Do You Like Camping?

Registration is going strong for our 14th KindTree - Autism Rocks Camp / Retreat at Baker Boy Scout Camp on Siltcoos Lake near Florence, Oregon. From 4pm Friday, August 27, through 1pm Sunday the 29th, we will all gather for our Family Reunion, as some returning guests have described our camp. Others call it a Tribal Gathering. I just call it a lot of fun - and I am on duty most of the time! Maybe I have fun because my volunteer jobs include playing guitar at the campfire, greeting guests as they arrive and being there to answer your questions. Too much fun.

If you are looking for a place where you don’t have to use your inside voice, where everyone there knows what you are going through, where you can chose just what you want to do, where the food is great, where the sun shines and the breezes blow - well, then you gotta come on down to KindTree! Thanks to the ASO and other donors, we have some scholarship funds available. Visit www.kindtree.org for the scholarship form and other information, or find the registration form. We look forward to seeing you. Don’t wait too long...

We are dusting off some long neglected art pieces to join our most recent ones for display at the Jazz Station downtown during July. It’s gonna be great. Come join us for a celebration of artists with autism on the First Friday Art Walk, July 2nd, 5pm. These artists truly deserve your support, and the Jazz Station is providing music and refreshments. Cool, man.

State budget cuts could have a devastating effect on supports for people living with autism. Unstable funding has been an Oregon problem for years. This news has helped spur our Board of Directors to take the initiative and move forward ourselves on some of our long term goals:
1. Develop additional services in the arts, expanding our Art Program and creating more opportunities for artists we serve.
2. Provide better access to our Camp for more severely disabled folks through higher staff ratios and new equipment.
3. Move to a facility with office space, art space, and hang out space to better sustain the sense of community we share at the Camp.

To achieve this end we have contracted with Roger Durant (www.conciergeoregon.com), formerly of Direction Service, to bring his development and fundraising expertise to our efforts. Roger has some great ideas to help us recruit effective new board members and reach our goals. You can expect new things from KindTree - Autism Rocks in the coming months, yes you can!

Thanks for listening
Tim Mueller

From the Parent of an Artist

The CDC rates for autism are 110. The pediatric report lists autism rate at 1 in 91. Some states such as California have an eightfold increase in autism. 13 states have reported an infinite increase in autism. Autism is increasing worldwide. What does this mean?

Right now there are not enough programs available to help all autistics. ABA training is expensive and not all states cover it. We need to get our elected officials aware of these facts and push for more funding to be made available for our kids and adults on the spectrum.

Right now most programs are for children under the age of 18. Once a child turns 18 they are considered to be an adult and no longer can they get services. This is what makes me so angry. As the mother of an autistic daughter who is 27 it makes me so frustrated that there aren't any programs available to help her.

This is what I have also written to my elected officials about. Don't they realize that autism is a lifelong disorder and they don't grow out of autism once they become adults. So what happens to those that have become adults? They are left to fend for themselves.

Because of the sudden drop of all services many of these adults with autism also develop anxiety and depression. One report stated that 85% of adults with autism have developed anxiety and depression issues. I hope and pray that in the next few years that our elected officials wake up and start providing services for the life of our children. - Robin Deutsch

9 % Budget Reductions Announced!

“Many of the programs we have fought to create over the past 25 years are either identified for complete elimination or are being seriously damaged by these reductions. Our history of institutionalizing people in horrific conditions is creeping back into our current environment.  Most of these service cuts are programs provided through the private sector. They are cost effective and support some of Oregon’s most vulnerable citizens, children and adults with developmental disabilities. This will be a tragedy for them and for Oregon.  We need to ask ourselves who we are as citizens and develop the political will to create better long term and comprehensive solutions for vital services” - Margaret Theisen, Chairperson - DD Coalition

The Governor recently released the list of state agency reduction proposals designed to address the $577 million dollar General Fund hole in the 2009-2011 budget. The specific reductions in Seniors and People with Disabilities and education are posted on the DD Coalition website. The Governor and legislative leadership will be reviewing the reductions to determine whether a special session will be required.

