NOVEMBER 2005

'I love being alone on the water'

Hilary Lister, 33, suffers from a degenerative form of the disorder 'reflex sympathetic dystrophy'. In August 2005 she became the first quadriplegic sailor to cross the English Channel -- the longest solo voyage by a quadriplegic sailor.

I started to lose the use of my legs when I was 11. I was very active as a child, playing hockey and rugby, but when I started getting sore knees I just ignored it, thinking it was growing pains. By the time I was 15 I couldn't even put one leg in front of the other.

It wasn't until about six or seven years ago that I really lost the use of my hands. Having been so active as a paraplegic -- being able to drive, swim and play the clarinet -- it was very hard to deal with.

I couldn't wash or feed myself or do any of the basic things in life. I was in very bad place where I was assessing the quality of my life and wondering whether it was worth continuing.

Then, a couple of years ago a neighbor told me about Westbere in Kent, where they take disabled people sailing. I wanted to do it immediately and the experience really has changed my life.

When I first announced that I was planning to sail across the Channel, I had no idea whether it was manageable or not, but I was frustrated that everyone around me was learning to sail and I was still a passenger.

It wasn't easy to convince people it could be done, but my family and friends were just pleased to see me excited about something again. I'd gone for a long time with nothing to talk about and life was pretty dull.

At the start of the year, I managed to get in touch with some people who could help me make it happen, and was loaned a boat by Pindar, one of my main sponsors. We adapted it to allow me to sail on my own, and I did some training in Cowes.

The sip-puff system, which allows me to control the boat, is actually built using the controls from my old wheelchair. It's basically just two plastic straws that are connected to motors. One moves the tiller, which controls your direction. The other controls the winches that adjust the sail, setting your speed. I sip or puff down each of them to sail the boat.

Matt Debicki, (of the Inventure Trust, who take severely disabled people sailing) adapted the boat for me, and did a great job.

The boat is a 26-foot Olympic Class 'Soling' that is usually sailed by thee big blokes hanging out on the rail. I needed the sails to be cut down, to make the boat manageable by just me.

Matt managed to take a few old wheelchair parts, a few yards of elastic and some pulleys and build them into a working sip-puff boat for me.

Even on the day itself Matt was down on the jetty, tinkering, -- it was that sort of operation.

The whole thing was a blast -- I loved every second, it was so exhilarating. Now I'm hoping to be able to sail round Britain. It's quite scary, but the more I talk about it the more I want to do it.

We'll need a bigger boat than the Soling, one that has somewhere to make a hot drink, and space to sleep. The boat will use sip and puff technology too, but it'll be a bit more high-tech; there will be more electronics and less elastic!

The technology has huge applications, not just for sailing but also for driving cars. I would love to be able to drive again. It makes you so much more independent. I just love being completely alone on the water. The whole point is having that complete freedom to control your own destiny.

Hilary Lister for CNN
For more information about Hilary Lister
and the Channel Challenge visit
http://www.hilarylister.co.uk/da/18355/

Writing helping young Katrina survivors

A high school senior, displaced by Hurricane Katrina, sits down to write about the journey that brought her from the chaotic shelter at the New Orleans Superdome to Tulsa, Okla., where she still feels lost and alone.

A college freshman whose family fled safely from Katrina recounts how she ended up on a New Orleans causeway overpass, helping evacuees with medical problems.

And, watching the disaster and rebuilding efforts from afar, middle schoolers in southern Illinois send handwritten letters to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin in hopes that he will pass them on to others their age.

"I just learned something from this, after seeing all of this," Allie Dean, a sixth-grader in Mount Carmel, Ill., wrote. "I really need to count my blessings and stop asking for stuff. I need to care more about other people and not just myself. Everybody here, including me, cares about you and your families."

In the weeks since hurricanes ravaged the Gulf Coast, sitting down with pen and paper or fingers on keyboard has helped many young people digest what's happened. For some, it's been a way to vent or express sympathy and support for disaster victims.

Those too young to write have been encouraged to draw pictures or take part in "play therapy," allowing them to act out what they're feeling.

"Many of these children have witnessed horrific and almost apocalyptic scenes. I'm seeing a lot of shock -- but I'm also seeing a lot of hope," says Eric Green, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who returned to help young people in Louisiana, where he'd been a school counselor.

In Baton Rouge, faculty and students at Louisiana State University quickly organized the Katrina Writing Project, offering evacuees of all ages a notebook to write down their thoughts or compose poetry -- whatever they wanted. Before long, people were seeking out volunteers to ask for a notebook.

"Often, we would hear people say, 'I needed this,'" says Paulette Guerin, an LSU senior and writing tutor who helped with the effort.

It was much the same for high school and college students from New Orleans who gathered this month at Clemson University to reunite and write.

"They've lost a lot. But one thing they can keep is their minds -- and their writings," says Jim Randels, a teacher who helped found Students at the Center, a literacy and community service program in New Orleans that fosters student writers. Randels has temporarily located to Clemson but has tracked several of his students, now scattered across the country.

One of them, Maria Hernandez, had just started her senior year at Frederick Douglass High School in New Orleans when Katrina hit. After spending six days at the Superdome, she and other families left to try and locate her father, not knowing if he had survived.

"We had to sneak out of the Superdome and swim past corpses and bayou animals to find him. I sliced my leg in the process of avoiding a dead woman floating," she wrote, describing how they later found her father alive.

Eventually, she and her family evacuated to Oklahoma, where she was placed in one high school, only to be moved to another in Tulsa.

"Now after everything is said and done, I miss the high school that was supposed to be my alma mater. I'm afraid to get my class ring, because we might just move back again and I'd be stuck," Hernandez wrote in an essay penned during the weekend at Clemson.

She also had registered to take college entrance exams while in New Orleans but, as of now, isn't sure she'll be able to take them. "It's hard to keep going and pushing when you don't even know if what you're looking for is still there," she said, referring to her home in New Orleans. "I've lost my home, my friends and my school. I'm always on the verge of tears."

At the urging of a professor, Ashley Meyn, an LSU freshman who has some training as an emergency medical technician, also wrote down her experiences. After helping her own family evacuate, she went into New Orleans and spent two days helping the sick and injured from an ambulance parked on the highway.

"Things were moving relatively smoothly until the helicopters started bringing the evacuees from area hospitals," she wrote in her essay. "How do you triage people that have been too sick even to leave the hospital? They ALL needed IMMEDIATE care! ... It was scary at times. The people waiting for buses kept getting anxious, children on respirators were running out of battery, and minor surgical procedures were being done in the middle of the interstate.

"But I knew I was helping people," Meyn concluded. "It is a feeling like none other."

Some also wrote about feelings that they were not doing enough.

In her online journal, Molly Kennedy, a high school junior at University Laboratory School in Baton Rouge, gave details about her time volunteering at a makeshift hospital wing for evacuees.

She included an excerpt from a conversation she had with an 82-year-old patient named Joe -- and how she expressed frustration that she was able to do little more than make coffee and sit with patients to comfort them.

"Best kind of volunteering in the world, listening to people," she recalled Joe telling her. "You're doing more than your part. ... God bless you."

Later that day, Kennedy saw Joe again when her mom came to pick her up, and she ended up thanking him for giving her a sense of that, even amid despair, her fellow Louisianans would prevail.

"We will survive through this. ... And we will do what we can," she wrote. "Because despite all the bad in Louisiana right now, I've seen an amazing amount of good, too. It's hope. And it's a start."

