Crickets offer hope to deaf
Super-sensitive sound detectors used by crickets to spot predators have been recreated in the laboratory, it was revealed today.
Scientists hope studying the tiny artificial hairs might lead to the development of new cochlea implants for deaf people.
The sensors will also have a range of other research applications, such as measuring airflows over aircraft.
Crickets spend most of their lives on the ground, making them vulnerable to predators such as wasps and spiders.
Species like the wood cricket have developed a pair of hairy appendages on their abdomens called cerci which can detect the smallest fluctuations in air currents.
Each of the hairs is lodged in a socket. Air vibrations drag on the hair, rotating its base and triggering specific nerve cells.
The nerve messages allow the cricket to pinpoint low-frequency sound from any direction with incredible sensitivity.
Crickets use their cerci to detect and escape from attacking predators.
Physicists at the
The fine plastic hairs are attached to membranes with built-in electrodes and capacitors. Airflow on the hair causes an electrical change which sends out a signal in a similar fashion to the cricket's cerci.
Dr Marcel Dijkstra, a member of the team, said: "These sensors are the first step towards a variety of exciting applications as well as further scientific exploration.
"Their small size and low energy consumption make them excellent for application in large sensor networks. We could use them to visualise airflow on surfaces, such as an aircraft fuselage."
In the more distant future the scientists hope the structures might lead to more sophisticated and efficient cochlea implants.
Hearing is made possible by tiny hairs disturbed by liquid in the cochlea of the inner ear.
If the sensitive hairs are destroyed they cannot send out nerve messages in response to sound, and deafness results.
The Daily Mail - Health Section
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/
healthmain.html?in_article_id=353046&in_page_id=1774
Braille, Computers And Paws
Blind Valedictorian Has The World At Her Fingertips
Courtney Tabor has a computer screen glaring from the corner of her bedroom with the instant messenger ready to be signed on. A monotone voice from the speakers tells Tabor when her friends come online.
When she was younger, Tabor could see the screen if she set everything to a black background with 72-point white letters.
Today, Tabor, 18, uses her fingertips as eyes.
The RHAM school district provided her with the $6,000 computer called a Braille Note to type papers, read books and go online, said Interim Superintendent Brian Morin, who is also director of special education.
"We went aggressively because of Courtney's ability," Morin said. "We knew that she would soar."
And soar she did. Tabor is the RHAM High School valedictorian. When she gives her speech at commencement June 22, her graduation gift will be by her side - a Fidelco guide dog named Meeka.
"My goal when I got Meeka was that I wanted to have independence," said Tabor, of Hebron. "I used to need someone to help me up."
Before Meeka, Tabor walked with a white cane or latched on to the elbow of a sighted person to climb stairs.
The German shepherd, which Tabor has trained for graduation since April, will march beside her in a dog-sized cap and gown.
As Tabor enters the collegiate world, devoid of microwaves with Braille on the popcorn button like she has at home, she will have to rely on Meeka to guide her though the independent life she craves.
Tabor has Leber's Congenital Amaurosis, an incurable retinal disease that causes childhood blindness.
With her left eye, Tabor can detect the difference between light and dark. The sight in her right eye disappeared suddenly last summer when the normal pressure in her eye doubled.
Her doctor cut small holes into her iris with a laser to alleviate the searing pain behind her eye, but Tabor said the discomfort returned. Her final option was to have the entire lens removed.
"It was kind of scary because it came with a lot of pain, too," she said as her mother, Marie Tabor, waved a hand in front of her daughter's face to demonstrate that her left eye can sense only shadows. "Now I really can't see because there is no lens to focus the light," Courtney Tabor said.
Tabor knows that one day her eyesight may disappear entirely, but she doesn't worry about that possibility.
"I can't look at it as a big deal or I'd be a depressed person," she said.
For the Tabor family, this outlook is vital.
Tabor's 13-year-old brother Eddie also has Leber's Congenital Amaurosis. Tabor said it is Eddie who brings humor to the family.
"Eddie get that off my face," Marie Tabor said after he enlarged her face on a giant screen with his Clarity Deskmate, a video magnifier that displays images on a 15-inch monitor.
Even though Courtney Tabor could not see the camera moving toward her face next, she knew it was coming.
