Dr. Chris’ Autism Journal

Games such as Second Life may provide a great opportunity for opening social doors for people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).  This virtual world allows users to create characters and interact socially with others in an online world.  In a recent article, CNN reports on how this can be beneficial.  Created by an adult with Asperger’s Syndrome, Naughty Auties is a world where people with ASD can interact with one another in a more relaxed, less socially intimidating environment.  This sounds like a great solution for teaching social interaction and working on social skills.

This kind of solution for helping teens and adults with ASD may end up causing more harm than good.  In worlds such as Second Life, there are an unfortunate group of people called “griefers” whose sole purpose is to cause harm to others.  These people literally seek out vulnerable people in these online worlds and deliberately disrupt the world and cause harm, just because they can.  In worlds such as Second Life, there is no supervision, there are no limits, and anyone can get in and do whatever they want and say whatever they want.  This opens the doors for griefers and others will the wrong intentions.  For the ASD community, they are especially vulnerable due to their difficulties with understanding subtle social cues and often, language difficulties.

Although I support the idea of providing a virtual world for working on social skills and understanding, I am nervous about an open-ended world where people with disabilities are completely exposed and open to griefers.  Instead, I would like to see something similar that is not open to anyone wanting to join, and that operates in a more controlled space perhaps with computer players (like in the SIMS) or with invite-only people that have been screened.  The other issue to consider is how effective this kind of environment is for increasing skills, with no data collection or research on the effectiveness of doing this for someone with ASD, I would hesitate.  Research is clearly needed on this kind of program, particularly if it is described as an intervention or skill-building program.
In general, I think the idea is great, but people should be aware of the potential risks before jumping into a world with so many risks.

 NEW YORK, NY (Dec 12, 2007) – Autism Speaks, the nation’s leading autism advocacy organization, today announced its Autism Treatment Network (ATN) would triple in size, expanding from five sites to fifteen sites across the United States and Canada. The ATN is a group of hospitals and medical centers dedicated to improving medical care for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to standardizing the care those individuals receive.

The ATN’s multi-disciplinary approach includes collaboration among specialists in areas including, but not limited to, neurology, developmental pediatrics, child psychiatry, psychology, gastroenterology, genetics, metabolic disorders, and sleep disorders. The network aims to develop common clinical standards for medical care for individuals with ASD and to increase the pool of autism medical specialists through trainee mentorship and outreach to community-based physicians. As part of this effort, families receiving care at the sites can participate in a data registry that tracks children and adolescents receiving ongoing care at participating sites. The information in the database is a crucial part of developing the evidence to create and substantiate these clinical consensus standards.

“It is imperative that all children, no matter where they live, have access to excellent, evidence-based medicine,” said Autism Speaks President Mark Roithmayr. “The continuing expansion and funding of the ATN is a significant step in that direction.”

“This dramatic expansion of the Autism Treatment Network provides real opportunity to improve the quality of health care that children and youth with autism receive, and for more children to receive that care,” said Dr. James Perrin, Director, Clinical Coordinating Center, ATN, and Director, General Pediatrics, Massachusetts General Hospital for Children. “Developing common standards of medical care across fifteen sites will allow us to get answers to the questions parents ask about their children’s care much more quickly.”

The participating ATN sites are: University of Arkansas and Arkansas Children’s Hospital (Little Rock, AR); Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program Northern California (San Jose, CA); University of Colorado Denver, School of Medicine and The Children’s Hospital (Denver, CO); Kennedy Krieger Institute and Marcus Institute (Baltimore, MD/Atlanta, GA); LADDERS/Mass General Hospital (Boston, MA); University of Missouri (Columbia, MO); Columbia University Medical Center (New York, NY); University of Rochester (Rochester, NY); Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (Cincinnati, OH); Bloorview Kids Rehab, Surrey Place Centre and The Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, ON, Canada); Oregon Health & Science University (Portland, OR); University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA); Vanderbilt University Medical School (Nashville, TN); Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, TX); University of Washington (Seattle, WA).