Katrina also gave Keva Carr, a freshman at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, La., a new perspective on New Orleans, where she grew up and wrote with others from Students at the Center while in high school.

"I thought I'd never look back. Well, I didn't want to. I was tired of seeing the same old crooked things on my block ...," Carr wrote in an essay she e-mailed to Randels after Katrina hit. "Why am I looking back now? Well, when a friend is in trouble, you do not turn your back on her. But in my case it's a city. A city that has given me laughter and tears... .

"I treasure it more now than ever. Because desperate times call for desperate measures. Because my city needs me. It needs my prayers, my hope, my words and my strength."

Martha Irvine, AP National Writer
October 20, 2005
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/
2005/10/20/writing_helping_young_katrina_survivors/?page=1

On the Net:
Students at the Center:
http://www.strom.clemson.edu/teams/literacy/sac/

Martha Irvine is a national writer specializing in coverage of people in their 20s and younger.
She can be reached at mirvine(at)ap.org

Storm's Many Lessons Reach the Classroom
Hurricane a Hot Topic in Area Schools

Hurricane Katrina -- the talk of the nation, the talk of the world -- also has become the talk of Room 18 at Redland Middle School in Rockville.

Here, science teacher Abby Hendrix is using Katrina to engage her eighth-graders in discussions about global warming and meteorology. They're learning about the hows and whys of hurricanes and tropical storms -- and now, because of Katrina, what happens in their aftermath when people are displaced and there is no clean water to drink.

Whether it's economics (How much will it cost to rebuild New Orleans?), race and class (Were people not rescued because they were poor or black?) or compassion (How can we help?), the lessons and student curiosity are in abundance at area schools.

"No class has escaped having teachers talk about this and how it affects other children," said Ivy Allen, spokeswoman for Loudoun County public schools. "They are using this tragedy as a way to teach kids the importance of helping people in need."

For students, the television footage and news reports offer all-too-real examples of how what they're learning plays outside the classroom.

"Having Katrina makes it more lifelike," said Redland's Sonia Galiber, 13. "It gives us an idea of what a hurricane can do."

At Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring, Joyce Saadi has led discussions with students in her African American experience class about the federal response to the hurricane. They looked at articles describing the demographics of New Orleans and tried to examine whether the delayed response could be tied to racial bias. At James Hubert Blake High School in Silver Spring, Raquel Marshall's pre-engineering students are examining the impact of the levee design failure that led to the massive post-hurricane flooding. Marshall's goal is to have students come up with possible design solutions.

At Redland, Hendrix opened class last week by asking students to come up with a series of "I wonder . . . ." questions about hurricanes -- queries that she'll incorporate into future lessons.

"I wonder when the first hurricane was and how people reacted?" wrote one student.

"I wonder if you could survive in the eye of a hurricane?" asked another.

The students shared what they'd seen on television the night before. Some wanted to know why there were people in New Orleans who didn't want to be rescued.

Down the hall in her U.S. history class, Samantha Johnson, 12, said she and her classmates also have been talking about Katrina -- but their debates have explored the politics, as in: Could more have been done to get help to people in New Orleans?

Samantha, an eighth-grader who is student government president, said she can't understand why the government could get aid to tsunami victims living halfway round the world but couldn't do the same for people living only a few states away.

"It just doesn't make sense," she said. But she and her classmates are channeling that worry and concern into a fund drive for the American Red Cross.

"They're very concerned about the people,'' Hendrix said. "Everyone has been asking, what we're going to do to help them."

The news about Hurricane Katrina brought back terrifying memories for Silvia Boyd, who was in sixth grade when the remnants of Hurricane Isabel swept through the Washington area, knocking power out in her family's home. But watching Katrina, she realized being without power for a few days was nothing compared with what its victims are going through. That stoked her desire to do more than just watch the events unfold on television. Now, her family is taking in cousins displaced by the storm.

"It was all very scary," she said about Katrina. "New Orleans is devastated, but I'm thankful we're together."

Lori Aratani, Washington Post Staff Writer
September 11, 2005
The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2005/09/10/AR2005091001276.html

New Support For Disabled Research Students

A team from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne has developed the world's first web-based resource aimed at supporting disabled research students through their courses.

The resource was developed after research by the University found that many disabled postgraduate research students faced barriers which hindered progress and dampened confidence.

The research also showed that supervisors and institutional staff could readily help remove or lessen the barriers, by putting more thought into tailoring the research environment and their working practices to meet the requirements of these students.

These findings led to the development of a world-first web-based resource specifically aimed at those who work with disabled postgraduate research students. It will be launched on September 8 at the British Academy in London and has the potential to be used by higher education institutions around the world.

Newcastle University led the study and the creation of the website as part of the three-year Premia project, which received £150,000 in funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England and Wales.

The wide array of materials on the website are aimed at making research education more accessible from the time students apply for a course until they finish their studies and start their careers.

Resources include over 60 themed units including creating accessible information about research study, working with research students with reading difficulties, making adjustments to supervisory practice, to inclusive vivas and making the transition to employment.

The library has self-audit tools to help staff prepare for disabled research students before they start their postgraduate degrees, a plain English glossary of key research terms and testimonies from students to give an insight into the types of issues they face.

About 5 per cent of the postgraduate research population is disabled including students with specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, physical or sensory impairments and mental health difficulties.

The study surveyed 37 disabled postgraduates at a range of UK higher education institutions. The Newcastle University team was told that life as a disabled postgraduate researcher was very different from life as a disabled undergraduate, because the pattern of work and the roles of staff had changed. For example, researchers are expected to spend more long periods working unsupervised, they may have to carry out fieldwork, attend conferences elsewhere in the UK and the world, and they may also have teaching responsibilities.

However, the disabled researchers identified a variety of barriers that they regularly faced, many related to supervision. Many research supervisors had not thought about how to adapt the traditional working environment or did not reshape their working practices to provide the relevant and appropriate support a disabled student may need.

For example, one student with a physical-mobility impairment said six months of PhD time had been lost because the supervisor did not understand the difficulties faced in executing a planned schedule of fieldwork. Another student with chronic fatigue syndrome was expected to attend a lengthy seminar which involved a period of walking around.

Among the many other issues highlighted were inaccessible information about research opportunities; slow processing of funding for learning support; impenetrable research terminology; health and safety considerations and more.

However, many examples of good practice were also found by the Newcastle team and are included on the website. A blind student praised the supervisors who rethought the way they gave feedback on progress, and a wheelchair user was 'very happy' with a department who provided a special desk, designed a mouse pad and ensured access to a special toilet with a wide door.

Val Farrar, Premia project officer, said: "These students' stories show that, however well-prepared, flexible and student-centred an institution sees itself, individuals can experience it as ill-prepared, inflexible and staff-centred.

"It shows that universities have to ask themselves rigorous questions -- for example, do we systematically seek feedback from disabled students? Are we willing to tackle the issues they raise? Are we reactive to crises rather than reflective in our practice?"

"We hope the Premia project will raise awareness of the situations faced by disabled postgraduate research students and will meet staff development needs with its focused training resources."

University of Newcastle upon Tyne
September 11, 2005
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050911105217.htm

Poor scores for urban schools
Jonathan Kozol finds segregation persists, shortchanging kids

Jonathan Kozol knows full well that "apartheid" is a loaded word.

