Seeing the benefits of early intervention firsthand

by Paula Pompa-Craven

Easter Seals Southern California was mentioned in a San Bernardino Sun article about autism earlier this month. The number of children with autism enrolled in special education classes in California has tripled in the past eight years, and a reporter contacted Easter Seals Upland Child Development Center Site Director Elizabeth Conrad and me for some insight. From the story:

One of the causes for the dramatic increases in less than a decade can be explained by better education about the disorder.

“We are doing a better job of identifying kids with autism by the time they reach kindergarten,” said Paula Pompa-Craven, a regional vice president of Easter Seals Southern California, an organization that provides services and education to people living with autism and other disabilities. “They are entering kindergarten with a diagnosis instead of being targeted later. And that is good, because early intervention is a key to treatment for children with autism.”

I am so glad that reporter contacted me. Any chance that I have to get the word out about the importance of early identification and treatment of children at risk for autism and other disabilities is so worthwhile. Through the services we offer, we have seen first hand the impact that early detection and treatment has on young children.

“Let me see those eyes” … a Decemberists song of autism

by Beth Finke

I love The Decemberists. Who can argue with a band that has accordion, pedal steel guitar, and upright bass? I like the band’s originality. I like their complicated lyrics. I even like lead singer Colin Meloy’s unapologetically nasal voice.

In an interview in Time Magazine, The Decemberists’ frontman Colin Meloy said he wrote the song Rise to Me on The King is Dead album after his son Henry was diagnosed with autism. I should have known. Here are some of the lyrics :

Hey Henry can you hear me?
Let me see those eyes
This distance between us
Can seem a mountain size
But boy:
You are going to stand your ground.

When the Time reporter asked about the song, Meloy said, “It’s chronicling our feelings as a family and the sort of face that we have to put on to remain sane.”

You can listen to Rise to Me on YouTube — see what you think.

A character study in China

by Patricia Wright

You might remember me telling you in a blog post last month that I’d been working in China. I was In Anshan with the Five Project, a non-profit that has been promoting autism awareness and professional skill development in China since 1992. We spent two weeks providing professional development to an autism program providing service to children.

On a previous trip to Nanjing last summer I was introduced to Zhan Ge, a woman living with autism. I was so pleased to learn that Zhan Ge would be traveling to Anshan with us for a few days on this second trip. Zhan Ge is someone who has many skills and many challenges. She struggles with communication and her family offers her lots of support to ensure her quality of life is very high.

One of Zhan Ge’s areas of special interests is Chinese Characters. I had bought a matching game here in the States to take with me to China, but the game had English words. I covered over the words with stickers and hoped that somebody in China might be able to help me write the Chinese Characters for the game. The picture here is of Zhan Ge writing those characters for me.

So, like I explained in my previous blog post, Nothing About Us Without Us — even in China. And as I’ve learned time and time again, people with autism often exceed at skills in which I am lacking. Working together — especially when it comes to service providers and individuals with autism — promotes the best outcomes.

Grants help parents attend autism conference

by Beth Finke

Thought I’d share some good news from the Autism Science Foundation. They’re offering grants to parents of children with autism to offset the costs of attending the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR this year). The meeting will be held from May 12-14 in San Diego, and awards of up to $1,000 can be used to cover registration, travel, accommodations, meals and other directly related expenses. That includes child care or special accommodations to help individuals with autism participate, too. From the Autism Science Foundation web site:

IMFAR is an annual scientific meeting, convened each spring, to promote, exchange and disseminate the latest scientific findings in autism research and to stimulate research progress in understanding the nature, causes, and treatments for autism spectrum disorders. IMFAR is the annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR).

Here’s what I like best about this grant: you don’t have to fill out any forms! I guess the Autism Science Foundation understands how little free time parents of children with autism have. To apply for a grant, they simply ask you to email a note with the words “IMFAR Grant” in the subject heading to grants[at]autismsciencefoundation[dot]org describing why you want to attend IMFAR and explaining how you would share what you learn there with the broader autism community. Letters must be received by February 28, 2011, and recipients will be announced in late March. For more information go to the grants page of the Autism Science Foundation web site. Good luck!

Nothing About Us Without Us!

by Patricia Wright

The statement Nothing About us Without Us is something I strive to practice in all of my work as a disability services provider. So often decisions are made for people with disabilities by people like me — service providers — without even involving the person who has the disability. The disability advocacy community coined the phrase “Nothing About Us Without Us” decades ago to raise awareness that making decisions for others is disempowering and, really, just disrespectful.