She expects taunts and tricks from Eddie, such as closing doors in their home so she walks into them. Eddie calls her blindette, puts rubber spiders under her pillow and lives through the voices of characters from "Master of Disguise."
Before Eddie was born, Marie Tabor said she knew there was a one in four chance that her son would have Leber's.
"Oh gosh it was definitely something you think about but I wanted her to have a sibling," Marie Tabor said. "We didn't think the odds were against us."
Eddie is able to faintly see things for Tabor when it is not too dark or bright out.
"I'll tend to describe movies to [Courtney] the best I can so we can both get a little bit out of it," said Eddie, who focuses his Deskmate on the TV or sits right in front of the screen so he can see.
Tabor said that in place of her sight, she has adapted to using her acute sense of touch and hearing, which is "great for eavesdropping."
She pats the partition between the kitchen and living room that she constantly bumps into and jokes about her own clumsiness.
"I knocked over the Christmas tree, too," she said.
Tabor taps on the Braille Note's nine keys, occasionally running her fingertips over the 32-letter Braille display to edit what she has written or reread a sentence in a book.
Homework takes Tabor two to three times longer than a sighted student.
"You can't skim," she said. "There's no highlighting. If you have to go back to the reading you can't automatically find your spot."
Despite the time constraint, Tabor takes a "normal course load" of four honors classes, three of which are advanced placement courses, one after-school honors class and, her favorite subject, choir.
"I cannot pop for the life of me," she said as she and members of Encore, RHAM's female choir, who were popping their lips while rehearsing the song "Lollipop," gathered around the piano.
While most of the other girls held sheet music in their hands, Tabor held onto Meeka's leash.
Occasionally, Tabor stops singing to whisper "lay down" to Meeka, who sniffs the other singers.
Tabor is headed to Middlebury College in Vermont, where she plans to study foreign languages.
"I'm just so done with high school," she said. "I'm ready to have a different kind of lifestyle and be on my own."
But independence can be limiting.
The 50-volume Braille English textbooks and 30-volume psychology books on tape, which clutter the floor by her desk, will be harder to find at the college level, she said.
Instead of working at her own pace and having the freedom to look back in a novel for that perfect quote, Tabor will have some texts recited by a reader.
"It will eliminate your independence to do it when you want to do it," Marie Tabor said to her daughter in her office at RHAM High School, which is lined with volumes of white Braille texts.
As the RHAM Brailleist, Marie Tabor converts her children's tests and worksheets into Braille and orders their Braille books or books on tape. In college, Courtney Tabor will not have a Brailleist, but will have to rely more on a reader.
But Tabor said she is excited to meet her reader, who she hopes will become a close friend.
"People need to realize that every single person you meet has to do with something you are," she said, referring to what may be the theme of her valedictorian speech. "Even a smile when someone passes by."
Her own path to college was influenced by volunteer work with special-needs students and correspondence with English-as-a-second language students from Hartford as part of RHAM's sister school project, she said.
"I love that idea of being able to speak to someone you don't necessarily understand at first," she said. "Just learning English is like being close minded."
If scientists can eventually restore her vision, she isn't sure she would want it.
"I was born with this," she said. "Do I really need anything more than I have now? This is what God gave me."
By Brittany Oat
Courant Staff Writer
page=3&coll=hc-headlines-local
On Autism's Cause, It's Parents vs. Research
Kristen Ehresmann, a Minnesota Department of Health official, had just told a State Senate hearing that vaccines with microscopic amounts of mercury were safe. Libby Rupp, a mother of a 3-year-old girl with autism, was incredulous.
"How did my daughter get so much mercury in her?" Ms. Rupp asked Ms. Ehresmann after her testimony.
"Fish?" Ms. Ehresmann suggested.
"She never eats it," Ms. Rupp answered.
"Do you drink tap water?"
"It's all filtered."
"Well, do you breathe the air?" Ms. Ehresmann asked, with a resigned smile. Several parents looked angrily at Ms. Ehresmann, who left.
Ms. Rupp remained, shaking with anger. That anyone could defend mercury in vaccines, she said, "makes my blood boil."
Public health officials like Ms. Ehresmann, who herself has a son with autism, have been trying for years to convince parents like Ms. Rupp that there is no link between thimerosal - a mercury-containing preservative once used routinely in vaccines - and autism.