It may literally mean "separateness" in Afrikaans, but it implies much more: a total governmental separation of the races, based on violence or the threat of violence.

Which is why Mr. Kozol's use of the word in the title of his new book, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America , is purposefully provocative. The laws that once sent black kids to one school and white kids to another have been gone for decades. But schools are nearly as segregated today as they were 30 years ago, as white parents have moved to the suburbs and minorities have remained in central cities.

Mr. Kozol argues that separateness is, by itself, a problem. Black and Hispanic kids feel abandoned by society when they're put in schools with only a smattering of white faces, he says. Segregation is a problem whether it's mandated by law or a result of housing patterns.

His case will be unconvincing to many, since the sort of busing programs necessary to realign racial boundaries have proved unpopular among whites and minorities.

But he moves to stronger ground when he points out the yawning gaps between white and minority schools. The biggest is funding. Across America, it's not uncommon for wealthy suburban districts to spend 50 or 100 percent more per pupil than poor urban districts. For minority kids, that often turns into larger classes, less experienced teachers and crumbling facilities.

(Texas is something of an exception here. The Robin Hood wealth-sharing mechanism, mandated by the state Supreme Court, creates one of the nation's more equitable systems. But Robin Hood regularly comes under attack from suburbanites who want a wider funding gap between rich and poor. Mr. Kozol is merciless with wealthy parents who argue that more funding won't help poor schools while sending their children to $20,000-a-year private schools.)

But Mr. Kozol smartly goes beyond the finances to the tonal differences that show up in various schools. Urban schools, worried about discipline and the basic skills that raise test scores, often impose a martial-law atmosphere, enforcing silence all day long and teaching math and vocabulary with drill-sergeant precision. It's a far cry from the holistic approach many suburban schools offer, and Mr. Kozol argues it can drain away kids' interest in learning.

Mr. Kozol's argument is, on the surface, idealistic: That we should all live life together, crossing racial lines. But at its core, it's pure political pragmatism. Unless the kids of the powerful are in the same classrooms as the kids of the poor, it'll be difficult to rally support for the kinds of changes Mr. Kozol wants. As long as suburban schools are fine, abandoning the central city will always be alarmingly easy.

JOSHUA BENTON, The Dallas Morning News
September 16, 2005
E-mail jbenton@dallasnews.com
Online at:
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/fea/entertainment/books/
stories/DN-bk2_shame_0911art.ART.State.Edition1.41dd867.html

Inconsistent Effort May Be Sign of Attention Disorder in Adults and Children

The adult or child who only concentrates when performing an activity in which they have a deep interest, such as playing a sport or drawing, may have "impotence of the mind," according to a new book by Thomas E. Brown, clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine.

"Impotence of the mind is a chronic inability to mobilize focus and effort unless the task is personally interesting," said Brown, who specializes in treating adults and children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). "Such problems may appear to be a lack of sufficient willpower, but often they are manifestations of a complex disorder of the management system of the brain."

His book, "Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults" (Yale University Press), offers practical guidelines for identifying and helping individuals of any age who suffer from the complex impairments of ADD, an often talked about but widely misunderstood disorder. The book offers an explanation for the adult or child who may appear unmotivated and have chronic difficulty in focusing on and completing most work tasks, even when they know the work is important and they actually want to do it.

Contrary to conventional views of ADD/ADHD as a behavior problem of young children, Brown said that this is essentially a syndrome of impairments in neural networks of the brain that involve short-term working memory, activation, regulation of alertness, and other functions related to attention. Research has demonstrated that this syndrome is associated with problems in chemical transmission of messages within the brain; it is highly heritable and affects about five to seven percent of the general population.

Brown said some children with this disorder are diagnosed in early childhood but many are not diagnosed until middle school or high school when they are no longer guided by a single teacher. Others may not show evidence of a problem until college when their parents are no longer there to provide structure and support. In some cases these problems are not recognized until adulthood when the individual discovers chronic problems in work, social relationships or parenting.

September 12, 2005
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/
medicalnews.php?newsid=30496&nfid=rssfeeds

More information about the book is available at
http://www.DrThomasEBrown.com

Yale News Releases are available via the World Wide Web at
http://www.yale.edu/opa

Black-only school proposed
Race-based classes touted for teens
New equity boss says it could work

The new equity boss at Canada's largest school board says he's in favour of creating a black-focused school as a pilot project for black teens on the brink of dropping out.

He "absolutely" favours race-based statistics to track everything from student achievement and suspensions to the number of black teachers on staff.

Lloyd McKell, newly minted "executive officer of student and community equity" for the Toronto District School Board, says city schools don't do enough to make students of all backgrounds feel valued.

"I would like to see principals holding community meetings before there are complaints about suspensions. I'd like to see an adult at every door greeting each student with a handshake and a guarantee that they'll do everything in their power to make the student feel part of the family," said McKell, 60, whose new job is believed to make him the most powerful equity watchdog at an Ontario school board.

"We know there are whole groups of students who are not doing as well as others — and I understand many families' impatience about this. We need a clear, focused plan of action."

McKell says he believes a black-focused pilot school for students who are too alienated to remain in the system would be helpful, offering more black teachers, an Afro-centric curriculum and a more nurturing environment.

But he doesn't support expanding beyond that to a separate system of schools for black students, preferring to keep public schools for students of all backgrounds.

"We have to start creating a positive attitude; a sense of family in our schools," he said. "And family members don't turn their back on each other."

If anyone can help Canada's most racially diverse board as it faces a crisis of confidence from the black community, McKell is seen to have the touch.

For almost 30 years, the Trinidad-born activist has worked the trenches of school-community relations; building bridges with parents who don't speak English, students who don't feel welcome and communities that feel forgotten by public education.

Unable to find a use for his economics degree from the University of Toronto, McKell chose to follow his interest in race relations and landed a job with the school board encouraging immigrant families in the Parkdale area to become involved in their children's schools.

He was one of the first to start finding interpreters to help immigrant parents speak with teachers, and coached principals in how to be sensitive to the myriad of immigrant families in the school.

Today, the board has a pool of 1,100 interpreters who speak more than 60 languages.

McKell became an anti-apartheid activist in the 1980s and years later met his hero Nelson Mandela three times in Toronto — most recently in 2001, when Mandela had a Toronto school renamed in his honour.

Today an autographed portrait of Mandela hangs by McKell's desk.

McKell cites a string of factors that prompted the school board to appoint an equity watchdog:

· Growing fears that Toronto schools are enforcing Ontario's new zero-tolerance policy more harshly with black students through suspensions and expulsions.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission has launched an investigation into the complaints.

· Mounting concerns over the poor performance of black students prompted an emotional public forum last spring on black education where the suggestion of black-focused schools with black-centred curriculum and more black teachers was met with loud applause.

· The board appointed a blue-ribbon task force to examine ways of gathering race-based statistics in a sensitive, appropriate way. The report is due this fall.

· A special Atkinson Foundation report by journalist Andrew Duffy last year cited sweeping concerns about the academic performance of black students and lack of support for immigrant children.

These are all issues McKell will investigate as he develops better equity policies and practices for the board.

He'll also be front and centre in dealing with parent rights as well as developing a curriculum that's more inclusive of black students.

McKell says he is eager to get an early peek at suggestions on race-based statistics from the task force committee, due to report in October.

"Lloyd's the best person for the job if they don't sabotage him," says battle-weary activist Murphy Browne, long a member of Toronto's Association of Parents of Black Children.

