WEEK IN REVIEW

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

November 8, 2013 - Vol 9, Issue 44

New This Week on NASET

Senate To Revive Disability Rights Treaty

The U.S. Senate is gearing up to reconsider an international disability rights treaty that was rejected by the body on its first go-around last year. The Senate's Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to take up the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at a hearing this coming Tuesday. It will mark the first time that lawmakers will consider ratifying the treaty since it wasdefeatedin a vote last December that fell largely across party lines. The convention calls for greater community access and a better standard of living for people with disabilities worldwide. To read more,click here

U.S. Preemie Birth Rate Continues to Fall: Report

The preterm birth rate in the United States fell for a sixth consecutive year in 2012 -- and that 11.5 percent rate is a 15-year low, a new report says. Six states -- Alaska, California, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon and Vermont -- earned an "A" on the March of Dimes' annual premature birth report card because their preterm birth rates met the group's 9.6 percent goal. A premature birth is one that occurs before 37 weeks of pregnancy. Health consequences can include breathing problems, developmental delays and cerebral palsy. Prematurity is also a leading cause of newborn death. Since 2006, about 176,000 fewer premature babies have been born in the United States, potentially saving the nation about $9 billion in health and societal costs, according to the report released Friday. To read more,click here

Few Parents Use Kids' Asthma Meds Correctly

Most adults who help children take inhaled asthma medications don't know all of the steps involved for their proper use, new research finds. Using inhalers improperly often means a child receives too little medication, which can lead to continuing symptoms or worsening asthma, the study authors noted. "Of the 10 steps for accurate technique, we were surprised to learn that only one out of 169 caregivers knew all 10 steps," said study author Dr. Marina Reznik, an attending physician at Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York City. To read more,click here

Dark Side of 'Chat Rooms' for Troubled Teens: Talk of Self-Harm

While social media can help vulnerable teenagers seeking support, Internet use can do more harm than good for young people at risk of self-harm or suicide, a new study suggests. Researchers from Oxford University in England found conflicting evidence on whether online activity poses a positive or negative influence for vulnerable teens, but observed a strong link between the use of Internet forums or "chat rooms" and an increased risk of suicide. "I think it's surprising that so little is known about the Internet and suicidal behavior given its importance," said senior study author Paul Montgomery, a professor of psycho-social intervention at Oxford's Center for Evidence-Based Intervention. "But I am unsurprised that what we found appears to be generally negative, as these vulnerable kids often feel isolated. We need to support such kids a great deal more [and] ask about their Internet usage." To read more,click here

Neighbors To Pay $65K After Banning Accessible Vehicle

Federal officials say a homeowners association is going to pay after refusing to allow a family to park a special vehicle in their driveway that they purchased to accommodate their son's disability. The Las Vegas family - which is not being named in legal documents made public this week - bought an ambulance to bring their son to and from medical appointments. Because of his disability, the son must be lying down while he's transported, officials said. Despite providing their local homeowners association with documentation of their son's need for the ambulance, the family said that the Harbor Cove Homeowners Association and its management company barred them from keeping the vehicle in their driveway. The HOA allegedly cited rules prohibiting residents from parking commercial vehicles at their homes. To read more,click here

Epilepsy Often Hand-in-Hand With Other Health Problems

Many people with epilepsy also suffer from other serious medical problems, such as heart disease and cancer, at rates higher than the general population, U.S. health officials said Thursday. Worse still, these co-occurring conditions often go ignored or undertreated by doctors and patients, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "People with epilepsy are not only living with their epilepsy, but many are also living with cardiovascular, respiratory, inflammatory and other disorders," said report co-author Rosemarie Kobau, a CDC public health analyst. To read more,click here

Babies Work Specific Brain Areas to Imitate People

Babies imitate other people to learn how to do things, and now researchers say they've pinpointed just how infants' brains work during that process. Copying others is a vital learning tool for babies, who often will observe how other people do things -- for example, guiding a spoon to the mouth -- and then imitate those body movements. This study is the first to identify specific brain activation patterns in babies when watching an adult perform tasks with different parts of the body, according to the authors of the study, which was published online Oct. 30 in the journal PLoS One. To read more,click here