The Governor issued the 9% across the board reduction order two weeks ago based on the low May revenue forecast and the pending loss of the enhanced Medicaid match provided Oregon through the stimulus dollars in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.The 9% reduction in Seniors and People with Disabilities means an approximate loss of $44 million General Fund / $45 million Federal Funds and $10 million Other Funds.

It is projected that the budget hole for the 2011-2013 biennium will be over $2.5 billion and the projected reductions will be significantly deeper.

What can you do?
- Contact your Federal Congressional Delegation immediately and urge support for continuation of the higher federal Medicaid match rate that will temporarily offset the budget reductions to people with disabilities and families in Oregon. ?
- Stay informed! Read the Network Action Alerts and GO! Bulletins and take action when requested. ?
- Get others to join the Oregon Network. Our strength is in our numbers!!  www.ocdd.org
- Attend the local meetings held by your legislators and talk about the importance of the services you receive.
- Check the DD Coalition website regularly for Fact Sheets and updated talking points.    

“We have seen tough budgets in the past, but those pale in view of what we are facing in the coming years. As a community, we need to work together with all our friends and partners to assure that we are not dragged back to the time where people with disabilities are warehoused and families are forced to make horrific decisions about out of home placements for lack of supports.”- Kathryn Weit, Policy Analyst - Oregon Council on Developmental Disabilities 

Children with autism can succeed if they get help early

June 01, 2010 By Haidee Copeland Southern Oregon Mail Tribune

With graduation looming, parents of eighth-graders have undoubtedly been informed of new, tougher requirements for earning an Oregon high school diploma. For students with disabilities, the academic track to earning the standard diploma will require passing grades in a foreign language, social studies and algebra. This goal is within reach for students with disabilities such as autism, but here are a few sobering facts.

Approximately 7,934 school-aged children in Oregon receive special education services under the qualifying condition of autism. Eighty percent of students with autism spectrum disorders receive the general education curriculum with "some" to no modification. However, approximately 60 percent of individuals with ASD are unemployed.

What are we doing wrong? What makes the difference between surviving high school and positive post-secondary outcomes such as employment and future educational opportunities?

I believe the answer lies with transition planning. Transition planning is part of the individualized education program each child 16 or older in special education receives. In my opinion, this is too little, too late.

But what if you started early? We know it is easier to learn a second language as a young child. Wouldn't it make sense to begin transition planning in elementary school? Not that the child's long-term goals wouldn't change, but it is easier to modify a plan in motion than to start from scratch later on.

The experiences of Kathy and Henry Bevan and their son, Ben, are a shining example of what is possible if you start the transition process early. Ben is a senior at Cottage Grove High School who will be graduating this spring with a standard diploma and will attend community college in the fall. Ben has Asperger syndrome, a form of autism. The educational process that has brought him this far has not been an easy one for Ben, his parents or his teachers.

In the third grade, Ben could not learn his multiplication facts. This soon left him far behind his peers.

Kathy knew that if things didn't change for Ben soon it might significantly affect their shared dream of his attending college. By late elementary school, a compromise was reached: Ben would receive the general education curriculum and be allowed to use a calculator for math facts. Ben went on to receive an A in algebra.

But what if Ben's parents hadn't been concerned with his transitional goals in elementary school? Would he be preparing to walk across the stage and receive his diploma as he is now? While no one can answer for sure, it seems highly unlikely with a "wait and see" attitude by his parents or his teachers. Each academic and social success builds upon the one before, widening the gap between those who achieve grade-level norms and those who do not.

What is the takeaway message? If you know a child with autism, help the child work toward long-term goals. Start transition planning early. Start now. Revise goals instead of starting from scratch in high school. Be the parent who is always at school. Help teachers help your child by practicing academics, social and behavior skills at home. Success starts early.

Haidee Copeland of Cottage Grove holds a master's degree in education and a teaching certificate in math and special education. She is a doctoral student at the University of Oregon College of Special Education and Clinical Sciences.