But she says the affable outreach worker has his work cut out for him, especially in light of rumours that the board's black heritage programs are at risk.

McKell has heard the same rumours but says education director Gerry Connelly has assured him the long-standing classes offered in several schools at a total cost of $82,500 are at no risk of being shut down.

But it's not the first time he has seen tight budgets threaten a program.

When the new school board was amalgamated in 1998 by former premier Mike Harris, it boasted 44 community outreach workers, but budget cuts soon reduced that to 22, then wiped them out all together.

However, last year, McKell says the McGuinty government provided about $2.2 million to help at-risk students, which the board has used to hire 12 child and youth workers to work with struggling teens and eight more community support workers to help in the city's most high-risk neighbourhoods.

"I'd like to build on this, too, because research shows parental involvement has a positive effect on achievement."

Louise Brown
Education Reporter
September 14, 2005

New tests urged for schoolchildren
Special education students need individual assessment, critics say

Danielle Hall moved to the Red Clay school district so her son could attend Richardson Park Learning Center in Christiana Hundred, a school that provides intensive special education services.

J.P., a fourth-grader with learning disabilities, could get help while in class instead of being pulled out of lessons for one-on-one therapy. And for the first time, he came home from school saying "I have friends."

But state tests, which J.P. has never passed, remain a struggle.

"It doesn't show what progress he made," Hall said. "He wants to succeed. He is up at night upset, knowing that he cannot pass this test.

"I support No Child Left Behind. I embrace accountability. But I don't agree with the way Delaware has chosen to implement it."

Hall was among the parents, educators and lawmakers who attended a news conference Thursday at Richardson Park center. Rep. Wayne A. Smith, R-Clair Manor, proposed major changes to Delaware's standardized testing system.

House Majority Leader Smith wants to see the Delaware Student Testing Program replaced with a nationally recognized test and have special education students take an alter- nate test based on individual education plans.

"Requiring special education kids to take the DSTP is, quite frankly, asinine," he said.

Last month, Red Clay's Warner and Marbrook elementary schools learned they must plan a restructuring. The edict came after they failed to make adequate progress on state tests for the fifth year in a row.

The sanctions were the worst handed to Delaware schools this year under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Although Warner and Marbrook elementaries improved this year, they must form a plan that could include replacing the staff or having the state take over the school. They don't have to implement the plan unless they miss federal targets again this school year.

Warner Elementary, which missed its reading target among special education students, would have passed if not for the scores of those students attending Richardson Park center; they were counted with Warner Elementary because they live within its limits.

Smith and Red Clay Superintendent Robert Andrzejewski said that's unfair to Warner Elementary and Richardson Park center students, who they say must take a test far above their skill level. Many students at the center cry, act out or fill in random answers out of frustration, school counselor Michael Bank said.

Until now, all but the most severely disabled have been bound by federal law to take the test that corresponds to their grades. The federal government agreed this spring to let more special education students -- about 30 percent -- take an alternate test. But the state Department of Education, which supports an alternate test, said it won't be ready until 2007.

Smith wants to go further. His bill would ask for federal waivers so all special education students, about 13 percent of Delaware's students, can take a different test.

Senate Education Committee chair David Sokola, D-Newark, agrees. "Every student who's legitimately special education should have an assessment that's appropriate for that student," he said.

But some advocates for people with disabilities feel differently. More than half of special education students have learning disabilities, not mental retardation or another severe disability, said Paul Marchand, staff director of the national Disability Policy Collaboration. About 20 percent have speech impairments.

"That's 75 percent who, generally speaking, if they're getting a good education, should be able to deal with the regular test," Marchand said. "It makes no educational sense to give all students with disabilities an alternate test. To exempt all kids, regardless of their type of disability, undercuts all we've been trying to accomplish for the last 30 to 40 years, which is to have people realize kids with disabilities count."

Delaware's tests, given to students with or without disabilities, are fraught with problems, Smith said. He said the tests take too long to score, give teachers little feedback on how to educate and haven't been around long enough to be proven valid. To continue to use the program, he said, would be "throwing good money after bad."

"There's no Delaware way to do addition," he said. "There's no Delaware way to do the English language. The laws of physics are not different on the Long Island Sound than the Delaware River."

Others statewide are reconsidering Delaware's approach. In the upcoming months, a group formed by Secretary of Education Valerie Woodruff will look at whether the testing system should change.

Smith suggested replacing the program with a nationally recognized test like the Northwest Evaluation Association's Measures of Academic Progress. Several state districts and charter schools are piloting that test this year, in part with funds from the Education Department. The computer-based test adapts the questions to match students' skill levels, measures progress over time and gives teachers instant, detailed feedback. Educators running the pilot say it's helped them improve.

Cecilia Le
The News Journal
September 16, 2005
Contact Cecilia Le at 324-2794 or
cle@delawareonline.com
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20050916/NEWS01/509160326/1006

New policy on autistic kids criticized

Some families with children with autism fear that changes proposed by the Department of Education will reduce services to their children and will put youngsters through unnecessary and difficult transitions.

"Any kind of change or disruption in the program is a setback for your child and they will regress," said parent Kalma Wong, whose two youngest children are autistic.

In a bid to update services and increase the skills of trainers, as parents and the federal government expect, the DOE will be replacing some private trainers who teach children social and other skills with DOE employees. Far from reducing costs, the DOE says the changes will cost more — although final tallies are not available yet. Administrators say service will remain the same or could improve because of higher training requirements for some of the professionals that will serve the children.

Parents remain concerned.

Michael Moriyama, whose 9-year-old son has been diagnosed with both autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder, said changing the two-person team overseeing his son's education for the past three years could be a serious setback.

"What the DOE is not considering is that if they stick two new people on the team, it takes months to get everybody up to speed," Moriyama said. "It takes months of adjustment."

Estimates are that autism affects one in 500 children and encompasses a range of brain disorders that impair three main areas of development: speech, communication and social interaction. The condition can range from mild to severe. While no one is sure what causes Autism Spectrum Disorders, as this group of disorders is called, and there is no known cure, behaviors can be improved with intensive individualized education.

The DOE says the changes are part of an overall goal to build department expertise in providing for the needs of autistic children. That has meant a contracting change, with three agencies losing contracts and one company picking up a contract. DOE said the contracts' costs were not immediately available last week.

DOE administrators said that while the providers will change for 307 of the 1,165 children with autism served by the DOE, services will remain the same.

"Services will not be changed or diminished," said Debra Farmer, administrator of the DOE's special-education section. "The provider will be different, the agency will be different but our schools are working very hard to make sure this transfer is as painless as possible."

The service changes are targeted for Oct. 1.

But in one case, concerns expressed at a recent Board of Education meeting have caused superintendent Pat Hamamoto and board chairman Breene Harimoto to ask that the contract with a rural agency, North Shore Mental Health, be extended to enable a smooth transition for the 135 children it serves.

"I've been told by the Board of Education chairman and Pat Hamamoto they both want to look into this and make it better," said Dan Kehoe, who heads that agency and appealed for an extension. Kehoe told the board his concern is the number of transitions the children are facing.

Parent Jana Hanawahine, whose 8-year-old son, Jayce, is in second grade at Koko Head Elementary, said her child is no longer being trained in necessary skills to succeed in school and life, but is simply being baby-sat.

"His bad habits are coming back," said Hanawahine. "They're not correcting the social things that need to be corrected."

