ADHD and Stress

Parents, is your child suffering from undo stress? Does he or she struggle with fear, anxiety, nervousness or anxiety?

Today, more and more children are exhibiting considerable signs of stress, particularly with respect to education. For many children, this higher level of stress seems to be directly interfering with their ability to learn.

In addition, children predisposed to conditions like ADD or ADHD are especially susceptible to the effects of stress. These children are twice as likely to abuse alcohol and drugs and four times likely to get in trouble with law enforcement.

Of even greater concern is that these higher levels of stress seem to be occurring at earlier and earlier ages. Many children as young as 5 or 6 years old are exhibiting the effects of higher levels of stress. Under the “No Child Left Behind Act” and the mistaken belief that learning earlier is better, more children are being forced to accept greater academic responsibilities, even as early as 3 and 4 years old.

Read More: http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/20113/ADHD_and_Stress_Part_One

Girl's wish: N.J. study of reading disorders

The stuff on Samantha Ravelli's holiday wish list was pretty much standard fare for a 12-year-old. A digital camera, a watch, a laptop.

Her number-one wish, however, was in a class of its own.

She wants Gov. Corzine to sign her bill. "I want to help other children," she said.

The Ocean City, N.J., seventh grader and her mother, Beth, have been working the last few years to pass a law that would create a task force to better ensure that reading-disabled children like Samantha get the help they need.

Read More: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/80152302.html

Working on a dream to live on his own

Tim Cirillo was 17 when he learned that he'd never grow old.

He was born with a muscle-wasting disease called Duchenne muscular dystrophy. As a young boy, the genetic condition made it increasingly difficult for him to walk and forced him into a wheelchair for good at age 10.

Initially devastated, he tried to accept his disability, not realizing the full implications of his disease.

At 17, though, the hard facts of his life were difficult to bear.

He graduated from Central Regional High School in Berkeley in 2002, got his associate degree from Ocean County College in Toms River and continued taking classes at OCC toward a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Kean University.

By early 2008, with his college courses winding down, Tim had decided he wanted to strike out on his own. Though he knew he would always be reliant on other people for his daily care, he needed to wrest whatever independence he could from the constraints of his condition.

Searching the Web, Tim learned about a nonprofit organization based in Ocean Township called the LADACIN Network. The acronym stands for Lifetime Assistance for Developmental and Challenging Individual Needs.

Read More: http://www.app.com/article/20100103/NEWS/1030338/Working-on-a-dream-to-live-on-his-own

Kim Peek, Inspiration for ‘Rain Man,’ Dies at 58

In 1988, the film “Rain Man,” about an autistic savant played by Dustin Hoffman, shed a humane light on the travails of autism while revealing the extraordinary powers of memory that a small number of otherwise mentally disabled people possess, ostensibly as a side effect of their disability.

The film won four Oscars, including best picture, best actor and, for Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass, best original screenplay. But it never would have been made if Mr. Morrow had not had a chance meeting with Kim Peek, who inspired him to write the film.

Mr. Peek was not autistic — not all savants are autistic and not all autistics are savants — but he was born with severe brain abnormalities that impaired his physical coordination and made ordinary reasoning difficult. He could not dress himself or brush his teeth without help. He found metaphoric language incomprehensible and conceptualization baffling.

But with an astonishing skill that allowed him to read facing pages of a book at once — one with each eye — he read as many as 12,000 volumes. Even more remarkable, he could remember what he had read.

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/us/27peek.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Teacher has years of insight

Denise Schweizer looks at the white Labrador retriever at her feet. Little Cheba loves belly rubs and ear squeezes.

"I've tried being blind with no help, and with a cane's help and with a dog's help," she says, laughing. "Believe me, the dog is better."

The 47-year-old woman teaches mentally disabled children at Hebron Elementary School in Evansville. She has two sighted assistants who help with the boys and girls who range in ages from kindergarten to fifth grade.

Read More: http://www.courierpress.com/news/2010/jan/03/teacher-has-years-of-insight/

Ducks' coach finds inspiration in friendship

An hour deep into the Oregon Ducks' December awards banquet, just after cornerback Walter Thurmond and defensive end Will Tukuafu walk off with the most-inspirational trophies, Coach Chip Kelly returns to the podium at the Eugene Hilton and says, "We're going off the script on this one."

In most elite football programs, that's the cue for Daddy Gamebucks, the school's most prominent booster, to rise at the AD's table and raise one meaty paw to a crowd that will never know just how much he does for the program.

But Kelly has someone else in mind. He looks into the crowd. "Come on, Sethie, come on up here."

He is almost 29 now, this oldest child of Bob and Sybil Ford, and his love of sports -- especially his love of the Ducks -- is familial in its intensity. For the longest time, he tried to express that passion on the playing field, if only to keep up with his younger siblings: Paige, who won two state titles in the high hurdles at Eugene's Sheldon High School, and Joel, who remembers, ever so humbly, being known as the school's "JV All-Star."

Read More: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf/2009/12/ducks_learn_life_lessons_and_a.html

Student with disabilities wins fight to live in college dorm

Oakland University violated federal law by excluding him, judge rules

From the Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Oakland [MI] Press:

A federal judge has ruled that Michigan’s Oakland University has violated the federal Rehabilitation Act by failing to allow a student with a cognitive impairment to live in a campus dorm. An Oakland spokesman said the university will appeal the ruling, but will allow the young man to live on campus during the process.

U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Duggan ordered Oakland to make a room available to 25-year-old Micah Fialka-Feldman, who has been taking classes in the school’s OPTIONS program. Fialka-Feldman pays a fee equal to full tuition but doesn’t earn grades in the program, which is designed for students with cognitive disabilities who would not otherwise be able to meet the university’s admissions requirements.

The university has maintained that Fialka-Feldman, who takes buses two hours a day to get to class from his parents’ home, is not eligible for a dorm room because he’s not enrolled in a degree-granting program.

Duggan said the university’s assumption that the young man would be unable to follow housing rules “appears to be grounded on prejudice, stereotypes and/or unfounded fear.”