WEEK IN REVIEW

New NASET Publications and Articles of Interest in Special Education and Disabilities That Were Reported This Week

May 31, 2013 - Vol 9, Issue 22

New This Week on NASET

U.S. Rep. John Kline, a Republican from Minnesota and the chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, says that the Obama administration's proposed education budget prioritizes "pet projects, unauthorized programs, and new initiatives" over increased special education spending. In a letter to a House appropriations subcommittee, Kline echoes a much-used talking point from special education advocates: the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act authorized the federal government to pay for up to 40 percent of the cost of educating students with disabilities, but the actual amount appropriated by Congress hasn't come close to that. Currently, the federal contribution to the cost of special education nationwide is about 18 percent.  To read more, click here

Did You Know That....

The rates of autism for students of all races is on the increase, but students who are black, Hispanic, or American Indian are less likely to be identified with the disability compared to white and Asian students, according to a study published this month in The Journal of Special Education. The study, "A Multiyear National Profile of Racial Disparity in Autism Identification," compiled information collected by the federal government from 1998 to 2006 on the race and disability category of students in special education. Using that information, the researchers were able to calculate a "risk index," or the percentage of all enrolled students from a racial group with a specific disability. To read more, click here

A blind man has received the gift of sight, thanks to an innovative stem-cell treatment. The treatment, which was part of a trial examining the safety of using human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), has restored the man's vision enough for him to pass any standard vision test for a driver's license. "There's a guy walking around who was blind, but now can see," said Gary Rabin of Advance Cell Technology (ACT). "With that sort of vision, you can get a driver's license." This news comes on the heels of the announcement last week that U.S. scientists have successfully cloned human embryos to make stem cells, a development that has reignited the debatesurrounding human cloning and the morality of experimentation with stem-cells. To read more,click here

Honor Society for Special Education Teachers

Children born through cesarean section are at a potentially higher risk of becoming obese later in life compared to those delivered vaginally. A study conducted on children in the UK set out to determine this relationship between cesarean delivery and childhood obesity. According to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention, cesarean births account for 32.8 percent of all deliveries in the United States. C-sections accounted for one in three births as of 2010 compared to one in five back in 1996. A research team led by Dr. Jan Blustein, Ph.D., M.D., from the New York University of Medicine analyzed data from 10,219 children in the UK born between 1991 and 1992. Researchers noted that nine percent of children delivered via C-section were on average 2 oz. lighter than their counterparts. To read more, click here

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GEEO Travel Programs for Educators

Global Exploration for Educators Organization (GEEO) is a non-profit organization that runs summer professional development travel programs designed for teachers. 

GEEO is offering 23 different travel programs for the summer of 2013: India/Nepal, Italy, Portugal/Spain, Amalfi Coast, Eastern Europe, Budapest to Istanbul, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Comfort Thailand, Thailand/Laos, Cambodia, China, Comfort China, Russia/Mongolia/China, Turkey 15 day, Turkey 8-Day, Kenya/Tanzania, South Africa / Mozambique / Zimbabwe / Botswana, Morocco, Peru, Ecuador, The Galapagos Islands and Costa Rica. The registration deadline is June 1st, but space is limited and many programs will be full well before the deadline. 

Educators have the option to earn graduate school credit and professional development credit while seeing the world. The trips are 8 to 24 days in length and are designed and discounted to be interesting and affordable for teachers. GEEO provides teachers educational materials and the structure to help them bring their experiences into the classroom. The trips are open to all nationalities of K-12 and university educators and administrators, as well as retired educators. Educators are also permitted to bring along a non-educator guest.

Detailed information about each trip, including itineraries, costs, travel dates, and more can be found at www.geeo.org. GEEO can be reached 7 days a week, toll free at 1-877-600-0105 between 9AM-9PM EST  

Doctors were able to successfully treat a 2.5-year-old boy who had suffered from cardiac

arrest and brain damage, putting him in a vegetative state, using his own cord blood containing stem cells, a press release said. At the end of 2008, the young boy, who was only identified as L.B., suffered cardiac arrest and subsequently became brain damaged and paralyzed in a vegetative state. The child was diagnosed with infantile cerebral palsy, a condition doctors at Catholic Hospital Bochum, part of the University Clinic of RUB in Germany, didn't know how to treat. However, the boy's parents didn't want to give up on him. They suggested using stem cells from cord blood that was frozen when he was born. To read more, click here