In comparison to the private "skills trainer" who has a bachelor's degree in psychology and has been with her son for the past two years, she said the boy now has a revolving series of three educational assistants who have lesser qualifications and were hired by the school.

"With autism, continuity is key," said Wong, who has seen her own 5-year-old son progress "by leaps and bounds" in the past year because of a California program they've imported. But now, because the new contract requires five years experience for supervisors, she will lose the woman who has been working with her son. That person has 4 1/2 years of experience.

"You can't just throw someone else in her place," said Wong. "That's the scary part. You don't know who they'll put in. It takes a long time to build a good program and a good team. When you throw new people in, you're starting from square one again."

While DOE administrators are concerned about the changes families will face, they say change is inevitable, and the children must learn to handle it.

"A letter was given to every parent," said Farmer. "Each school team will meet with the parent to talk about transfer in services."

Naomi Grossman, president of the advocacy group Autism Society of Hawai'i, sees the new proposals as part of a gradual erosion of services guaranteed to families under the Felix consent decree. In a recent letter to the Board of Education, Grossman said "parents are experiencing unilateral decisions by DOE staff to remove services without parental input or agreement."

"Ever since 2002 it's been one dismantling after another," said Grossman. "And parents don't know how to fight it. We're getting calls right and left from parents crying, saying 'What should I do?' "

Parent Clarrie Selbe agrees with that assessment.

"Autism is the most challenging of all disabilities," said Selbe, "and they are trying to replace skilled professionals with people who do not have a bachelor of education degree, who are less trained with children with autism.

"It's becoming an adversarial situation for parents with special-needs children and it should be just the opposite," said Selbe. "It gives us so much anxiety. No parent should have to go through the frustration we are going through."

Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
September 19, 2005
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article?AID=/20050919/NEWS07/509190319/1001/NEWS

Miami-Dade schools may split genders
County may follow Central Florida school's single-gender class experiment

DELAND - Kendall Couture came home one day and said she never wanted to return to school. Her boyfriend, Liam, had told her his true love was a classmate named Abby, and she could not stand the thought of sharing a classroom with them.

She was 4 years old.

'My husband said, `I thought I'd have to deal with that in junior high at the least, not preschool,' '' recalled Kendall's mother, Kathy Piechura-Couture.

The next year, she enrolled Kendall in an all-girls kindergarten at Woodward Avenue Elementary near their home in DeLand, the only public elementary in Florida to offer single-gender classes. Something similar could be in the works in Miami-Dade County, where superintendent Rudy Crew wants to bring the concept to grades 7 through 12.

''There is a need for some protection,'' said the school's principal, Jo Anne Rodkey. ``These kids grow up so fast.''

SOARING SUCCESS

When the single-gender classes began last year -- voluntary for both students and teachers -- the results were jarring. In co-ed fourth-grade classes, 33 percent of boys and 59 percent of girls passed the state's standardized writing test. In the single-gender classes, those figures jumped to 86 percent for boys and 75 percent for girls.

Likewise, in kindergarten and second grade -- not enough teachers volunteered to staff single-gender classes for other grades -- boys and girls both did better on standardized tests than their peers in co-ed groups.

''I knew there would be some differences, but it was just dramatic,'' said Karen Medlin, an 18-year veteran of Volusia County schools, who teaches all-girls kindergarten.

Still, even the educators who created the Woodward program warn against overreacting to the results. There were far too few children to constitute a reliable study, and Woodward uses other unconventional programs that might explain the scores.

Nonetheless, results like those in DeLand are driving more public schools to embrace the model, which has long been accepted in private and parochial schools.

Just eight years ago, only four public schools across the country had any singlegender classes, according to the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, a Maryland-based group.

The group now lists nearly 200 public schools in the country, most of which are co-ed schools with some single-gender classes. Part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act encourages further experiments by allowing districts to fund them with federal dollars.

IN FLORIDA

A few public secondary schools in Florida, including two middle schools in Palm Beach County and South Plantation High in Broward, offer some single-gender classes.

Now Crew wants to create the first completely single-sex public schools in Florida, magnet schools that would house grades 7 through 12 and could open as soon as 2007.

''You will be able to see young people focused on their day-to-day work and the concept of where they're going with their life,'' Crew said. ``We might be able to maximize their human potential if we begin to eliminate these distractions.''

The words ''might,'' ''could'' and ''maybe'' are the basic vocabulary of single-gender education: studies are rare, unreliable and often based on overseas or private schools that form poor models for urban education in the U.S.

The school in Volusia County is a perfect example of imperfect data.

All the teachers and students -- or at least their parents -- volunteered for the program. Education experts widely agree that people who seek out alternative programs are inherently more interested in schooling and therefore more likely to succeed, even in a regular program. The same problem makes magnet programs and charter schools hard to reliably examine.

The data were even muddier because some single-gender classes and some co-ed classes were part of another experiment by Rodkey, the principal, in which the school day was extended by an hour.

''In education, there are so many variables,'' said Doug MacIsaac, one of the Stetson professors who works with Woodward Avenue. ``You can't say one is the be-all and end-all.''

SEGREGATION?

In the absence of compelling data, opponents of single-gender schools said both law and morality require public schools to remain co-ed. Many compare the programs to racial segregation, arguing they should be struck down for the same reasons.

''Segregation is inherently damaging,'' said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, which has written extensively against single-gender public schools. ``[Former U.S. Supreme Court] Chief Justice [Earl] Warren said, `We conclude that in the field of public education, the doctrine of separate-but-equal has no place.''

Ultimately, she said, girls' schools end up with fewer resources, especially in math and science. She also worried about the broader message of single-gender schools.

''It sends a signal that whoever's being removed is the problem,'' Gandy said. ``Boys get the idea girls are the problem. Girls are getting the idea boys are the problem.''

When they reach college or the workforce, men and women are required to work together. School, Gandy said, is where those relationships should be learned.

Both Crew and Rodkey said children have ample exposure to the other gender outside of school. They said learning is harder when boys worry about winning girls' attention and girls fret about looking ``too smart.''

Almost without exception, kids in single-gender classes at Woodward said they were much happier.

''Boys always throw stuff at girls,'' said 8-year-old Rachel Russell.

Her all-girls second-grade class buzzes with the quiet conversation of a cocktail party, while the boys' class across the hall explodes with energy.

Brain studies have found profound differences in the way typical boys and girls learn, especially in elementary school. Boys are more likely to learn with hands-on lessons, and they need simpler directions and more physical activity. Girls are more willing to absorb longer lessons and are more eager to read and write short stories at young ages.

Those differences can impede learning when boys are girls are together -- the boys get restless during long lessons, the girls get frustrated with shorter, quick-hit lessons.

''With the boys, every single thing was a competition: who could say the pledge fastest, who could sit down first, whose pencil is longest,'' said Medlin, the kindergarten teacher, whose first all-girls class was reading well into first-grade level by the end of last school year.

INCONCLUSIVE DATA

The model, though, is imperfect. The Stetson professors, who compiled all the research they could find on brain development and single-gender education, estimated that only about 75 percent of children learn most effectively like their same-gender peers.

''It's not really for every kid,'' said Piechura-Couture, Kendall's mother, who is also a Stetson education professor.

Crew also believes single-gender schools help quiet the incessant noise that shapes the way children see themselves, physically and emotionally. At a single-gender school, he said, teens would be less worried about their image and appearance and less vulnerable to media signals that reinforce gender stereotypes.