Lane County Developmental Disabilities
Sub-committee has vacancies

The notice and application for Mental Health Advisory/Local Alcohol & Drug Planning Committee (MHAC/LADPC) vacancies is now open. This committee has a Developmental Disabilities Subcommittee, charged with advising the Commissioners about these issues. You can access the notice and application at:

http://www.lanecounty.org/Departments/BCC/Pages/vacancies.aspx

Running on Dreams
This award-winning novel set in Talent is about a friendship between a teen boy with autism and a popular high school track star

June 14, 2010
By Paris Achen, Sothern Oregon Mail Tribune

In Talent resident Herb Heiman's career as a pantomime and later as an educator, he had a special rapport with children with mental and physical challenges. Heiman drew from those experiences in writing his first novel, "Running on Dreams," about the parallel lives and friendship between Justin, a teenage boy with autism, and Brad, a popular high school track star, set in Talent.

"I just felt it was a niche I could fill," Heiman said. "It has societal as well as personal rewards. I could make a difference, which is what I hope to do with this book."

The novel recently won the first-place 2010 Eric Hoffer Award in the Young Adult category for independent books. The book's publisher, Autism Asperger Publishing Co., nominated the novel for the award, which is named for 20th century American philosopher Eric Hoffer.

In the novel, Justin is shunned by peers because he's viewed as weird, and Brad initially buys into that stereotype. But through his friendship with Justin, Brad's perception of people with autism gradually changes. Brad slowly discovers that he and Justin have more in common than he previously thought.

The novel is written in first-person from the perspective of Justin, giving readers a glimpse into the mind of someone with autism. Brad's perspective is written in third-person.

The character, Justin, is based on a student with autism with whom Heiman worked, though his name was changed in the novel.

"He had not been in mainstream schools until middle school," Heiman said. "We hit it off right away. Some of the scenes were taken from real life and some were not, but the substance of the character is there."

"He was in such need, and at that time the schools were not as equipped for students with autism," Heiman said. "Mainstream kids were not ready to accept kids who had seizures, stuttered or couldn't form two sentences."Lia Park in Ashland and Crater Lake National Park are among the settings in the novel.

Laurel Prchal, Talent branch library manager, said she plans to highlight the novel for young adult summer reading programs.

"The kids will be really excited about being able to read a book about Talent Middle School," Prchal said.

The novel is educational for students because it sheds light on a condition that has become more and more prevalent in society but that many people still know little about, she said.

Heiman's interest in students with special needs stemmed from his pantomime career.

"We traveled all over the country and performed for a lot of mentally challenged, deaf and sight-impaired students," he said. One experience in particular left a mark on him.

"We worked for a school in Price, Utah, kindergartners through seniors, and all the students were in occupational therapy," he recounted. "There was a girl who glided up in a wheelchair, totally uncommunicative. I performed a skit where I blew myself up as a balloon, and when she saw me, she puffed herself up, too. The teachers started crying. They told me it was the first reaction she had shown in two years. It was a moving experience and one that I have never forgotten. It affected me intensely."

Heiman has lived in Talent for the past 18 years. He teaches tai chi at the YMCA, as well as reading and writing through Southern Oregon University's summer talented and gifted program.

"Running on Dreams" is available for purchase at www.asperger.net.
For more information on the novel, see www.runningondreams.com

ASO Respite Program:
Take a Break on ASO
ASO-LCC will help pay respite care expenses while you
Take a Break.
Read more here...

What’s the Most Fun Ever?

KindTree’s Autism Camp

Retreat / Camp Cabin Facts

Thinking of Joining us at our Autism Camp / Retreat? Wanna stay in a cabin? Before you sign up, read this.
•At Baker Boy Scout Camp, we share the cabins. That means you may be sharing the cabin with someone who you don’t know, who may stay up with the light on, or snore, or be your best friend. Please be prepared for this.
•The cabins have been used by boys all summer before we get there. Sometimes they seem very tired and old and ... Rustic. They are not modern condos

Where is Michelle?

As some of you may have heard, I have recently moved from my native home of Eugene to live with my fiance in Maui. It is a big change and I am very excited to have found the love of my life and live where I used to have to save my money, vacation time and timeshare credits to visit every year.