Thankfully my career started in Berkeley, California, a Mecca for disability advocacy. I was schooled early on in my career about the disability rights movement. My area of expertise has always been individuals with autism who have significant challenges, including difficulty using spoken language to communicate.

As a teacher, I spent so much time with my students that it was easy to include them in their educational planning. We learned together about their strengths and preferences. Through daily activities they could show me, if not tell me, what they really wanted to be learning at school. Using alternative forms of communication, they could also direct many of their daily activities.

In my job now as a director of services, I have to work a little harder to ensure that my work includes people with autism. I am often attending meetings, giving lectures and writing documents without a person with autism in sight. I have to work a little harder to ensure that people with autism are represented.

Many people with autism are generous in sharing their stories with me and are happy to have me share their stories with others. These stories provide a direct connection to people with autism. Stay tuned to my next blog post, where I’ll share one of these wonderful stories — about Zhan Ge, a woman living with autism in China.

Food Lion celebrates 20 years supporting Easter Seals

by Beth Finke

Today, Food Lion launches its annual Shop&Care campaign to benefit children receiving Easter Seals services. Now in its twentieth year, the Food Lion Shop&Care program has raised over $25 million for Easter Seals.

Last year Food Lion raised $2.6 million in just four weeks through the campaign. This year they hope to raise the bar even higher — to help children with autism and other disabilities get a healthy start. From February 9th through March 8th, 2011, customers who donate $1 at check-out will save $3 on the purchase of participating products. Download this PDF for details.

The campaign also gives Food Lion, Bloom, Bottom Dollar Food and Reid’s customers several ways to support the program and realize money saving values:

• Food Lion will donate $0.25 for every 24-pack of Food Lion water purchased during the campaign (at participating Food Lion stores).
• General Mills will donate $0.10 for every participating product you buy, and look for specially marked packages of General Mills cereals (see stores for details).
• Look for specially marked packages of Breyer’s Vanilla Ice Cream.

Vote in the Shop&Care Challenge!
There is also a way for you to support your local Easter Seals affiliate. The new Shop&Care Challenge gives you the opportunity to vote for your affiliate to win a $10,000 Challenge Prize. You can vote for your affiliate once per day, from now through March 8th. Cast your vote today and spread the word about the Challenge!

We’re proud to partner again with Food Lion to support services that offer help, hope and answers to individuals with special needs and their families. Just think: by shopping at Food Lion this month you can feel good about helping people and save money at the same time!

The search for a Children Services Director

by Bob Glowacki

Greetings from Wisconsin, home of the 2011 Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers! We are on Cloud Nine here at Easter Seals Southeast Wisconsin, so happy about Sunday’s big game and so proud of our team.

I’m proud of our Easter Seals team, too: through our early intervention services, Easter Seals serves nearly 300 children in our area, providing the hope, help and answers they and their families need.

Now there’s a way to join our team here … we have an opening for a new Children Services Director. The individual we choose will guide our early intervention services, providing the best practices for service delivery, and play a pivotal role in guiding our fledgling autism services for young children and expanding their impact. Our Birth to Three Early Intervention program provides speech, physical and occupational therapies as well as early education for children and their families. For children with autism, we have an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) program, P.L.A.Y. Project, and we run SibShops. We are also looking at starting social skills training for school aged children.

The new director will work collaboratively and constructively with Easter Seals colleagues, local early intervention providers and the autism community. As a result of this, we are looking for someone with a strong background in autism with experience in managing people and budgets. Would you or someone you know be interested in being part of a growing, mission-driven organization? If so, go to our web site to learn more about — and apply for — the position. We’d love to have you join our winning team!

Airports … yikes!

by Beth Finke

Greetings from New Orleans! I arrived here Saturday, figured I’d have a couple days of fun before giving a disability awareness presentation at the New Orleans Public Library Tuesday. Five days later, and I’m still here.

The original plan was to head back to Chicago after my presentation on Tuesday, but hey,, you’ve been watching the news, right? It’s “Snowmageddon” up there! Our flight has been rescheduled for Thursday, and I’m bracing myself for crowds of delayed passengers at O’Hare. I know we’ll make it through, though. I’m telling you, once you’ve flown with a child who has a disability, you know you can survive anything an airport throws at you.