''`Girls are not good at in math; girls are not good in science,''' Crew said. ``Everything from Barbie dolls to TV commercials send those messages.''

With her own daughters, however, Gandy said the most powerful messages come not from boys, but from other girls.

''I am sometimes horrified with what they come home with, but they get it as much from television and the neighbor kids as from school,'' she said.

Indeed, many of the Woodward Avenue teachers said the boys have no idea how often they are claimed as boyfriends by the girls across the hall. They all play together at recess, eat lunch together and share classes like art and music.

Second-grader Emily Delk said that gives them more than enough time together. The 8-year-old said she has a ''boy toy,'' but is happy not to have him in her class.

Matthew I. Pinzur
mpinzur@herald.com
September 15, 2005
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/12648423.htm

Opposition grows to mental-health screening by schools

WASHINGTON - Two years ago, a federal commission created by President George W. Bush recommended that U.S. officials "improve and expand'' mental health programs in schools to help promote the emotional well-being of the nation's children.

With 52 million students, the nation's schools are in a "key position to identify mental health problems early and to provide a link to appropriate services,'' which, in turn, can help improve students' academic achievement, the commission said in its report.

The commission also highlighted one possible means of early diagnosis, the Columbia University "TeenScreen'' program. With that program, all students in a school - with parental permission - are given a mental health "checkup'' via a computer-based questionnaire before graduating from high school.

Those suggestions and more than a dozen others on improving all aspects of the U.S. mental health system for children and adults were included in the commission's 86-page report, which generated little attention in Washington when it was released.

But the commission's recommendation to expand school mental health programs has sparked outrage among some parents and become a popular rallying cry for conservatives pushing parental rights against what they see as unwarranted government intervention.

Opponents of school-based mental health programs point to parents who say their children have been misdiagnosed with mental health problems, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and forced to take medication to attend classes after school officials pressured them to get psychological care.

To these parents, the commission's suggestion to "improve and expand'' school mental health programs is the first, inexorable step towards mandatory school mental health screening of all students, despite repeated assurances by commission members and congressional experts that that isn't the case.

Led by groups like Ablechild.org and EdAction, these opponents want to prohibit schools from having anything to do with students' mental health, saying it is the job of parents to ensure their children's well-being.

As a first step, the groups are pushing Congress to pass legislation, sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Tex., to formally prohibit any federal funding for mental health screening of students without the written consent of their parents.

"If (this legislation) is passed, it will prevent wasteful and potentially devastating federal funding while safeguarding the informed consent rights of all parents in what is a most serious matter - their children's health and safety,'' said Patricia Weathers, president and co-founder of Ablechild.org.

The educators and medical professionals on the other side of the debate readily agree that parental consent should be required for any school mental health screenings. But they also believe that it's worth studying the idea of voluntary mental health screenings in schools - with parental consent - as a way of trying to help children as early as possible.

"There is this curious coalition of people who are concerned about stuff that we didn't recommend, and are making a big noise about it,'' said Michael Hogan, who served as the chairman of the now-disbanded New Freedom Commission, and now is director of the Ohio Department of Mental Health.

"The core thing that the commission was concerned about is the fact that a lot of these mental health problems are pretty clearly problems of childhood and adolescent onset. … Added to this is the fact that most children never get to see a mental health specialist.

"The fundamental logic of what the commission said is that we should take steps to facilitate access to care where children are.''

Mr. Hogan also stressed that the commission formally recommended mental health screenings "only in settings where there is known to be a very high prevalence of children with serious mental health conditions,'' such as those in foster care or the juvenile justice system.

"Beyond that, we sort of encouraged people to look at screening in schools as one alternative, although we recognized that we might not be ready yet for it,'' Mr. Hogan added.

The debate over school screenings is just part of a larger discussion over the role schools should play in ensuring children's mental heath. Many educators point to a clear connection to good mental health and academic achievement.

"There are a whole slew of intra-personal variables that contribute to a kid's ability to learn and are heavily related to their academic success,'' said Stacy Skalski, public policy director for the National Association of School Psychologists.

"There are also inter-personal variables. Kids don't come into the world knowing how to relate to others. They need to learn that.''

Bruce Hunter, a veteran policy official with the American Association of School Administrators, said it's clear "the education business is tough enough without getting into the mental health business.

"But if a kid is going to beat the hell out of other kids regularly, and is disrupting the classroom, that's a child that needs some mental health assistance. One of the things that our members have expressed is a rising concern about students' mental health, and the ability to get them help when they have a problem,'' Mr. Hunter said.

A complicating factor in the debate over school mental health problems is that it has become enmeshed in the vehement opposition of some people to medicating children for depression, hyperactivity and other problems.

These opponents point to problematic side effects of some of the commonly-prescribed drugs, including suicide, and argue they aren't safe for children.

Mr. Hogan and others who support school mental health programs agree that more long-term testing should be done on anti-depressants and other emotion-altering drugs prescribed for children and teens.

"We (commission members) recommended that the scientists and regulatory officials get on top of the safety issue,'' Mr. Hogan said, stressing that the commission's recommendation was made even before recent studies showed a possible connection between teen suicides and certain anti-depressants.

Ms. Weathers is among those who believe that more attention should be given to children's nutrition and behavior management, instead of "being so quick to prescribe a drug.'' Her group supports legislation, sponsored by Rep. John Kline, which would prohibit schools from requiring parents to have their children medicated to attend school.

Mr. Kline's bill would expand protections in the Individuals with Disabilities Act, which prohibited schools from requiring special education students to take certain medications, to all students. The bill also would cover more types of medication than in the disability law.

Ms. Weathers said she was pressured into medicating her then first-grade son after a school psychologist diagnosed him with attention deficit disorder.

But Ms. Weathers' son became psychotic on the medications. When Ms. Weathers stopped giving him the medications, however, she said that the school reported her to state children protective officials for child abuse. A lawsuit brought by Ms. Weathers against school officials is pending; her son, meanwhile, is now 15 and "doing fine.''

"We have 1,000 stories like this,'' Ms. Weathers added. "Our group is not saying that children don't have attention or behavior problems. Some kids do,'' Weathers added. "But why should we force parents to drug their children so they can attend school?''

Ms. Skalsi, however, said "it is a myth'' that teachers will refuse to have a student in their classroom because they aren't taking medication for behavior problems.

"But teachers will say (to a school psychologist or counselor): 'I have a kid with behavior issues. I need help,''' Ms. Skalski said. In those cases, school psychologists or counselors will work with the teacher and with the family to develop strategies to help curb the behavior problem and allow the student to get back on his or her academic track.

Ms. Skalski also notes that many parents initiate contact with a school psychologist about such issues as helping their children deal with divorce. These parents see the school psychologist as a resource for their children's emotional health, just as the school nurse is a resource for their children's physical health, she added.

In most school systems, school psychologists and counselors don't have the time to see most students one-on-one, Ms. Skalski noted. While her group recommends that there be one psychologist for every 1,000 students, most school psychologists are responsible for many more children than that, she said.

Karen MacPherson
Blade Washington Bureau
September 18, 2005

Contact Karen MacPherson at:
kmacpherson@nationalpress.com or
202-662-7075
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050918/NEWS04/509180352/-1/NEWS

Boy Brains, Girl Brains
Are separate classrooms the best way to teach kids?

