No FEAT Dragging To Promote Autism Research Walk-a-Thons

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" Healing Autism: No Finer a Cause on the Planet "

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August 26, 2001 Search www.feat.org/search/news.asp

AUTISM RESEARCH FUNDING

* No FEAT Dragging To Promote Autism Research Walk-a-Thons

CARE

* Mom, Disabled Son Struggle With Rules

SCIENCE

* Amygdala: Face and Fear Processing

No FEAT Dragging To Promote Autism Research Walk-a-Thons

East Coast: Walking the Walk For Autistic Son

[by Tamer El-Ghobashy NY Daily News.]

http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-08-26/News_and_Views/City_Beat/a-123098.asp

For the first two years after Marty and Caryn Schwartzman of Bayside

had twins eight years ago, they took snapshots and documented their

children's first steps and first words.

But after Allyson and Robby celebrated their second birthdays, the

Schwartzmans began noticing a difference in their children's behavior:

Allyson continued to develop her speech, while Robby struggled with simple

words.

After visits to several doctors, Robby was diagnosed with autism, a

brain disorder marked by severe inability to interact socially. It affects

boys four times as often as it does girls.

For three years, the parents hunted for information on the disease.

" Those were the worst years of our lives, " said Marty Schwartzman. " We

felt we were losing control. Robby's behavior was so bad, and we knew we

needed to turn our lives around. " The desperate parents eventually found

several local support groups for parents of autistic children. The groups

provided information and worked with national organizations dedicated to

finding cures and better treatment.

Last year, the Schwartzmans realized a milestone: With support from

the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, they organized a

fund-raising walk at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, L.I.

" The adrenaline rush [at] seeing all these people coming out to

support your cause is unbelievable, " Schwartzman said. " It's a phenomenal

feeling. " Last year, the 3.1-mile walk attracted about 4,000 people who

helped raise more than $600,000 for the National Alliance for Autism

Research.

The group's primary mission is to fund research into the causes,

prevention, treatment and cure of autism and related disorders.

" It's a dream come true to have an organization and people committed

to an affliction that my son has, " he said. " We are offering hope for these

children and their families. " This year, Schwartzman hopes to double the

turnout and has set a goal of raising $1 million. The walk is set for Sept.

29 starting at 9 a.m.

Autism is believed to occur in as many as one in 500 births, and is

among the most inheritable of all brain disorders.

For information about the walk, call .

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West Coast: 2nd UC M.I.N.D. Institute " Walk For Hope " Set

Sept. 8 walk to benefit neurodevelopmental disorder research

The UC M.I.N.D. Institute will kickoff

its second annual benefit walk Sept. 8 at 9 a.m. with the

groundbreaking of the institute's new 136,000 square-foot facility.

More than 2,500 walkers are expected to join in the groundbreaking

ceremony just before the 5k " Walk for Hope " start. s will then

journey around the UC Medical Center neighborhood for 5

kilometers, or 3.1 miles. Funds raised by the walk will benefit

clinical, research and educational programs at the institute, which

studies and treats neurodevelopmental disorders.

Proceeds from the walk will contribute to the understanding, care

and cure of autism, fragile X syndrome, Tourette's syndrome, dyslexia,

attention deficit disorder, cerebral palsy and Asperger's syndrome

and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Since parents and UC clinicians and researchers founded the

UC M.I.N.D. Institute in 1998, more than $5 million has been

distributed to leading scientists who are working on collaborative

research projects aimed at understanding or treating

neurodevelopmental disorders.

" Our goal is to create an internationally recognized, world-class

research and training institute to study and understand the full

spectrum of childhood neurodevelopmental disabilities so that we can

develop better treatments, and subsequently, cures, " said Randi

Hagerman, UC School of Medicine Tsakopoulos-Vismara professor

of pediatrics and director of the M.I.N.D. Institute.

The walk will begin with registration at 7:30 a.m. at 49th and

50th streets on the UC Medical Center campus. The groundbreaking

ceremony will start at 8:30 a.m., concluding with the kickoff of the

walk. A celebration at the finish line will feature music, door

prizes, activities for children such as face painting and train

rides, and refreshments. For information about where to pick up

pledge forms, call .

The UC M.I.N.D. Institute was founded in 1998 as a unique

interdisciplinary organization of parents, community leaders,

researchers, clinicians and educators to study and treat autism,

fragile X syndrome, dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, Asperger's

syndrome and other neurodevelopmental disorders. More information

about the institute is available on the Web at

http://www.mindinstitute.org/

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* * *

Mom, Disabled Son Struggle With Rules

[by Debra Pickett in the Chicago SunTimes.]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-welfare26.html

There is a hint of a lilting ish brogue in Margaret Ferguson's

voice, but mostly she just sounds tired. It is hard to imagine that she is

the same impulsive, passionate woman who 30 years ago married an Indiana man

because she wanted to come to this country and see the Grand Canyon.Life has

not worked out exactly as she'd planned.