The ATN began as a collaboration between the Northwest Autism Foundation in Oregon and Massachusetts General Hospital for Children in Boston. In 2005, the network was established with five founding sites that came together to establish multi-disciplinary practices for the evaluation and treatment of the underlying medical conditions associated with ASD. These sites currently provide services to approximately 2,000 new cases of ASD each year, and all have taken critical steps to broaden the services available to all children in these centers. The Autism Treatment Network merged with Cure Autism Now in 2006. In February 2007, Cure Autism Now merged with Autism Speaks.

To find out more about the Autism Treatment Network, or to get connected to a site in your area, visit www.autismspeaks.org/science/programs/atn/index.php or email: atn@autismspeaks.org.

The above article is reprinted with permission and can be found in its entirety at http://www.autismspeaks.org/press/atn_network_expanded.php

It’s time again for Autism Speaks’ annual “Walk Now for Autism” fundraiser in Seattle, WA. In addition to raising money for autism research, the fundraiser’s purpose is to increase awareness about the growing number of individuals being diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The walk in Seattle is taking place on Saturday, October 13th. If you can’t make it to this event, sign up to join one of the many walks taking place in various locations across the country, as well as in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Hosting these events is Autism Speaks, the nation’s largest non-profit organization devoted to helping the autistic community. In 2006 alone, Autism Speaks raised over $33 million dollars and committed $25 million to scientific research that helped fund multiple projects, including innovative research studies that could potentially advance autism treatment and therapies.

The “Walk Now for Autism” fundraiser is Autism Speaks’ signature fundraising and awareness event. Families and friends of those affected with Autism Spectrum Disorders are the primary participants, in addition to numerous volunteers that make this event possible. It’s not necessary to have a child with autism or work for an autism research organization to join the fun. Everyone is welcome to participate in the walk or even create their own fundraising team. Help spread autism awareness, while raising money for further research.

For more information, check out the following links:

Click Here for a list of locations and dates for the various walks!

Click Here ^{to join TEACHTOWN’s team for the Seattle Walk on October 13th}

^{Click Here to obtain details for the upcoming Seattle Walk}

In a recent About: Autism Spectrum Disorders posting, the top 10 treatment approaches for autism were listed along with helpful links for each of these approaches.  The top 10 were determined by popularity, research, and most effective overall.

The top 10 listed were:

1) Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)

2) Speech Therapy

3) Occupational Therapy

4) Social Skills Therapy

5) Physical Therapy

6) Play Therapy

7) Behavior Therapy/Positive Behavior Support

8) Developmental Therapies

9) Visually-based Therapies

10) Biomedical Therapies

I would like to see a similar list, in order, of those that are the most research-based and have evidence of effectiveness with the largest number of children with autism.  Organizations such as the National Autism Center are dedicated to coming up with good ways to make these kinds of lists and to develop rankings for treatment approaches which will be based on research and effectiveness for ASD.  This project is called the National Standards Project and the expert panel and conceptual reviewers include a prestigious group of autism researchers including several of our TeachTown science advisory board members including Dr. Ilene Schwartz, Dr. William Frea, and Dr. Aubyn Stahmer.

I would also like to see more studies on technology and which programs are effective and which ones are not.  It won’t be long before Computer-Assisted Instruction is added to the list above, I just hope that developers, and perhaps more importantly, university researchers continue to conduct the necessary research to keep improving these programs.

**Please see comments from the author of the ABOUT blog, she makes some excellent comments and I completely agree with her!**

With the success of our first program, TeachTown: Basics, we were getting very antsy to start our next product to help school-age children with autism.  We are thrilled to announce that we have received a Department of Education Stepping Stones Technology grant to develop our next product and to do the initial research to help make this product effective, appropriate, and of the highest quality.  Stayed tuned for further updates about this upcoming product, we are anticipating using the new program with children starting in 2008!

To read more about our exciting news, check out the press release at: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=69034

Continue checking back to this site and the TeachTown website for announcements and opportunities to participate in our research and development process.