Three years ago, Jeff Gray, the principal at Foust Elementary School in Owensboro, Ky., realized that his school needed help—and fast. Test scores at Foust were the worst in the county and the students, particularly the boys, were falling far behind. So Gray took a controversial course for educators on brain development, then revamped the first- and second-grade curriculum. The biggest change: he divided the classes by gender. Because males have less serotonin in their brains, which Gray was taught may cause them to fidget more, desks were removed from the boys' classrooms and they got short exercise periods throughout the day. Because females have more oxytocin, a hormone linked to bonding, girls were given a carpeted area where they sit and discuss their feelings. Because boys have higher levels of testosterone and are theoretically more competitive, they were given timed, multiple-choice tests. The girls were given multiple-choice tests, too, but got more time to complete them. Gray says the gender-based curriculum gave the school "the edge we needed." Tests scores are up. Discipline problems are down. This year the fifth and sixth grades at Foust are adopting the new curriculum, too.

Do Mars and Venus ride the school bus? Gray is part of a new crop of educators with a radical idea—that boys and girls are so biologically different they need to be separated into single-sex classes and taught in different ways. In the last five years, brain researchers using sophisticated MRI and PET technology have gathered new information about the ways male and female brains develop and process information. Studies show that girls, for instance, have more active frontal lobes, stronger connections between brain hemispheres and "language centers" that mature earlier than their male counterparts. Critics of gender-based schooling charge that curricula designed to exploit such differences reinforce the most narrow cultural stereotypes. But proponents say that unless neurological, hormonal and cognitive differences between boys and girls are incorporated in the classroom, boys are at a disadvantage.

Most schools are girl-friendly, says Michael Gurian, coauthor with Kathy Stevens of a new book,"The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons from Falling Behind in School and Life," "because teachers, who are mostly women, teach the way they learn." Seventy percent of children diagnosed with learning disabilities are male, and the sheer number of boys who struggle in school is staggering. Eighty percent of high-school drop-outs are boys and less than 45 percent of students enrolled in college are young men. To close the educational gender gap, Gurian says, teachers need to change their techniques. They should light classrooms more brightly for boys and speak to them loudly, since research shows males don't see or hear as well as females. Because boys are more-visual learners, teachers should illustrate a story before writing it and use an overhead projector to practice reading and writing. Gurian's ideas seem to be catching on. More than 185 public schools now offer some form of single-sex education, and Gurian has trained more than 15,000 teachers through his institute in Colorado Springs.

To some experts, Gurian's approach is not only wrong but dangerous. Some say his curriculum is part of a long history of pseudoscience aimed at denying equal opportunities in education. For much of the 19th century, educators, backed by prominent scientists, cautioned that women were neurologically unable to withstand the rigors of higher education. Others say basing new teaching methods on raw brain research is misguided. While it's true that brain scans show differences between boys and girls, says David Sadker, education professor at American University, no one is exactly sure what those differences mean. Differences between boys and girls, says Sadker, are dwarfed by brain differences within each gender. "If you want to make schools a better place," says Sadker, "you have to strive to see kids as individuals."

Natasha Craft, a fourth-grade teacher at Southern Elementary School in Somerset, Ky., knows the gender-based curriculum she began using last year isn't a cure-all. "Not all the boys and girls are going to be the same," she says, "but I feel like it gives me another set of tools to work with." And when she stands in front of a room of hard-to-reach kids, Craft says, another set of tools could come in handy.

Peg Tyre, Newsweek
September 19, 2005
Newsweek, Inc.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9287947/site/newsweek/

Stammering 'best treated early'

It is best to treat stammering as early as possible, ideally before a child starts school, researchers say.

About one in 20 children begin to stammer, usually between the ages of two and four.

University of Sydney researchers tested a new treatment - the Lidcombe programme - specifically designed for pre-school children.

Their British Medical Journal study found it was more effective than relying on natural recovery.

Around 80% of children who develop a stammer do recover spontaneously.

As a result, there has been doubt about whether therapy has a positive impact - or is simply being used on children who would recover naturally anyway.

The new study is the first to provide hard evidence that therapy does have a positive effect.

In total 54 children aged three to six took part, of which just over half received the Lidcombe programme.

Each child was diagnosed with a frequency of at least 2% syllables stammered.

After nine months the children who received the Lidcombe programme had reduced their level of stammering by 77%, and 52% had reduced their stammering to 1% of syllables.

In the control group, just 43% had reduced their stammering, and only 15% had achieved the target of stammering on 1% of syllables.

However, the researchers say the programme seems to be less effective once children had reached school age.

They argue that delaying treatment until then risks exposing children to serious social and psychological effects.

"If the disorder persists into the school age years a child is exposed to unacceptable risk of experiencing the disabling effects of chronic and intractable stuttering throughout life."

Different therapies

Norbert Lieckfeldt, chief executive of the British Stammering Association, told the BBC News website that two types of therapy were used to treat stammering.

Family interaction therapy encourages parents to help their child to develop speech in a relaxed, unpressurised atmosphere. It does not address instances of stammering directly. This is still the most commonly used form of treatment in the UK.

In contrast, behavioural therapies, such as the Lidcombe programme, take a more direct approach to the problem, encouraging parents to correct a stammer.

Mr Lieckfeldt said: "The BSA recognises the great significance of this research which demonstrates the benefits of treating pre-school children as early as possible after onset to prevent a lifetime of stammering.

"Parents are still too often confronted with advice by GPs and other like 'ignore it and it will go away'."

The cause of a stammer is unknown, although some experts believe it can be the result of a child's desire to express complex emotions and needs outstripping its capacity to produce the speech.

BBC NEWS:
September 23, 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/4271002.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4271002.stm

Video games that get kids' attention, enhance learning
Children put on helmets linked to sensors that monitor their brain

Like many parents, Janet Herlihey tried her best to keep her kids away from video games.

She was particularly concerned about the potential harm to her two boys who have had problems focusing and controlling their emotions.

"Why would this be good for kids who had a hard time concentrating?" said Herlihey, who lives in West Chester, Pa. "It doesn't make sense." She told her boys, Michael, 12, and Paul, 10: "Don't ever ask me, because you'll never get them."

But late last year, the boys did get to play video games -- and with the blessing of their parents.

The Herliheys had decided to let their sons -- who show symptoms of attention-deficit disorder but have never been diagnosed -- try out a new treatment that uses video games to help children with attention problems.

Smart BrainGames, developed by CyberLearning Technology in San Diego, use a combination of adaptive automation and video games to help children deal with attention problems. The kids who undergo the treatment put on helmets linked to sensors that monitor their brain activity while playing video games. The more focused they are, the better their chances of winning in the game.

The use of video games in treating attention-deficit problems in children is new. While the technology, which is based on research done by NASA, apparently has been well received, one expert said more studies need to be done on the system.

The games are based on the science of neurofeedback, which tracks and measures brain wave activity.

"The brain produces slow wave patterns and it produces fast wave patterns," said Domenic Greco, founder and CEO of CyberLearning Technology. "When we are in a wide-alert stage, we're producing fast waves. As we start getting daydreamy and drifty, we produce slower waves. As we get real drowsy and sleepy, it slows down even more. Then we get into that sleep state. Then the reverse (happens) as we come out of sleep."

Neurofeedback technology makes people aware of those changes, prompting them to find ways to focus more by exercising their brain.

The adaptive automotion technology was first developed by a team of scientists at the NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia led by Dr. Alan Pope, who wanted to come up with a better balance of automation and human control on flight simulators.

