assistant Professor - Special Education - is a full-time Faculty position.  The incumbent is responsible for the coordination, planning, preparation, presentation, and evaluation of classroom instruction and related activities.  To learn more - click here

 

* Resource Specialist Teacher -  Bright Star Schools is seeking a Resource Specialist. Teachers will help develop and implement the curriculum. All teachers report to the Principal. To learn more - Click here

Food For Thought..........

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

Robert Louis Stevenson
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