They have failed.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the
Yet despite all evidence to the contrary, the number of parents who blame thimerosal for their children's autism has only increased. And in recent months, these parents have used their numbers, their passion and their organizing skills to become a potent national force. The issue has become one of the most fractious and divisive in pediatric medicine.
"This is like nothing I've ever seen before," Dr. Melinda Wharton, deputy director of the National Immunization Program, told a gathering of immunization officials in
Parents have filed more than 4,800 lawsuits - 200 from February to April alone - pushed for state and federal legislation banning thimerosal and taken out full-page advertisements in major newspapers. They have also gained the support of politicians, including Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and Representatives Dan Burton, Republican of Indiana, and Dave Weldon, Republican of Florida. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote an article in the June 16 issue of Rolling Stone magazine arguing that most studies of the issue are flawed and that public health officials are conspiring with drug makers to cover up the damage caused by thimerosal.
"We're not looking like a fringe group anymore," said Becky Lourey, a
But scientists and public health officials say they are alarmed by the surge of attention to an idea without scientific merit. The anti-thimerosal campaign, they say, is causing some parents to stay away from vaccines, placing their children at risk for illnesses like measles and polio.
"It's really terrifying, the scientific illiteracy that supports these suspicions," said Dr. Marie McCormick, chairwoman of an
Experts say they are also concerned about a raft of unproven, costly and potentially harmful treatments - including strict diets, supplements and a detoxifying technique called chelation - that are being sold for tens of thousands of dollars to desperate parents of autistic children as a cure for "mercury poisoning."
In one case, a doctor forced children to sit in a 160-degree sauna, swallow 60 to 70 supplements a day and have so much blood drawn that one child passed out.
Hundreds of doctors list their names on a Web site endorsing chelation to treat autism, even though experts say that no evidence supports its use with that disorder. The treatment carries risks of liver and kidney damage, skin rashes and nutritional deficiencies, they say.
In recent months, the fight over thimerosal has become even more bitter. In response to a barrage of threatening letters and phone calls, the centers for disease control has increased security and instructed employees on safety issues, including how to respond if pies are thrown in their faces. One vaccine expert at the centers wrote in an internal e-mail message that she felt safer working at a malaria field station in
Thimerosal was for decades the favored preservative for use in vaccines. By weight, it is about 50 percent ethyl mercury, a form of mercury most scientists consider to be less toxic than methyl mercury, the type found in fish. The amount of ethyl mercury included in each childhood vaccine was once roughly equal to the amount of methyl mercury found in the average tuna sandwich.
In 1999, a Food and Drug Administration scientist added up all the mercury that American infants got with a full immunization schedule and concluded that the amount exceeded a government guideline. Some health authorities counseled no action, because there was no evidence that thimerosal at the doses given was harmful and removing it might cause alarm. Others were not so certain that thimerosal was harmless.
In July 1999, the
Despite the change, government agencies say that vaccines with thimerosal are just as safe as those without, and adult flu vaccines still contain the preservative.
But the 1999 advisory alarmed many parents whose children suffered from autism, a lifelong disorder marked by repetitive, sometimes self-destructive behaviors and an inability to form social relationships. In 10 to 25 percent of cases, autism seems to descend on young children seemingly overnight, sometime between their first and second birthdays.
Diagnoses of autism have risen sharply in recent years, from roughly 1 case for every 10,000 births in the 1980's to 1 in 166 births in 2003.
Most scientists believe that the illness is influenced strongly by genetics but that some unknown environmental factor may also play a role.
Dr. Tom Insel, director of the National Institute for Mental Health, said: "Is it cellphones? Ultrasound? Diet sodas? Every parent has a theory. At this point, we just don't know."
In 2000, a group of parents joined together to found SafeMinds, one of several organizations that argue that thimerosal is that environmental culprit. Their cause has been championed by politicians like Mr. Burton.
"My grandson received nine shots in one day, seven of which contained thimerosal, which is 50 percent mercury as you know, and he became autistic a short time later," he said in an interview.
In a series of House hearings held from 2000 through 2004, Mr. Burton called the leading experts who assert that vaccines cause autism to testify. They included a chemistry professor at the
Also testifying were Dr. Mark Geier and his son, David Geier, the experts whose work is most frequently cited by parents.
Dr. Geier has called the use of thimerosal in vaccines the world's "greatest catastrophe that's ever happened, regardless of cause."