SPECIAL EDUCATION LAW SYMPOSIUM AT LEHIGH UNIVERSITY, JUNE 23-28, 2013

Designed for a national audience, this intensive one-week, well-balanced program is available on both a non-credit and graduate-credit basis and provides a thorough analysis of the leading issues under the IDEA and Section 504. Among the 19 symposium sessions are the following "hot topics": RTI; discipline, including a mock manifestation determination hearing; child find; transitional services; tuition reimbursement and other remedies; disability-related bullying; and autism.

Special features include:

• Parallel tracks for basic and advanced practitioners, starting with a keynote dinner presentation by Dr. Melody Musgrove, Director, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), U.S. Department of Education and ending with a post-luncheon crystal-ball culminating presentation led by national consultant and trainer Julie Weatherly, Esq., recipient of the 2012 National CASE Award for Outstanding Service.
• Balance of district, parent, and neutral perspectives with a specialized set of topics and presenters for the advanced track.
• Knowledgeable national faculty including attorneys Laura Anthony (Ohio), Emerson Dickman (New Jersey), Andrew Faust (Pennsylvania), Joshua Kershenbaum (Pennsylvania), Michele Kule-Korgood (New York), Deborah Mattison (Alabama), Marsha Moses (Connecticut), Michael Stafford (Delaware), Julie Weatherly (Alabama), Mark Weber (Illinois), and Dr. Perry Zirkel (Pennsylvania).
• The symposium will take place on the beautiful campus of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., located just 60 miles north of Philadelphia and 70 miles south of New York City, with access from Lehigh Valley (ABE), Newark, and Philadelphia International airports.
• CLE and ACT 48 credits available.
• Non-credit: $995 full week; or $295 per day.  Lehigh University Graduate Credit (3): $1,695

Housing is out of reach for many with disabilities, with a new report finding that rent for a small apartment often exceeds the total government benefits offered to such individuals. On average, people with disabilities would need 104 percent of the payments they receive from Supplemental Security Income to rent a one-bedroom apartment in the United States. That's the finding from an analysis released this week by the Technical Assistance Collaborative and the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities. By comparison, housing is typically considered affordable when it makes up no more than 30 percent of a person's income, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. To read more, click here

A leading software company, with offices in the United States and around the globe, is launching a strategic effort to hire people with autism in order to tap their unique talents. The Germany-based software giant SAP said that it will recruit individuals with the developmental disorder for jobs as software testers, programmers and data quality assurance specialists. "SAP sees a potential competitive advantage to leveraging the unique talents of people with autism, while also helping them to secure meaningful employment," the company said in a statement. To read more,click here

Did You Know That....

A Catholic church has turned down a request from a couple with disabilities to be married, with a clergyman insisting that the pair is not ready. Anna Bankes, 42, and Justin Neis, 33, have been engaged for two years and plan to tie the knot in July. Even though both have special needs - Bankes has intellectual disabilities and Neis uses a wheelchair - the couple has the full support of their families and there are no legal reasons why they should not marry. But the pair tell The Bismarck, N.D. Tribune that the pastor at the Spirit of Life church where Neis attends has asked them to wait citing church doctrine. Under Catholic practice, priests are to determine if the parties are truly able to consent to marriage in cases where either individual has a guardian. To read more, click here

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TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Mild to moderate iodine deficiency during pregnancy may have a negative long-term impact on children's brain development, British researchers report. Low levels of the so-called "trace element" in an expectant mother's diet appear to put her child at risk of poorer verbal and reading skills during the preteen years, the study authors found. Pregnant women can boost their iodine levels by eating enough dairy products and seafood, the researchers suggested. The finding, published online May 22 in The Lancet, stems from an analysis of roughly 1,000 mother-child pairs who were tracked until the child reached the age of 9 years. To read more, click here

Symptoms of borderline personality disorder often mimic traits of other psychiatric disorders, complicating diagnosis and treatment. But researchers in Canada say they have identified a characteristic that may be unique to borderline personality disorder: a tendency to misinterpret emotions expressed by the face. "They have difficulty processing facial emotions and will see a negative emotion on a neutral face," said Anthony Ruocco, a clinical neuropsychologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto. "This is not seen in bipolar disorder or schizophrenia." To read more, click here