Life is really good here. I do miss seeing you Eugene folks around town and being there for the art shows and social outings. I am still helping to organize volunteers for the retreat this summer and will give it my best to be there with all you camp-goers.

I hope that you are all having a fabulous summer and following your dreams. 

Much aloha, Michelle Jones

In Memoriam:
 

Nan Grey Hawke
(formerly Nan Lester)
passed away unexpectedly on May 6th, 2010. Our thoughts are with her family.

Life is what happens to you
When you’re busy making other plans

Eugene Adaptive Recreation:
Accessible Pursuits

Are you looking for an exciting and rewarding event for your group or organization? Organizations, agencies and individuals can participate in Adaptive Recreation Services' Accessible Pursuits.

This program brings the expertise and resources of the City of Eugene Adaptive Recreation Services to design an adaptive recreation program that meet your specific needs.

Accessible Pursuits focuses on helping participants discover their own innate talents, acquire greater independence, and develop enduring peer group relationships that are instrumental to improving the quality of their lives. Let Accessible Pursuits bring fun directly to you. For more information contact Patty Prather at 541-682-6365.

Custom Events can include:
- adaptive cycling
- snowshoeing
- kayaking
- river rafting
- adaptive art
- rock climbing
- adaptive water ski sports

ASO Lane County
Social Skills Class

The ASO Lane County Chapter is sponsoring a Social Skills Class and scheduled social outings on alternating months for adults with HFA and Aspergers who can get around independently in the community. The Social Skills class is free. The Autism Society of Oregon will help to subsidize entry fees for the activities. 

During the Social Skills Class, conversation skills will be taught, role-modeled and practiced. Doris Germain, an Autism Specialist in the Linn-Benton School District, is volunteering her time to teach the Social Skills Class. Her expertise in teaching social skills has been learned from 20 years of working with people on the spectrum. 

The Social Skills Class is taking place on  the 3rd Monday of odd-numbered months from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at St. Mary's Episcopal Church on 13th and Pearl in Eugene. The Social Skills Class will choose the activity for the following month's Social Outing. 

The Social Outing is taking place sometime during the weekend of even-numbered months-- on Friday evening or Saturday, depending on the activity chosen by the previous month's Social Skills Class. There will be no Social Outing in August because of KindTree-Autism Rocks' Autism Retreat. 

Activities have included karaoke, a picnic at Alton Baker Park, a trip to OMSI, a trip to the coast, the Asian Celebration. 

If you have questions, call ASO chapter representative Mary-Minn Sirag at 541-689-2228 or email sirag@mindspring.com

Do you know a young adult with autism who loves animation and graphic design? What if that person could learn their craft in a working studio and make a living?

Exceptional Minds

Exceptional Minds is a non-profit vocational center and working animation studio featuring artists on the Autism Spectrum.  Exceptional Minds provides visually-gifted young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder with individually customized instruction to support, nurture, and develop their amazing creative skills with the ultimate goal of enabling them to earn a fulfilling living in the fields of animation and graphic design.  Exceptional Minds provides the crucial bridge between high school and the working world.  Classes start September 2010.

Media Enrichment Academy

Media Enrichment Academy is a after school program where individuals with ASD get to learn, create and express themselves through computer graphics, animation, and technical drawing. 

Both Programs are held at: Media Enrichment Academy14245 Ventura Blvd, Suite 101, Sherman Oaks, CA  91423Phone:  (818) 426-1181

Exceptional Minds here:  http://exceptionalminds.org/

More on Media Enrichment Academy here: http://www.mediaenrichment.com/Welcome.html

Community Calendar

July 1 - 31 the Best of Autism Artism, at the Jazz Station, on Broadway in Eugene. First Friday Art Walk event, July 2, 5 - 8pm.

August 6 - 7, Brews & Blues Festival with KindTree - Autism Rocks art booth. Come see us and get a dose of the Blues!

August 27-29 KindTree Autism Camp/RetreatTOOOO FUN!! registration available NOW.