He and his son live and work in a two-story house in suburban
Dr. Geier has been examining issues of vaccine safety since at least 1971, when he was a lab assistant at the National Institutes of Health, or N.I.H. His résumé lists scores of publications, many of which suggest that vaccines cause injury or disease.
He has also testified in more than 90 vaccine cases, he said, although a judge in a vaccine case in 2003 ruled that Dr. Geier was "a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise and experience."
In other cases, judges have called Dr. Geier's testimony "intellectually dishonest," "not reliable" and "wholly unqualified."
The six published studies by Dr. Geier and David Geier on the relationship between autism and thimerosal are largely based on complaints sent to the disease control centers by people who suspect that their children were harmed by vaccines.
In the first study, the Geiers compared the number of complaints associated with a thimerosal-containing vaccine, given from 1992 to 2000, with the complaints that resulted from a thimerosal-free version given from 1997 to 2000. The more thimerosal a child received, they concluded, the more likely an autism complaint was filed. Four other studies used similar methods and came to similar conclusions.
Dr. Geier said in an interview that the link between thimerosal and autism was clear.
Public health officials, he said, are " just trying to cover it up."
Scientists say that the Geiers' studies are tainted by faulty methodology.
"The problem with the Geiers' research is that they start with the answers and work backwards," said Dr. Steven Black, director of the
Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, the director of the disease control centers, said the agency was not withholding information about any potentially damaging effects of thimerosal.
"There's certainly not a conspiracy here," she said. "And we would never consider not acknowledging information or evidence that would have a bearing on children's health."
In 2003, spurred by parents' demands, the C.D.C. asked the
In a report last year, a panel convened by the institute dismissed the Geiers' work as having such serious flaws that their studies were "uninterpretable." Some of the Geiers' mathematical formulas, the committee found, "provided no information," and the Geiers used basic scientific terms like "attributable risk" incorrectly.
In contrast, the committee found five studies that examined hundreds of thousands of health records of children in the
A study by the World Health Organization, for example, examined the health records of 109,863 children born in
Another study examined the records of 467,450 Danish children born from 1990 to 1996. It found that after 1992, when the country's only thimerosal-containing vaccine was replaced by one free of the preservative, autism rates rose rather than fell.
In one of the most comprehensive studies, a 2003 report by C.D.C. scientists examined the medical records of more than 125,000 children born in the
Parent groups, led by SafeMinds, replied that documents obtained from the disease control centers showed that early versions of the study had found a link between thimerosal and autism.
But C.D.C. researchers said that it was not unusual for studies to evolve as more data and controls were added. The early versions of the study, they said, failed to control for factors like low birth weight, which increases the risk of developmental delays.
The
Since the report's release, scientists and health officials have been bombarded with hostile e-mail messages and phone calls. Dr. McCormick, the chairwoman of the institute's panel, said she had received threatening mail claiming that she was part of a conspiracy.
An e-mail message to the C.D.C. on Nov. 28 stated, "Forgiveness is between them and God. It is my job to arrange a meeting," according to records obtained by The New York Times after the filing of an open records request.
Another e-mail message, sent to the C.D.C. on Aug. 20, said, "I'd like to know how you people sleep straight in bed at night knowing all the lies you tell & the lives you know full well you destroy with the poisons you push & protect with your lies." Lynn Redwood of SafeMinds said that such e-mail messages did not represent her organization or other advocacy groups.
In response to the threats, C.D.C. officials have contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and heightened security at the disease control centers. Some officials said that the threats had led them to look for other jobs.
In "Evidence of Harm," a book published earlier this year that is sympathetic to the notion that thimerosal causes autism, the author, David Kirby, wrote that the thimerosal theory would stand or fall within the next year or two.
Because autism is usually diagnosed sometime between a child's third and fourth birthdays and thimerosal was largely removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, the incidence of autism should fall this year, he said.
No such decline followed thimerosal's removal from vaccines during the 1990's in
But the debate over autism and vaccines is not likely to end soon.