Now the single mother of a severely disabled child, Ferguson,

college-educated, is trading work as a janitor for a break on the

Park rent she can't afford. She is also battling to hold on to her monthly

welfare income: $212 in public assistance and $150 in food stamps.

Since 1996, Ferguson has been cut off from aid twice. Her son,

15-year-old Conlan, who suffers from cerebral palsy, autism, severe asthma

and several other problems associated with his premature birth, has lost his

medical card once.

The Fergusons are among the toughest cases for the newly reformed

welfare system to handle. " They just don't want to make any exceptions, "

Margaret said. " Everything is really focused on 'you have to go back to

work.'

" But Ferguson says the demands of her son's care are such that she

cannot hold a job. " Even if I could work a couple of hours per day, I could

never tell you which, " she said. Although Conlan is a full-time high school

student, he frequently needs her during the day, she said. Last year, he

missed 40 school days and suffered 52 medical episodes that required her

attention. Still, Ferguson has managed to serve as president of the Local

School Council and do enough janitorial work in her building to cut her $500

monthly rent to $30.

" I am a full-time advocate for my child, " she said. " It's not like I'm

just laying up on my behind. " But the system does not recognize her informal

barter arrangement as paid work, and Ferguson continues to receive threats

from the Illinois Department of Human Services to terminate her benefits.

" I get letters all the time, " she said. " You get a letter that you

have to come in on Thursday or you'll be terminated for noncompliance, but

you don't get it in the mail until the following Monday. ... Or, I got one

that said, 'Be dressed for a job interview and no children allowed.' Conlan

had a terrible asthma attack that day, and I couldn't leave him. They

threatened to terminate me for that.

" Recently, Ferguson became one of 1,600 Illinois residents to receive

a " needed at home " exemption that is supposed to allow her to continue to

care for Conlan without being required to seek paid work.Despite the

exemption, the five-year clock instituted by welfare reformers continues to

run, counting down to July 2002 when, unless she receives another special

dispensation, Margaret Ferguson will permanently lose her assistance

payments. Should that happen, she said, she doesn't know what she'll do.

" I cannot get another job until I finish the one I'm doing, " she said.

" I have to care for my son. "

* * *

Amygdala: Face and Fear Processing

Crossmodal binding of fear in voice and face

[Technical abstract. Published online before print August 7, 2001,

10.1073/pnas.171288598;

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 98, Issue 17, 10006-10010, August 14,

2001.]

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/98/17/10006

R. J. Dolan , ,§, J. S. , and B. de Gelder

Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, Institute of Neurology, Queen

Square, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom; Royal Free Hospital School of

Medicine, Roland Hill Street, London NW3, United Kingdom; and Tilburg

University, PO Box 90038, Tilburg, The Netherlands, and Laboratoire de

Neurophysiologie, Universite de Louvain, 54 Avenue Hippocrate, B-1200

Brussels, Belgium

Communicated by Mortimer Mishkin, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda,

MD, June 8, 2001 (received for review September 21, 2000)

In social environments, multiple sensory channels are simultaneously

engaged in the service of communication. In this experiment, we were

concerned with defining the neuronal mechanisms for a perceptual bias in

processing simultaneously presented emotional voices and faces.

Specifically, we were interested in how bimodal presentation of a fearful

voice facilitates recognition of fearful facial expression. By using

event-related functional MRI, that crossed sensory modality (visual or

auditory) with emotional expression (fearful or happy), we show that

perceptual facilitation during face fear processing is expressed through

modulation of neuronal responses in the amygdala and the fusiform cortex.

These data suggest that the amygdala is important for emotional

crossmodal sensory convergence with the associated perceptual bias during

fear processing, being mediated by task-related modulation of

face-processing regions of fusiform cortex. Copyright © 2001 by the National

Academy of Sciences

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Reader’s Posts

I am looking for info on Dr. Walsh at the Phieffer institute. I have

two boys with Autism, and was considering his protocol. I feel like I am

grasping a straws, but if you know of anyone who has had good results or

bad, please let me know. Ackerson ackw@...

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Anyone been told that their autistic child migt also have a mood disorder

(bi-polar) or n our case Uni polar Hypomaniac always happy - unless you want

him to work we are taking him off of concerta and the buspar and luvox drugs

and beginning MOOD stabilizers - anyone had success with these types of drug

traeatments? JMAutism@...

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Here's a preliminary petition about ADHD/related challenges and SPECT scans

for those who may have missed it: Please visit the site and consider voting.

http://www.petitiononline.com/adhd/

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