NASET Sponsor - Feiner Supplies

Walking Speed a Good Gauge of MS Disability, Study Says

Measuring the walking speed of multiple sclerosis patients can help doctors assess progression of the disease and the severity of disability, a new study suggests. In people with multiple sclerosis (MS), the immune system damages the protective myelin sheath around the body's nerves. "We already know that the timed 25-foot walk test is a meaningful way to measure disability in MS," study author Dr. Myla Goldman, of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said in a news release from the American Academy of Neurology. "Our study builds on that research by providing a clearer idea of how walk time can provide information about how a person's disease progression and disability impacts their everyday activities and real-world function." To read more,click here

TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEK

NASET Sponsor - University of Kansas

Social Security, SSI Benefits To Rise In 2014

Monthly payments will increase next year for people with disabilities receiving benefits from Social Security, including Supplemental Security Income. The Social Security Administration said Wednesday that benefits will rise by 1.5 percent in 2014. The automatic adjustment known as COLA is intended to account for higher cost-of-living and is triggered by law when inflation goes up. The change will take effect starting Dec. 31 for the nation's 8 million SSI recipients and will begin in January for the 57 million Americans receiving Social Security. To read more,click here

Try Talking More to Boost Your Toddler's Vocabulary

The more that adults talk to toddlers, the more quickly the children's language skills develop, according to a small new study. The study included 29 children, 19 months old, from low-income Hispanic families. Each child was fitted with a small audio recorder that captured all the sounds he or she heard during the day in their homes. The recordings were analyzed to distinguish between adult speech directed at the toddlers and speech they only overheard, such as when a parent or other caregiver was on the phone or talking with another adult. To read more,click here

NASET Sponsor - University of Kansas

Can Hearing Music in the Womb Boost Babies' Brain Development?

Playing music for babies while they are still in the womb could boost their brain development, a new study suggests. Finnish researchers reported the findings Oct. 30 in the journal PLoS One. "Even though we've previously shown that fetuses could learn minor details of speech, we did not know how long they could retain the information," study author Eino Partanen, from the University of Helsinki, said in a journal news release. "These results show that babies are capable of learning at a very young age, and that the effects of the learning remain apparent in the brain for a long time." In conducting the study, the researchers asked women in their third trimester of pregnancy to play "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" at least five times per week. Meanwhile, a separate group of women did not play any music during their final trimester. To read more,click here

Genes Interact With Parental Care in Producing Childhood Behavioral Problems, Study Suggests

A new study suggests that some children may be genetically predisposed to developing behavioral problems in child care and preschool settings. Previous research has found that some children develop behavior problems at child care centers and preschools, despite the benefit of academic gains. It was never known, however, why some youngsters struggle in these settings and others flourish. The new study indicates that some children may be acting out due to poor self-control and temperament problems that they inherited from their parents. The study's lead author Shannon Lipscomb, an assistant professor of human development and family sciences at Oregon State University-Cascades, said the findings point to the reason that some children develop problem behavior at care centers, despite the best efforts of teachers and caregivers. The results are published online today in the International Journal of Behavioral Development. To read more,click here

Curing HIV/AIDS Gets Tougher: Far More 'Hidden' Active Virus Than Thought

Just when some scientists were becoming more hopeful about finding a strategy to outwit HIV's ability to resist, evade and otherwise survive efforts to rid it from the body, another hurdle has emerged to foil their plans, new research from Johns Hopkins shows.In a cover-story report on the research to be published in the journal Cell online Oct. 24, Johns Hopkins infectious disease experts say the amount of potentially active, dormant forms of HIV hiding in infected immune T cells may actually be 60-fold greater than previously thought. The hidden HIV, researchers say, is part of the so-called latent reservoir of functional proviruses that remains long after antiretroviral drug therapy has successfully brought viral replication to a standstill. To read more,click here

PVC as Flooring Material in Childhood Is Related to Asthma 10 Years Later

Children who had PVC flooring in the bedroom at baseline were more likely to develop asthma during the following 10 years period when compared with children living without such flooring material. Furthermore, there were indications that PVC flooring in the parents' bedrooms were stronger associated with the new cases of asthma when compared with child's bedroom. This could be an indication that prenatal exposure is of importance. Soft polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is common flooring material in Swedish homes used in more than 30% of the bedrooms. Soft PVC includes phthalates that normally are released to the surrounding environment. Phthalates is a group of chemicals with suspected endocrine disrupting properties that may impact on several chronic diseases/disorders such as asthma and allergy. The current study was aimed to investigate if PVC-flooring in the home of children in the age of 1-5 years was associated with the development of asthma in 5-year and 10-year follow-up investigations (n=3,228). To read more,click here