"It doesn't seem to matter what the studies and the data show," said Ms. Ehresmann, the
Gardiner Harris and Anahad O'Connor
The
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/science/25autism.html?pagewanted=1
To Vaccinate or Not? Sorting Out the Confusion Over Meningitis Shots
With summer closing in fast, Julie Kern was eager to squeeze in a routine medical checkup for her 12-year-old daughter before she headed off to camp in
But then the pediatrician surprised Ms. Kern. "The doctor said that if my daughter was planning to attend sleep-away camp, it was 'mandated by law' - those were the words she used - that she receive a meningitis vaccine," said Ms. Kern, who lives in
The doctor was wrong. There are no regulations - local, state or federal - that require campers to be vaccinated against meningococcal bacteria, a source of rare but fierce blood and spinal infections that can maim or kill previously healthy people within hours.
Nevertheless, the
In late May, the health authorities urged doctors to start giving a newly available, longer-lasting meningococcal vaccine to children at age 11 or 12. The policy shift was intended to have young adolescents immunized just before their risk of catching a deadly form of meningitis begins to climb.
The new vaccine, from Sanofi Pasteur, is called Menactra and was approved in January by the Food and Drug Administration for use in people from ages 11 to 55.
One shot of Menactra is expected to increase immunity against four of the five deadliest strains of meningococcal bacteria for at least 8 to 10 years. That's twice as long as the protection provided by an earlier vaccine, Menomune, made by the same company.
Unlike the older vaccine, Menactra also quells silent meningococcal infections among asymptomatic carriers, who manage to escape the microbe's treachery, only to pass the infection along to someone more susceptible through a kiss, a wayward cough or a shared glass or fork.
Nancy Ford Springer's son contracted invasive meningococcal disease six years ago, when he was 14.
"My son, Nick, was a healthy, handsome boy, and thank goodness he is once again healthy and handsome, but he lost both his hands and both his legs to this disease," said Ms. Ford Springer, who lives in
"We were the lucky ones," she said. "Nick's still alive."
Meningitis, an inflammation of the membranes encasing the brain and spinal cord, is just one manifestation of meningococcal disease, which afflicts as many as 2,800 people in the
The disease can strike at any age, but in the
The Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved a vaccine against serogroup B meningococcal, the strain that most frequently afflicts babies. But Menactra, like Menomune, does work against A, C, Y and W-135, the strains that account for 75 percent of serious infections in teenagers.
"When you start reading about these cases, our stories are all the same: rapid, tragic and deadly, with children who are healthy one day and on death's door the next," Ms. Ford Springer said.
Three epidemiological studies show that among teenagers, the highest incidence of the invasive form of the disease occurs among college freshmen living in dorms.
The finding suggests an emerging, if still murky, risk profile: young people who are suddenly living in close quarters, perhaps with the added stress of little sleep, frequent colds and exposure to cigarette smoke.
"We would love nothing more than to give this vaccine to everyone between the ages of 11 and 23, or even beyond that," said Sarah Long, chief of infectious diseases at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in
But a limited supply of Menactra, and its relatively high price - $80 to $100 or more per shot - have prompted a more patchwork approach.
The pediatrics academy and the C.D.C. hope that within three years the vaccine's maker, state health departments and private insurers will be able to ensure that every 11-year-old can get the vaccine at a checkup that will likely include other immunizations and health advice.
In the meantime, to catch those teenagers most at risk now, the health officials also recommend the vaccine for 15-year-olds entering high school, military recruits and college freshmen living in dormitories. Rounding out the list are people in countries like those of sub-Saharan
Legislatures in
These laws may be what confused Ms. Kern and her doctor.
But Ms. Ford Springer thinks that at least in principle such letters are needed. "I definitely wish we'd known more about this disease," she said. "We would have vaccinated Nick."
By DEBORAH FRANKLIN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/health/policy/28cons.html
Special education helps all students
The
That's a cost savings and employment enhancement for teachers, but the real winners in this package are students - and that's not just children with special needs but regular education students as well.
The newly recertified teachers will serve as intervention specialists, which means they'll work in regular classrooms that have some students with special needs.
Working in conjunction with the regular classroom teacher, these specialists can make an amazing difference for kids. Their presence means individualized support for special-needs students, thereby allowing the teacher to better concentrate on the overall needs of the group.
But the specialist's efforts quickly spread to the entire classroom. As they work to help disabled students work collaboratively with other students, they often offer the kind of support and instruction that benefits typical students as well. The extra attention is powerful, and their instructional skills - reframing the lesson, for example, or suggesting other approaches to solving a problem - are helpful to all students.