NASA and Eastern Virginia Medical School then took on the technology and combined it with neurofeedback to find ways to help children with attention-deficit problems.

Pope said the technology helped make neurofeedback, which has long been used for treating attention problems, more entertaining.

"The traditional means of delivering neurofeedback tends to be boring," he said. "We had subjects drop out. Attrition was a big problem. With the kids that had video games, they were actually anxious to come to treatment. They would drag their parents in to come to treatment."

Greco, whose company won an exclusive license to develop the technology in 2002, said many children with attention problems had no problems focusing on video games.

"We hear that from parents all the time. 'My (children) can't do their homework. They won't study. But they can sit and play video games for hours,' " he said. "So we had a medium that kids were already comfortable with, that they enjoy doing, that we knew they would be able to make use of on a regular basis."

The system, which has a base price of about $550, includes the headset with brainwave sensors, a small box that tracks brainwave signals, a game controller and special software. The system is designed for Sony PlayStation systems, but the company plans to adapt it to other gaming consoles, including Xbox and Nintendo, as well for regular DVD systems.

The system uses games that involve racing and jumping, such as Drome Racers or Ratchet and Clank. The treatment is based on a basic principle: you lose focus, you lose the game.

The more a player is focused, the faster the speeds or the higher the distances the player's character in the game is able to reach. When players get distracted or lose focus, the characters' performance lags. The system lets players know that they have lost their concentration by making the game controller vibrate and changing the pitch of a tone that sounds during the game.

"The faster your brain is working, the more speed you have available with the character," Greco said as a reporter tested the system with a game called Crash Team Racing. "You see that character kind of surge back and forth."

Herlihey said she had a million questions about having her boys play video games as part of their treatment, but she and her husband eventually decided to try it out.

When she told her sons that they will get to play video games as part of their new treatment, the boys were thrilled.

"Oh my god, they were like, 'Yeah, that's great,' " she said. "I had to eat my words."

The treatment has paid off, she said.

"There were changes that were really exciting," she said. "Michael's memory improved so much that I did not have to remind him about things. Because his memory was better, he was learning better."

With Paul, she added, "I saw his ability to do work independently improve."

Dr. Victor Carrion, a professor of child psychiatry at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, said that while more studies are needed to evaluate the technology, the concept of using video games to exercise parts of the brain is interesting.

"There may be some circuits in the brain of children (with attention-deficit disorder) that may be improved, so the idea is appealing," he said. "It sounds worth looking at."

Herlihey said the technology has helped bring some much-needed harmony in her home.

"I will say at one point, we didn't," she said. "Now we enjoy being together and we have a lot of laughs."

Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer
September 26, 2005
E-mail Benjamin Pimentel at bpimentel@sfchronicle.com
www.sfgate.com
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/26/BUGUHET47A1.DTL

A Team Effort Helps Deaf Students Succeed at School
Parents Lead the Push for More Services

Once Mary and Deno Photinakis started a family, their old, creaky house in Gaithersburg got to feeling a little crowded. By the time their daughter hit the terrible twos, they were definitely ready for a new place.

The couple looked in Loudoun County, where a reasonable mortgage could still fetch a four-bedroom home, and they signed a contract in March 2003 on a brand-new house in a neighborhood full of other young families.

But while the finishing touches were being put on their new kitchen, the Photinakises developed concerns about their daughter. They suspected that her frustrated outbursts were more than a passing phase, and it worried them that she wasn't learning to speak as quickly as some of her friends. Finally they decided to have her hearing checked.

The audiologist told them that Christina, by then 3 1/2 , had profound hearing loss, the most serious category of impairment.

"We were devastated," Mary Photinakis said.

Moving day was fast approaching, and Mary Photinakis began to question whether it was the right decision to abandon Montgomery County's schools, which served hundreds of hearing-impaired children, for a much smaller system.

The couple tried to cancel their house contract but found they were locked in.

They moved in January 2004. A few months later, they found out that their then 9-month-old son, Andrew, was also deaf.

"Had we known about our kids' hearing loss, we never would have moved," she said.

As Loudoun's population has boomed in the past several years, the need for specialized services in its public schools to address students like Christina has grown.

The number of hearing-impaired children in county schools has risen from 23 in 2000 to 63 this year, said Suzanne Jimenez, the district's outgoing supervisor of special education.

The district is working hard to keep up and to match the growing need with qualified educators. By adding four staff positions this year, it will have 24 professionals who work with hearing-impaired children, each requiring unique services -- from sign-language interpretation to speech therapy to assistive technologies.

And it has developed such specialized programs as a half-day preschool, where Christina, now 5, and other children who are learning verbal communication can interact with kids without hearing impairments.

While the school district ramps up its efforts, parents are doing their part to help, too.

When Mary Photinakis came to Loudoun, one of the first things she looked for -- and didn't find -- was a parents support network like one that had been helpful to her in Montgomery County when she and her husband learned of Christina's deafness. She sought out other parents and met with them informally last year.

Then, in January, she formed the Loudoun Association for Children With Hearing Loss. The group, which meets monthly, has about 16 member families. They are hoping faculty or staff members will attend, too.

"One by one by one, trying to shepherd our kid through this maze, we hope to just get through okay," said Susan Maitra, whose 15-year-old son, Ranjan, has profound hearing loss and attends Heritage High School in Leesburg. But with the parents organized into a group, she said, she thinks they can actually effect real changes to the system.

In addition to sharing information and support, the group also made a wish list that Mary Photinakis took to the Board of Supervisors last spring.

The first thing the group asked for was the creation of a staff position for an educational audiologist. While Loudoun County contracted with audiologists at a local medical center, it lacked someone who specifically focused on the acoustics of a classroom setting. They also pushed for a speech pathologist with a background in working with hearing-impaired children and a social worker who could help guide parents through the legal and emotional process of obtaining the right services for their children.

The county agreed to the first two requests. It's now looking for an audiologist, and it hired a speech pathologist, Rachel R. Silien, who has more than 10 years of experience working with deaf and hard-of-hearing students and who has a degree from Gallaudet University.

Jimenez said that the district has not created the social worker position but that one of the goals for this year will be increasing the focus on parent outreach.

She said the parents group has been a help.

"They've really been out there, planting the seeds in the face of increased numbers," Jimenez said.

Maitra said that population growth does pose some problems in terms of keeping pace but that it also has ended some of the isolation her family had felt since 1999, when they moved to Loudoun County and Ranjan was one of only a few deaf students in the district.

By middle school, though, Ranjan was no longer the only deaf student in his school.

When he was in seventh grade, the district adopted a magnet school system. Rather than relying on itinerant teachers, students had the option of traveling to a designated school for special education.

Now he's at Heritage High School, where three other hearing-impaired students attend. He spends most of his day among hearing students; he uses hearing aids and an amplification system to hear the teacher. But he also works with a speech pathologist, and two teachers who work with deaf students full time keep tabs on him to make sure he's following the instruction.

Maitra said she thinks her son is in a good place right now.

"I think there's definitely been a lot of progress," she said.

But she said she thinks there is still much work to do to address the needs of young children, starting with expanding the county's early intervention services for deaf infants and toddlers. She said she hopes the parents group can be a part of those changes.

"I hope the parents group will be a magnet or beacon for other families that are moving in," she said.

Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post Staff Writer
September 25, 2005
The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2005/09/24/AR2005092400172.html