Autism

This is UK specific. The National Autism Society (NAS) is one of the main autism charities in the UK. Almost any type of information than can be found on autism in the UK can be found on their website. It's a great resource and there is a lot of information on their page. One of their services is providing information and advice to families of children and young people who are affected by autism. They are starting a new series of seminars aimed at disseminating information to the people who need it the most. More information can be found at Autism Seminars . The classes are listed below.

The contact information for all the classes is: help.programme (at) nas.org.uk, 07425 624 592 . Cost below is per 2 family members.  Most classes are held during the day, 10am - 2pm, but please contact the appropriate people to ask for more information.

help! Common Toileting Difficulties Parent Seminar
Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date 20th September 2011
Venue The Arthur Miller Stadium, Coal Hill Drive, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS13 1PA
Cost: £30
Contact: 07425 624 592
Time: 10:00am - 2:30pm

help! Managing Anger Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 20th September 2011
Venue: Lindow Tennis Club, Cumber Lane (off Gravel Lane), Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 6EF
Cost: £30

help! Sensory Needs Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 21st September 2011
Venue: Cheshire County Sports Club, Plas Newton Lane, Chester, Cheshire CH2 1PR
Cost: £30

help! Sensory Needs Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 28th September 2011
Venue: Botcherby Community Centre, Victoria Road, Carlisle CA1 2UE
Cost: £30

help! Understanding Behaviour Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 29th September 2011
Venue: The Oval Centre, Salterbeck Drive, Workington CA14 5HA
Cost: £30

help! Teen Life Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 30th September 2011
Venue: Dorridge Village Hall, Grange Road, Dorridge, Solihull, West Midlands B93 8QA
Cost: £30

help! First Steps (5-11 years) Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 5th October 2011
Venue: Handsworth Rugby Club, Birmingham Road, Walsall WS5 3JP
Cost: £30

help! Sensory Needs Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 6th October 2011
Venue: Mancot Village Hall, Mancot, Flintshire CH5 2AH
Cost: £30

help! Common Toileting Difficulties Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 11th October 2011
Venue: New Cottage Dance Centre and Function Suite, The Bridge, Ystrad Mynach CF82 7ED
Cost: Free

help! Teen Life Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 11th October 2011
Venue: New Cottage Dance Centre and Function Suite, The Bridge, Ystrad Mynach CF82 7ED
Cost: Free

help! Managing Anger Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 12th October 2011
Venue: Barrow Fire Station, Phoenix Road, Barrow in Furness, Cumbria LA14 2NS
Cost: £30

help! Teen Life Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 13th October 2011
Venue: Westmorland County Agricultural Society, Lane Farm, Crooklands, Milnthorpe, Cumbria LA7 7NH
Cost: £30

help! Common Toileting Difficulties Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 18th October 2011
Venue: Concord Sports Centre, Shiregreen Lane, Sheffield, South Yorkshire S5 6AE
Cost: £30

help! Common Toileting Difficulties Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 19th October 2011
Venue: YMCA, Mendalgief Road, Newport NP20 2HF

help! Managing Anger Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 20th October 2011
Venue: Calley Memorial Hall, Draycott Road, Chiselden, Swindon SN4 0LS
Cost: £30

help! Teen Life Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 20th October 2011
Venue: NAS Earlybird Centre, Barnsley Road, Dodworth, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S75 3JT
Cost: £30

Bristol Parent Autism Support Programme (13 - 18 years) - Teenage Life

Provider: The National Autistic Society, NHS Bristol (formerly Bristol Primary Care Trust)
Event Date: 9th November 2011, 16th November 2011, 23rd November 2011, 30th November 2011, 7th December 2011
Venue: Create Centre, Smeaton Road, Bristol BS2 6XN
Cost: Free of charge to parents/carers. Places need to be booked in advance.

help! Common Toileting Difficulties Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 10th November 2011
Venue: Park Hall Autism Resource Centre, Bestwood Village, Nottingham NG6 8TQ
Cost: £30 per two family members. Places for Professionals also available for £50.

help! Managing Anger Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 10th November 2011
Venue: Woolwell Community and Resource Centre, Darklake Lane, Plymouth PL6 7TR
Cost: £30 per two familiy members. Places for Professionals are also available for £50.

help! Teen Life Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 16th November 2011
Venue: Brownsword Hall, Pummery Square, Poundbury, Dorchester DT1 3GW
Cost: £30 per two family members. Places for Professionals are also available for £50.

help! Common Toileting Difficulties Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 17th November 2011
Venue: Conygre Hall, North Road, Bath BA2 0JG
Cost: £30 per two family members. Places for Professionals are also available for £50.

help! Managing Anger Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 17th November 2011
Venue: Hub Hazlewell, Vicarage Road, King's Heath, Birmingham B14 7NH
Cost: £30 per two family members. Places for Professionals are also available for £50.