Their greatest contribution, however, may be removing the stigma from getting extra help when you need it. Often, students never realize exactly why an intervention specialist is in their classroom, or which students he or she is there to help.
As opposed to past days, where special education students were educated in separate classrooms or pulled out of their regular classrooms for help, the entry of an intervention specialist into the classroom supports a climate of inclusion.
The UC plan will pay full tuition costs for 25 teachers to be recertified in special education; it will provide lower tuition rates for an additional 35.
UC won a $200,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Education to fund the one-year program, which will recruit candidates throughout
The grant is an attempt to increase the number of certified teachers in an area with chronic shortages.
For more information on the UC tuition program, check the Web site of the
The Enquirer - Editorial
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050627/EDIT01/506270301/1020/EDIT
New computer software for people with learning disabilities to be unveiled at open morning
New computer software to teach people with learning disabilities the basic skills needed for everyday activities like shopping and crossing roads has been developed by researchers at The University of Nottingham.
Using a specially adapted joystick and the click of a mouse, people with learning disabilities can put money into a trolley, navigate themselves around a three-dimensional computer-generated supermarket and find items they need on their shopping list.
In another 3-D street scene program they can practise crossing the road in a number of different scenarios, including using a zebra crossing, a pelican crossing and safely crossing without help near a crossroads.
A computer game dubbed ’Running Man’ has been written, in which users need to move a character across a two-dimensional screen, using a switch to make the character jump obstacles.
The software, which will be on display at an open morning being held in Bilborough later this week, has been developed by a team led by Professor Penny Standen in the University’s Division of Rehabilitation and Ageing, and computer scientist David Brown at Nottingham Trent University. It aims to make computers easier to use for people with learning disabilities who may also have some physical impairment, teach them new social and health and safety skills and develop cognitive abilities such as reaction time and attention span.
The research has been funded by grants from organisations including the Economics and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the European Social Fund and the Learning Skills Council.
Professor Standen said: “For many of us activities like going to the shops or crossing the road are very simple tasks that we wouldn’t think twice about. However, for someone who has severe learning disabilities, which may include a limited use of language, and, in some cases, some form of physical impairment, it can be quite a daunting experience.
“Our studies have shown that through the use of this new software, the skills and abilities of the people with learning disabilities who worked with us on this research did improve. The software provides activities that are educational but also fun, therapeutic and stimulating.”
Innovation Report
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/information_technology/report-45629.html
Taught at Home, but Seeking to Join Activities
at Public Schools
STRASBURG, Pa., June 16 - Mary Mellinger began home-schooling her eldest sons, Andrew and Abram, on the family's 80-acre dairy farm five years ago, wanting them to spend more time with their father and receive an education infused with Christian principles. Home schooling could not, however, provide one thing the boys desperately wanted - athletic competition.
But the school district here, about 60 miles west of
"We grieved about losing the time we had with the boys," Mrs. Mellinger, 41, said outside the 150-year-old red brick house where Mellingers have lived for seven generations. "It seems so unfair. We're taxpayers, too."
Mrs. Mellinger's plaint has become the rallying cry for an increasing number of parents across the country who are pushing more public schools to open their sports teams, clubs, music groups and other extracurricular organizations to the nation's more than 1 million home-educated students.
This year, bills were introduced in at least 14 state legislatures, including
But many districts strongly resist the idea, citing inadequate resources, liability issues, questions about whether students would be displaced from teams and clubs, and concerns about whether home-schooled children could be held to the same academic and attendance standards. In some states, districts also lose state aid when children leave to be home schooled, although that is not the case in
The push for access is in many ways a new chapter for the home-schooling movement, which for years viewed public education as a hostile, overly regulated system that should be avoided at all costs.
But as the movement has gained more acceptance and grown in size and diversity, more parents want their children to be involved in school activities like chess, basketball or Advanced Placement courses, say home-schooling advocates and educators. Even people who do not want the services argue that other families should not be denied them, seeing access as a civil rights issue for people who pay school taxes.
"We found enough activities within the home-school community to satisfy our needs," said Maryalice Newborn, who runs a support network for home-school families outside
Christopher Klicka, senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association, a nonprofit group based in
"The further we get from those early days, when there was real persecution, the more people will forget," Mr. Klicka said. "And they will want equal access more."
In
But most states do not provide per-pupil aid for extracurricular activities, so there is less incentive to allow home-schooled students to participate, Mr. Griffith said.