October 1st ASO's Fall Conference will be for adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder, their parents/caregivers and professionals working with the adult population.
Friday, October 1st at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR. With Lee Grossman, President and CEO of Autism Society (formerly known as Autism Society of America). There will be several break out sessions on various topics and an exhibition hall of agencies and non-profits who supports adults with ASD. More to come as things develop.

From Spectrum Training Systems
(920) 749-0332 www.SpectrumTrainingSystemsInc.com
October 5 - 6, 2010 Inclusion and Adolescent Transition in Autism Spectrum Disorders Seattle, WA 
Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - The Inclusive Classroom, with Paula Kluth, Ph.D. 
Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - Bridges to Adulthood for Learners with ASDs, with Peter Gerhardt, Ed.D. 
November 1 - 2, 2010 Career Planning for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders With James Emmett, M.S. Spokane, WA

Mary-Minn's Stim Page

(Here are personal stories about autism. If you would like to see your musings on this page, please email Mary-Minn at sirag@mindspring.com.)

The substance of my memories and dreams

I have only two memories from the time before I learned to talk. My first one is looking down from a small airplane onto a flat green landscape punctuated by trees and houses. There’s an indication of having been air sick but no residual dizziness or feeling in my gut. There is a pleasant memory of the engine’s sound, rich in overtones and melody. I think the part about seeing out of the windshield must be a “memory extension” rather than a factual reality.

That memory would have been from when I was flying with my father from Orlando to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I was 3-1/2. My father and the pilot, even myself, were an invisible backdrop, a “natural flavor”, as it were, homeopathically diluted. There were no other people inhabiting this dream. My father tells me that I was running up and down the aisle, placing my ear on the floor to hear the engine better. It is hard to distinguish his recollection from my memory.

“Though my dreams are not exactly pleasant or comforting, neither are my favorite movies or books. I like my consciousness to be shifted to new angles, my moods to new atmospheric flavors and abstract forms. ”

My second memory is of my younger brother pooping little pellets on the floor. His trousers are off. I am looking down from the landing of the staircase going up to the bedroom. I must have been 4, when my parents and siblings were visiting me at my grandparents’ farm in Iowa. The memory is emotionally flat except for my incredulity.

My early childhood memories are bald and factual. On the other hand, my dreams from back then were terrifying. They lingered after I awoke, ambushing me with fiends from the night.
By the time I was attending kindergarten, I had mastered speech and my memories become more frequent. Though I didn’t learn to talk until I was almost 5, my consciousness after then must have been verbal, for my memories became more frequent and clearer, probably because they had more context to latch onto.

The people inhabiting my memories, however, remained implied rather than explicit, a backdrop to the imagistic and atmospheric, the real substance. The emotions of my more distant memories are detached, observing.

I remember a scene with white lace curtains against white sky and snow, dark wallpaper with a busy pattern, dark wood; heavy, ornate furniture; sitting still, almost so still that depth flattens; a smell of well-dusted old wood furniture. Perhaps I was bored of sitting there, but I can only surmise that, after the fact. Another memory is of bleeding hearts against snow and, again, white sky. Again, I may have been ready to go inside because it was so cold, but knowing my awareness of feeling and sensation, I probably wasn’t fully conscious of how my body felt or what my mood happened to be at the time.

By far, the most memorable and substantial quality of my dreams and more distant memories are atmospheric--of weather, colors and spatial orientation. (When I was in third grade, I wanted to be a meteorologist.) My dreams contained an implicit map of routes--roads, canals, elevated trains. I remember the floor plan of every house I have lived in, but not so much the furniture, paintings or decorative features. Both my memories and dreams are filmed, as it were, in a specific coloristic style and architectonic structure. The “color specs” include palette and color scheme, reflective quality of the color, brilliance or diffuseness, whether the light is scintillating or flattened.

My strong geographical and architectural dream sense stand in sharp contrast to my poor sense of direction in waking life. The space of my dreams can be visualized aerially as well as from the “camera angle” and can be easily mapped onto paper, even after I have awakened. My dreams are perceived from specific visual perspectives—looking down from a staircase landing, walking through a flat camo-brown colored, dank maze. People in the dream, including myself, are implied, taken for granted, devoid of individual personality.