help! Common Toileting Difficulties Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 18th November 2011
Venue: Park Lane Centre, Woodside, Telford, Shropshire TF7 5QZ
Cost: £30 per two family members. Places for Professionals also available for £50.

help! First Steps (5-11 years) Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 23rd November 2011
Venue: Sale West Youth Centre, Newbury Avenue, Sale, Cheshire M33 4QW
Cost: £30 per two family members

help! Teen Life Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 25th November 2011
Venue: St Cuthberts Church Centre, Lytham Road, Fulwood, Preston PR2 3AR
Cost: £30 per two family members.

help! Sensory Needs Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 30th November 2011
Venue: The Brite Centre, Braunstone Avenue, Leicester LE3 1LE
Cost: £30 per two family members.

help! Sensory Needs Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 1st December 2011
Venue: The Ritz Building, 27-29, Causeway Lane, Matlock, Derbyshire DE4 3AR
Cost: £30 per two family members.

help! First Steps (5-11 years) Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 7th December 2011
Venue: The Cedars Inn, Bickington Road, Sticklepath, Barnstaple, Devon EX31 2HE
Cost: £30 per 2 family members. Places for Professionals also available for £50.

help! Common Toileting Difficulties Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 8th December 2011
Venue: Doddridge Centre, 109, St James Road, Northampton NN5 5LD
Cost: £30 per two family members. Places for Professionals also available for £50.

help! Managing Anger Parent Seminar

Provider: help! Family Service Seminars
Event Date: 8th December 2011
Venue: The All Healthy Living Centre, 68, Lonsdale Avenue, Weston-Super-Mare, North Somerset BS23 3SJ
Cost: £30 per two family members. Places for Professionals are also available for £50.

Bristol Parent Autism Support Programme (8 - 14 years)

Provider: The National Autistic Society, NHS Bristol (formerly Bristol Primary Care Trust)
Event Date: 11th January 2012, 18th January 2012, 25th January 2012, 1st February 2012, 8th February 2012
Venue: Create Centre, Smeaton Road, Bristol BS1 6XN
Cost: Free of charge to parents/carers. Places need to be booked in advance.
Contact Address: Family Support Programme Officer Andrew Powell, Church House, Church Road, Filton, Bristol, South Gloucestershire BS34 7BD, tel: 07919 258823

The information in this blog changes periodically. I've been doing this blog for close to 10 years now, and while not a constant poster, I've been a steady one. The oldest posts are more personal, the middle posts are autism posts in the US and specifically the state of Washington, and all the newer posts will be in the UK and the US. At first I wanted to break it into 2 blogs, but autism info is usually pertinent irregardless of location, so one blog it stays in. I will create 2 new categories, UK and US if they are location dependent.

This is an email I received. I will post their websites when I find them.

In light of the recent court decision involving ABA: “[U]nder the Mental Health Parity Act [the Health Care Authority and the Public Employees Benefits Board] are required to cover medically necessary Applied Behavior Analysis therapy, as determined on an individualized basis, when provided by licensed providers.” as a Mental Health Professional, or employ BCBA's who are certified counselors,we need to hear from you at your earliest convenience(your certification & best contact information).

The following 10 BCBA's have already been identified as having the appropriate credentials for the licensed category,

Dr. Eric Boelter-BCBA-D, Licensed Psychologist
Eileen Chew-BCBA-
Danielle Dolezal-BCBA-D-
Ann Douvier-BCBA- Lisensed Speech and Language Pathologist
Elizabeth Grevey-BCBA-D-
Noa Hannah-BCBA-D- Lisensed Speech and Language Pathologist
Craig Jensen- BCBA-D, Licensed Psychologist
Fredrick Kemp-BCBA-D, Licensed Psychologist
Allison Lowy Apple-BCBA-D-
Kathleen Prosch-Jensen-BCBA-D-

According to the HealthCare Authority of WA, there are a minimum of 3025 children, adolescents and adults that will be included in this decision. Time is of essence for us to identify as many BCBA's as possible for the thousands of children who are now eligible for insurance coverage of ABA. Thank you in advance for your timely reply.

Please contact Arzu Forough with information about other ABA licensed therapists.

Email: Arzu (at) WAshingtonAutismAdvocacy.org
Url: http://washingtonautismadvocacy.org

Link: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stellapodgornik

there is a link on the right hand side of the website to my LinkedIN profile.

LinkedIN

This isn't an autism related app. It's just for fun, and an app I developed for a class. It translates spoken words and speaks the translation back to you.

Supported languages:
From: English, Chinese, French, German, Japanese
To: Multiple languages supported by Google Translate

Android version: 2.1 and higher

Requirements: Pico - install Pico from the Android Market before installing this
appInstaller - install from Android Market

Extra Information: Accents included - American English, Spain Spanish, French, German, Italian. All other languages spoken with an American English accent.

Installation: attach your android phone to your computer. drag and drop this app to the phone. Open appInstaller, select SayWhat to install.

SayWhat.apk

Please leave feedback and let me know what you think.