In
But nearly half of the state's 501 school districts prohibit such access, including many here in rural
Mrs. Baughman has always home-schooled her four children, calling it a way "to speak into their lives." But two years ago, her eldest child, Derek, wanted to join the high school soccer team. The Lampeter-Strasburg district said no. So she petitioned the school board last year to change its policy, turning the drive into a civics lesson for her children.
The board refused to change its policy. So she sent Derek, 15, to a private Christian academy, where he has played on the varsity soccer and basketball teams. Mrs. Baughman hopes the state legislation requiring access will pass so that her 12-year-old son, Brandon, can join the high school lacrosse team while continuing to be educated at home.
"Some families don't want to mix in," said Mrs. Baughman, who gave up a career as a commercial photographer to teach her children. "We're not like that."
Brian Barnhart, assistant superintendent of the 3,250-student Lampeter-Strasburg School District, said the school board remained unconvinced that home-schooled children could be held to the same standards as public school students.
Mr. Barnhart said many parents also worried that home-schooled students would take coveted positions from public school students. "We see extracurricular activities as a reward for students who are complying and who are working through school," he said.
Tim Allwein, assistant executive director of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, said many boards believed that allowing home-schooled students into sports and clubs would be an administrative nightmare that raised questions about costs, transportation and liability. For that reason, the association opposes the state bill, saying the decision should be left to the individual districts.
"The single main ingredient to making this work is to have a school board that is open to the idea," Mr. Allwein said. "Not all of them have been."
Such arguments infuriate home-schooling advocates, who say hundreds of districts in many states have resolved those issues.
"It's institutional prejudice," said Senator Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican whose wife is home-schooling the couple's four school-age children. "It's offensive."
The Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state teachers' union, has joined the school board association in opposing the legislation, which was sponsored by State Senator Bob Regola, a Republican from near
Nevertheless, the bill was approved by the Senate Education Committee, and opponents and supporters give it a strong chance of clearing both houses of the Republican-controlled legislature this fall. It is not clear, however, whether Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a Democrat, would sign it.
"He will review the bill when it reaches his desk, but he believes that this is a local decision," said Kate Philips, the governor's spokeswoman.
Both Abram and Andrew Mellinger said that if the bill became law, they would probably return home for their education but continue playing sports and music at the high school.
"I'd love to have them back," said Mrs. Mellinger, who is also home-schooling three of her four other children. "But I can't provide all the opportunities they need. We can practice music. But we can't put together an orchestra."
By James Dao
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/education/22home.html
LEARNING BY ACTING
Camp helps kids with disorders add to skills
Eight-year-old Christopher Cobb rolled on the floor in an office of the Learning Disabilities Association of Kentucky a few weeks ago and meowed like a kitten.
Although some people might have thought Christopher, who will be a third-grader at
Christopher is one of about 20 children involved in the association's summer drama camp. The camp, led by Shannon Woolley, is designed to help children with learning differences, such as attention deficit disorder, acquire social skills through drama and role-playing.
But to Christopher, the camp doesn't feel like work. It feels like fun.
"This is so exciting," he said, clasping his hands.
The Learning Disabilities Association of Kentucky is a nonprofit statewide group that helps people with learning differences ranging from dyslexia to dysgraphia. The latter is a condition that makes it difficult to express oneself through writing.
The association also offers support to parents, educators and other service providers. Its offices are on
Campers have been meeting every Thursday and Friday since the beginning of the month. Younger children, ages
The cost of the monthlong program is $50 per child. The association also received $1,500 from Alternative ROOTS, the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Ford Foundation to help pay for the program.
Tim Woods, executive director of the association, said drama can be used to reach children who have learning differences. Woods said there are few camps suited to their needs.
"Usually kids with learning differences excel in something," he said. "It may not be a particular academic process, but they excel in something. Many times it's the arts."
This is the first year for the drama camp. Woolley, who has a master's degree in educational theater from
The children read stories and are asked to act out scenes from them. But the acting isn't meant to be rigid or "by the book," Woolley said.
"It's not a traditional drama class," she said.
The point is to encourage children to recognize the sequence of events, "which can be difficult for dyslexic kids to do," Woolley said.
"With the young ones, I just see them gaining so much self-esteem and learning to support one another's work," she said.