Type 2 diabetes is more aggressive in children than adults, with signs of serious complications seen just a few years after diagnosis, new research finds. "Based on the latest results, it seems like type 2 is progressing more rapidly in children," said Dr. Jane Chiang, senior vice president of medical affairs and community information for the American Diabetes Association. "Complications are appearing faster, and it appears to be at a more significant rate than we see in adults." The results are alarming, Chiang and other experts said. "If these children continue to progress this rapidly, we could see many of the consequences of type 2 diabetes at a much younger age, like kidney disease and heart disease," she said. To read more, click here

Children and teens exposed to radiation during CT scans are 24 percent more likely to develop cancer, according to a large, long-term study. The risks, however, are still low: Among a group of 10,000 young people who each had one CT scan, only about six extra cancers would be expected to occur within 10 years, according to researchers from Australia and Europe. The researchers said doctors should carefully weight the risks to patients when making decisions about CT (computed tomography) testing. The study was published online May 21 in the journal BMJ. To read more, click here

Children who are physically, sexually or emotionally abused or neglected are at greater risk for obesity later in life, a new review suggests. British researchers found that abused children are 36 percent more likely to be obese as adults. They concluded that child abuse could be viewed as a modifiable risk factor for obesity. "We found that being maltreated as a child significantly increased the risk of obesity in adult life," study author Dr. Andrea Danese, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, said in a news release from King's College. "Prevention of child maltreatment remains paramount, and our findings highlight the serious long-term health effects of these experiences." To read more, click here

Urban elementary school children with poorly controlled asthma are likely to experience sleep problems and suffer academically, new research indicates. "In our sample of urban schoolchildren, aged seven to nine, we found that compromised lung function corresponded with both poor sleep efficiency and impaired academic performance," said study author Daphne Koinis-Mitchell, an associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University's Alpert Medical School in Providence, R.I. Koinis-Mitchell, who is also an associate professor of pediatrics, is scheduled to present her findings Tuesday at the American Thoracic Society annual meeting in Philadelphia. To read more, click here

When a classmate commits suicide, teens are more likely to consider or attempt suicide themselves, according to a new study. This "suicide contagion" occurs regardless of whether the teens knew the deceased student personally, the researchers found. Teens aged 12 and 13 are particularly vulnerable, according to the study by Dr. Ian Colman, Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Epidemiology, and Sonja Swanson, of the Harvard School of Public Health. The study appeared May 21 in the CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Since the effects of exposure to suicide can linger for two years or more, the researchers said, the study findings have implications for suicide-prevention strategies. To read more, click here

Did You Know That....

Young Children Who Miss Well-Child Visits Are More Likely to Be Hospitalized

Young children who missed more than half of recommended well-child visits had up to twice the risk of hospitalization compared to children who attended most of their visits, according to a study published today in the American Journal of Managed Care. The study included more than 20,000 children enrolled at Group Health Cooperative. Children with chronic conditions like asthma and heart disease were even more likely to be hospitalized when they missed visits, according to the study. In fact, children with chronic conditions who missed more than half of the recommended well-child visits had more than three times the risk of being hospitalized compared to children with chronic conditions who attended most of their visits. To read more, click here

Aggressive Behavior Linked Specifically to Secondhand Smoke Exposure in Childhood

Children who are exposed to secondhand smoke in early childhood are more likely to grow up to physically aggressive and antisocial, regardless of whether they were exposed during pregnancy or their parents have a history of being antisocial, according to Linda Pagani and Caroline Fitzpatrick of the University of Montreal and its affiliated CHU Sainte-Justine hospital. No study to date has controlled for these factors. "Secondhand smoke is in fact more dangerous that inhaled smoke, and 40% of children worldwide are exposed to it. Moreover, exposure to this smoke at early childhood is particularly dangerous, as the child's brain is still developing," Pagani said. "I looked at data that was collected about 2,055 kids from their birth until ten years of age, including parent reports about secondhand smoke exposure and from teachers and children themselves about classroom behavior. Those having been exposed to secondhand smoke, even temporarily, were much more likely to report themselves as being more aggressive by time they finished fourth grade." To read more, click here