Link: http://www.google.com/intl/en/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html#resources

I normally don't talk about personal issues, but this one affects alot more people than me.

I just spoke with my uncle over there, and they just found another 2000 people. The death toll right now is 3000, and they're expecting over 10,000. BBC just reported another nuclear explosion in Fukushima. Thank G-d my family is ok, but others are not. My uncle told me the Misawa Air Force base has no electricity, is low on food, and is low on water. They are cut off. The US military has mobilized in Japan, and some (mostly helicopter squadrons) are working 24/7 in search and rescue efforts. The only reason the base where my uncle and his family have electricity is because of the base's help in the relief efforts. The surrounding areas are having electricity outages. They desperately need food and water. Here is the Google page with information, and a link to the Japanese Red Cross.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html#resources

I listed a few apps in the android section, and I love the preview of the first app. I'm so glad there are apps being tailored for autistic children and adults out there, and they are actually being used! I listed some of the best ones I found.

Apps for Autistic Children

Please scroll down to the bottom. There are additional apps in the comments section of this article.

Android

Voice4u

Voice4u, is a revolutionary AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) application that helps individuals to express their feeling, thought, actions and things they need. It is a perfect solution for learning and communication for autistic individuals and people around them. With it, you will never have to guess at an individuals' wants and needs and will break down the barriers of communication for individuals with special needs.

Iphone Apps

First Then Visual Schedule

A winner for children with Autism. Designed to to provide positive behavior support for those with communication needs. Also great for children with language delays or developmental issues. Facilitates moving from one daily activity to the next and overall dealing with changing daily schedules.

Sentence Builder

Sentence Builder is designed to help elementary aged children learn how to build grammatically correct sentences. Explicit attention is paid to the connector words that make up over 80% of the english language. Sentence Builder offers a rich and fun environment for improving the grammar of all children.

Model Me Going Places

Model Me Going Places™ is a great visual teaching tool for helping your child learn to navigate challenging locations in the community. Each location contains a photo slide show of children modeling appropriate behavior.

ProLoquo2Go

This is a little expensive $189.99. Proloquo2Go provides a full-featured augmentative and alternative communication solution for people who have difficulty speaking. It provides natural sounding text-to-speech voices (INITIALLY AMERICAN AND BRITISH ENGLISH ONLY), high resolution up-to-date symbols, powerful automatic conjugations, a default vocabulary of over 7000.

ArtikPik

ArtikPix - Full is an engaging articulation app with flashcard and matching activities for children with speech sound delays. Since the app includes child friendly language, you don’t have to be a speech-language pathologist to facilitate practice. Children use ArtikPix - Full to practice sounds independently, with a speech-language pathologist or their parents.

Voice4u

Voice4u, is a revolutionary AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) application that helps individuals to express their feeling, thought, actions and things they need. It is a perfect solution for learning and communication for autistic individuals and people around them. With it, you will never have to guess at an individuals' wants and needs and will break down the barriers of communication for individuals with special needs.

Grace

* Winner of the 2010 Irish Web Awards and World Summit Award Mobile. *
A simple picture exchange system developed by and for people with Autism and delayed speech which allows the user to communicate their needs by building sentences from relevant images. It can be customised by the individual using their picture and photo vocabulary with the user taking and saving pictures independently to the app.

iCommunicate

* Create pictures, flashcards, storyboards, routines, and visual schedules. Record custom audio in any language. Converts any words with Text to Speech that do not have custom audio recorded. We include 100+ pictures(first 5 have audio) to get you started. Add pictures with your camera, or from your camera roll, or use online image search. Utilize as audio visual prompting tool or AAC device.

AutismXPress

The ‘Autism Xpress’ iPhone Application has been created to help promote greater awareness about autism spectrum disorders. It is designed to encourage people with autism to recognizes and express their emotions through its fun and easy to use interface.

My post on Autism Rates in the US can be found here: http://www.stellamarie.com/index.php/2010/06/24/autism-rates-per-state

I consolidated for the other countries here:
UK 1/60
Canada 1/51
Australia 1/50
China 1.1 mil
Phillipines 500k
Thailand 180k

I decided to look up the rates worldwide just to compare with the US.

The UK is 1/60 according to the Mail in March 2009. The article can be found here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1163606/One-child-60-suffers-form-autism.html

Canada has slightly higher rates.  According to the CBC http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2009/04/02/f-autism.html 190,000 children in Canada have autism, and that makes the rate about 1/51. I took the amount of children in Canada 2006 from this website http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/famil50a-eng.htm

Australia is 1/50 according to an autism advocacy in Australia.  The article can be found here http://a4.org.au/a4/node/225

I'm not sure about the accuracy of this website. http://facts.randomhistory.com/2009/09/21_autism.html
But they list:
"The WHO estimates that there are 1,100,000 cases of autism in China; 650,000 in the UK; 500,000 in the Philippines; and 180,000 in Thailand."