Over 30 years ago, the only visually distinct dream character that has inhabited a dream of mine showed up. She was wearing cherry-red reflective lipstick, a tight reflective dress and red stiletto heels. She was leaning up against a shiny enamel-red convertible. A creature more architectural than human, she was no one from my waking life.
My dreams come in series. Each episode is plopped, as it were, into existing architectural and situational templates, the color schemes and atmospherics evolving over time, gradually mutating into new series.

The people inhabiting my dreams are either “We”, “They”, or “I”. Other than a few rare stand-ins for people I know in “real life”, the characters in my dreams are nobody in particular. Even the “I” in my dreams is an impersonal stand-in. Indeed, “I” would be a third-person except for the technical fact that the dream is seen through the camera of “my” eyes. Though “I” am a mere fingerprint of my wakeful self, I am never anybody else.

The emotions in my dreams are minimal, residual, generally no deeper than anxiety or frustration--missing boats, getting on the wrong train. When I awaken, the residual feeling from the dream is affect more than emotion. Though my dreams are not exactly pleasant or comforting, I savor them as long as I can manage to stave off the cruel insult of waking consciousness.

When I was little, especially, I had days of déja vu, when inchoate dream flashes leaked out from sleep into my wakeful state. At such times, the barrier between sleep and wakefulness was diaphanous. These shimmerings flitted through inter-dimensional worm holes, instantaneously popping open and sealing off the whisper-thin prisms separating dream from thought. This moment of permeability was but a gasp into somewhere that is normally unreachable, even through distant corridors of imagination.

Though my dreams are not exactly pleasant or comforting, neither are my favorite movies or books. I like my consciousness to be shifted to new angles, my moods to new atmospheric flavors and abstract forms. I feel deprived when wakefulness shoves away all residue of the night, leaving in its wake a mundane barrenness. I would rather risk a fitful and shallow sleep that skims over the watery surface like a flat pebble than cloak the ambiguity of nocturnal awareness in the torpor of sleeping pills.

Mary-Minn Sirag

Read more of Mary-Minn's Stim Pages HERE

Depending on You

Greetings KindTree - Autism Rocks Supporters,

This issue marks your first opportunity to register for KindTree - Autism Rocks Autism Camp / Retreat 2010. (Online credit card registration will begin in April.) We all get together and have a long weekend of fun with each other. Arts and crafts, karaoke, swimming, great food, fun in the woods. This year TR Kelly will be returning to our Saturday night stage. She and partner Randy are also developing a great concept for the Stage - it will be a true “event!” Come join us again, or for the first time.

Our board is planning for a new event in 2011, and don’t anticipate a major fundraiser this year. “Lunch with Harvey” generated $1500 in scholarships for folks to attend the Camp / Retreat in 2009. This year those folks will be depending on you. Please give generously so families can attend who would otherwise not be able to afford it. Just fill out YOUR NAME on the registration form and circle the amount in the “scholarship donation” box. An average family of 3 with their own tent would pay only $175 for the whole weekend. How much can you help with?

Volunteers on the KindTree - Autism Rocks board make plans and put them into action. These volunteers really make KindTree work because they find tasks to engage in that they enjoy, and have the energy for. Four such folks have just retired from KindTree’s board - David Walcutt, Franklin Michael, Elizabeth King and Rhonda Way. All of these giving people have earned our heartfelt “thanks.” All of them continue to be active in the Autism Community, and making the world safer for their kids. The world is better with them in it.

This does leave us with some vacancies on our board. If you would like to join us as volunteers in planning and action, please don’t hesitate to call 541-689-2228. You may have just the talent we are looking for. Come try us out and help us make that safe place where we can just be ourselves.