Our son Gus is 24 years old now, and He’s only flown with us twice. The first time, he was 2 years old. After the second time, when Gus was 10 years old, we vowed he’d never fly with us again. Maybe things would have felt different if people like pediatrician Wendy Ross had been around back when Gus was little. This is from a WALB-TV news story in Albany, Ga. about a program Ross developed to help make flying less traumatic for children with autism:

Pediatrician Dr. Wendy Ross helped developed the program at Albert Einstein Medical Center after hearing the trouble one of her patients was having on the airplane. Ross said the program empowers families to travel.

“The goal is not to fill the plane with tantrum kids,” Ross said. “We really want the families to be prepared and we want the airport to be a little more sensitive and understanding.”

In the story Ross said a number of airlines are providing airplane and crew for training, which includes going through security, real time check in, boarding and even waiting for luggage. I thought she was wise to point out the economic benefit to airlines that participate in this Airport Autism Access Program, too.

Ross says it’s important economically for these families to be able to travel with ease.

“If you think that one in 100 children is affected with autism, and it doesn’t just affect that child, it affects their typically developing siblings,” Ross said. “These families are not going out, which means the whole family is not going out. So for businesses, that’s a huge loss.”

It’s Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day!

by Beth Finke

What? You didn’t know? Where’ve you been? Got your head in a snow bank or something?!

Sound the trumpets: Today is Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day!

Here at the Easter Seals and Autism Blog, we just love Bubble Wrap. Three years ago our Celebrating Bubble Wrap post referred to an Autism Vox post by Kristina Chew. In her post, Chew wrote that her son Charlie, who has autism, “took a liking to bubble wrap a few years ago.”

He had long showed more interest in the ribbons and wrapping paper than in the actual presents themselves, no matter how elaborate a Playmobil set was concealed inside. Popping the plastic bubbles seemed to provide a sensory experience in several ways: Charlie could feel the thin plastic flattening beneath his fingers, and he could hear the effects: Pop, pop!

Comments to that post told us that Charlie is not alone. Lots of kids — and adults — who have autism enjoy Bubble Wrap. Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day is the day Sealed Air Corporation (creator of Bubble Wrap) announces the grand prize winner of its annual “Bubble Wrap Competition for Young Inventors.” A few years back we reported that a 13-year-old girl who had designed bubble wrap wallpaper to engage and stimulate children with autism was Among the 15 semi-finalists. Hannah Haas described her sensory wallpaper like this:

Wallpaper designed to engage and stimulate children with autism through the combination of a textured bubble surface containing large and small bubbles, and a calming, blue wallpaper background.

When we found out that Hannah Haas was the grand prize winner, we published a post here encouraging everyone to Pop the cork … and the bubble wrap autism wallpaper wins!

Need I say more? There really is no question about it. Here at Easter Seals, we really do appreciate Bubble Wrap. I plan to spend the day pop, pop, popping. How about you?

Join Friendly’s 30th Cones for Kids campaign

by Beth Finke

Another snow day? Finished shoveling? Your street got plowed? Quick! Head over to Friendly’s before it starts snowing again!

Snowy weather isn’t the only winter tradition up and down the East Coast — so is Friendly’s Cones for Kids. This is Friendly’s 30th annual Cones for Kids and the campaign has raised more than 26 million for Easter Seals since 1981.

The “cover girls” for this year’s Cones for Kids campaign are Easter Seals campers Emma, Anna and Olivia. The girls visited Friendly’s headquarters in Wilbraham, Mass., earlier this month to kick off the campaign. Check out their interviews on NBC 22 News — they wowed the crowd and capped the day off with, you guessed it, Friendly’s ice cream!

Now through Valentine’s Day, you can support Easter Seals Camp Friendly’s programs for kids with autism and other disabilities every time you visit a Friendly’s Restaurant. Not only that, but you’ll be rewarded with a sheet of Valentine Cards! The Valentine Cards can be redeemed at Friendly’s for 5 free Kids Cones and $5 off any $25 purchase.

Funds raised in Friendly’s Cones for Kids program support Easter Seals Camp Friendly’s in 26 different locations. Camp Friendly’s provides an opportunity for kids with autism and other disabilities to be included in regular camp activities like boating, swimming, archery, ropes courses, horseback riding, hiking and fishing.

So put down the shovels, turn off the snow blower and go ahead and enjoy some ice cream at a Friendly’s restaurant near you. You’ll not only enjoy a tasty treat, but you’ll feel good about supporting essential disability camp programs in your community. Sweet!