World-Renowned Special Olympian Starts New Chapter

They watched the woman old enough to be their grandmother crank out pushups on the gym floor. She talked to the two dozen teenagers during her sets of pushups, then sit-ups - lecturing, inspiring, urging them to do their best in order for good things to happen. She led them in laps around the Crispus Attucks Association gym in York's south side. Then, Loretta Claiborne told them about her life. By the end of an hour, the most famous Special Olympian had won over even more souls, and this time only a handful of blocks from where she grew up. To read more,click here

Participation in Mindfulness-Based Program Improves Teacher Well-Being

Teacher well-being, efficacy, burnout-related stress, time-related stress and mindfulness significantly improve when teachers participate in the CARE (Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education) for Teachers program, according to Penn State researchers. CARE is a mindfulness-based professional development program designed to reduce stress and improve teachers' performance and classroom learning environments, developed by the Garrison Institute, a New York-based non-profit organization that applies the transformative power of contemplation to today's social and environmental concerns. CARE combines emotion skills instruction, mindful awareness practices and compassion-building activities to provide teachers with skills to reduce their emotional stress and improve the social and emotional skills required to build supportive relationships with their students, manage challenging student behaviors, and provide modeling and direct instruction for effective social and emotional learning. The intensive 30-hour program is presented in four day-long sessions over four to six weeks, with intersession phone coaching and a booster session held approximately two months later. To read more,click here

Portable Vision Screening Devices Accurately Identify Vision Problems in Young Children

Portable screening devices allow pediatricians to successfully screen children for vision problems, including amblyopia, according to an abstract presented Oct. 25 at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in Orlando. Approximately 15 percent of children ages 3 to 5 have vision problems that can threaten normal visual development. In "Practical Validation of Plusoptix, iScreen, SPOT and iCheckKids* Photoscreeners in Young and Developmentally Delayed Pediatric Patients," researchers tested the effectiveness of four state-of-the-art portable vision screening devices in 108 pediatric patients in Alaska. To read more,click here

Recent Advances in Medicine Lead to Better Health for Children With Juvenile Arthritis

There has been a progressive decline in the levels of disease activity and disability among children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis over the past 25 years, according to research presented this week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting in San Diego. This research confirms the notion that recent advances in the management of the disease have led to a substantial improvement in health outcomes for children living with it. There are several types of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, (commonly called JIA or juvenile rheumatoid arthritis) all involving chronic (long-term) joint inflammation. This inflammation begins before patients reach the age of 16, may involve one or many joints, and can cause other symptoms such as fevers, rash and/or eye inflammation. Systemic onset JIA is a subset of JIA that affects about 10 percent of children with arthritis. It begins with recurrent fevers that can be 103° F or higher, often accompanied by a pink rash that comes and goes. Systemic onset JIA may cause inflammation of the internal organs as well as the joints, though joint swelling may not appear until months or even years after the symptoms begin. To read more,click here

Honor Society for Special Education Teachers

New Statistic Model Forecasts Effect of Tobacco Consumption On Childhood Asthma

A scientific study recently published on International Journal of Statistics in Medical Research states that tobacco consumption must be decreased by 15% in Spain, particularly at home, in order to reduce the number of childhood asthma cases. The research is signed by professors Toni Monleón-Getino and Martín Ríos, from the Department of Statistics of the University of Barcelona, and experts Oriol Vall, Carme Puig, Òscar Garcia-Algar and Antonella Chiandetti, members of the Childhood and Environment Research Group of the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM). Asthma is the most common chronic illness during childhood and adolescence in industrialized countries. Several factors have been proposed to explain asthma. It affects between 10% and 17% of children and teenagers in Spain. There is no treatment to cure this illness which may decrease considerably patients' quality of life. Although its prevalence has been increasing over the last 40 years in many countries, no statistical or simulation model existed to forecast the evolution of childhood asthma in Europe. To read more,click here