The classes for the older children focus on skills necessary to work in an ensemble. The students learn how to use their voices and bodies to create characters, and they also study characters from literature.
Also, they create and script scenes based on their own lives.
"I think the experience of being able to work in an ensemble gives you skills and tools that you'll be able to use throughout your life, really," Woolley said. "I would really like to see them feel like they have a community at the end of the summer that they want to continue with."
Sarah Kinney, Christopher's 11-year-old sister, is also a camper. Sarah is a sixth-grader at
"I really like it because I get to do a lot of fun stuff," Sarah said. "It's really fun and I like the teacher and I like the other people there."
Campers will share what they've learned at
Leigh Helmick of Prospect said the camp has been a good experience for her 17-year-old daughter, Lauren.
Lauren, who will be a junior at the Academy for Individual Excellence, has trouble processing language.
Helmick said it's good for her daughter to be in an environment where she's not the only one who is different.
"When you're in a group like a school setting or something like that, you may be the only one with a learning disability," she said. "It's hard to grow up. It's good to be around other people who are experiencing the same thing."
In addition to helping the children, the camp also helps parents, said Lynne Cobb, Christopher and Sarah's mother. Cobb said she's been able to use acting as a way to get through to them.
"I've been able to use things like if she's refusing to eat something I say, 'Well, why don't you use your great acting skills and pretend that you like it,' and it works," Cobb said.
But the real payoff is for the children, said Charles Schoene, whose son William is a camper. William, a 9-year-old who will be in the fourth grade at
"Our goal was to increase his socialization skills so he would get along better with his peers and relate better and communicate better," Schoene said. "I just want him to know that he's not alone and that there are other people with similar problems."
By Scheri Smith
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050622/NEWS0102/506220303
Video game helps combat ADHD
Interactive program boosts reading: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder's worst enemy: Dance Dance Revolution
Struggling young readers with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder can improve their reading skills by playing a popular video game that involves dancing, a new study suggests.
The study probed whether the interactive game Dance Dance Revolution could improve reading by matching movements to visual and rhythmic auditory cues and strengthening the neural networks involved in reading and attention.
The game had a positive effect on a key skill used in reading known as receptive coding, the study found. This skill involves the ability of a child to code whole written words into short-term memory.
"You're not talking about medication. You're not taking about individual tutors. That's the promise," said lead researcher Tammy McGraw.
"We are encouraged, and more research needs to be done. Here is a situation where we know that if children do not learn to read, they're going to be struggling throughout their lives. Here's something that children are just naturally inclined to want to do, and with the prevalence of PlayStation, it's something that we can use in the home."
The findings of the study, funded by the U.S. Department of Education and conducted by a team of educational researchers headed by McGraw in
The study is just the latest one to urge educators to include commercial computer games as legitimate tools for academic and social learning at school.
The 62 participants, all Grade 6 students with ADHD who struggled with reading, were split into two groups - those receiving treatment and those in the control group, who did not participate in the intervention activity.
Treatment involved playing Dance Dance Revolution.
The game includes a platform with four arrows, on which the player steps in accordance with matching patterns on the screen in front of them.
The dancing game, which allows players to pick the music to which they'd like to move, was first introduced at arcades in 1998, but the series has since expanded to a home-based PlayStation version.
Participants in the treatment group attended two 25-minute sessions each week for either four, eight or 12 weeks.
All students completed a reading test before and after treatment.
The study found that the intervention helped with receptive coding, one of the subtests of the reading test; participants in the treatment group gained two points from the pretest and post-test, compared with a gain of less than one point in the control group.
For a Grade 6 student, the receptive coding subtest requires looking at a target word for only one second before viewing a page with letters to determine whether they were in the previous word in the correct order. The subtest also asks the student to look at a target word for only one second before viewing a page with a letter to determine if it was in the previous word.
In addition to testing the ability to code written words into short-term memory, attention is also vital because the target word is presented only briefly.
The study also found that the number of treatment sessions had a positive effect on the gains made by treatment group participants in the receptive coding subtest.
"(The apparent correlation) makes me really curious about what's going on with this game in terms of helping the kids become better with their receptive coding skills," said study co-author Kristine Chadwick.
McGraw said the next step is more research with larger sample sizes, other video games, struggling young readers without ADHD, or kids with ADHD but without reading impairment.
By Sarah Schmidt CanWest News Service
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