We will be celebrating Autism Awareness Month this year with our annual “Autism Artism 2010” art show, with a Gala Opening April 3rd at Territorial Vineyards in the Whiteaker. There will also be a reception on the “Last Friday” community art walk. See the calendar for dates. Some great pieces were submitted to the show as it seems the quality and charm of the art improves every year. Our poster features a new artist to us, one who has won many awards. Please stop by and support our local and beyond artists with autism. They do so like to see you. The April 3rd event also features the presentation of KindTree - Autism Rocks “Thanks to You” award, Dave Rogers on guitar, and Her Majesty Queen Anislugsia. Come share the love.

Thanks for listening
Tim Mueller

"Thanks to You" Award Winners

Raven Frame Works -
Eugene Freezing and Storage

Every year KindTree - Autism Rocks honors people or organizations who have made a significant and long lasting contribution to our success. Past recipients include VP Michelle Jones, former board member and continued participant Gary Cornelius, Support Group facilitaor Nel Applegate, karaoke man Robert Pasley and family, and more.

This year we honor Raven Frame Works. These two people have donated countless hours framing and matting nearly all the pieces that appear in our Autism Artism shows, charging far less that full price. Their work is professional, their attitude beautiful. "Thanks to You", our art program is a success.

Eugene Freezing and Storage is also honored. Putting on our Camp/Retreat is a big job. Buying food for 200 guests and volunteers is a big deal, and where to store all that stuff (cause you can't do that much shopping in one day) could be a big problem. But the folks at EF&S have been there for us for many years, proving cold storage solutions without charge. "Thanks to You", our guests have the best fresh food around.

Both these groups will be presented their award at the Gala Opening April 3. Be there...

Relationship Development Intervention (RDI)

I'm very excited to be in this issue of the KindTree - Autism Rocks Newsletter. I hope to be a part of the community in the months and years to come! I've just moved to Eugene with my wife who is now attending UO pursuing her PhD in Special Education.

I am a special education teacher – MSEd. in Elementary Education – with experience at the high school and middle school levels. I was the lead teacher of a class with students with varying developmental disabilities such as autism, downs' syndrome and cerebral palsy. I immensely enjoyed working in the classroom, but I wanted to work more directly with the family because I believe the family is the child's primary educational and social foundation.

Now, let me tell you a little about Relationship Development Intervention (RDI). RDI is essentially a parent-education program that teaches parents how to carefully provide opportunities for their children to improve their mental processing abilities. To help us accomplish our goals, RDI has outlined hundreds of practical and developmental objectives that will help guide us through the program's different stages. Advancing through the stages, parents will provide opportunities that will rehabilitate the child's neurological functioning, much like how a physical therapist helps a stroke patient re-learn to tie her shoe or even re-learn how to read.

Improving cognitive abilities is a long-term solution for our loved ones on the spectrum. Rather than planning for long-term care, RDI has shown that parents can plan for long-term friendships and quality of life.

If you'd like to learn more, you can attend an upcoming free presentation at Bridgeway House, date tbd. I will go into more detail about how RDI is customized to fit your family's needs, lifestyle, and schedule. You can also get more information by visiting www.JoshKahnConsulting.com.

Reducing anxiety and improving processing ability is certainly possible. This intervention is not complicated, but you will need a consultant to provide analysis, guidance, and a logical series of goals . It is parent-focused because you are the number one teacher. Finally, my ultimate goal is to work toward improving Quality of Life for you, your family, and your child, so that I, the consultant, am no longer needed.

Josh Kahn, MSEd.
541-852-2371

Vitamin D and Autism

This story, from Dr. John Cannel, is about a boy born prematurely (with a twin sister) who developed normally for awhile and then began showing symptoms of autism that worsened during the winter months. Here Dr. Cannel responds to the mothers case story. You can read more at www.vitamindcouncil.org.

“Several things need comment. First, the symptoms are typical of autism. Second, the seasonality of symptoms suggest a vitamin D deficient disease. Third, the treatment in the spring of 2008 seemed effective but, in hindsight, it was simply due to spring sun exposure. Fourth, as you may now know, light boxes for seasonal affective disorder make no vitamin D. Fifth, your pediatrician knows little about Vitamin D other than what committees tell him; your decision to ignore his advice probably saved your son's brain from further injury, as autism is a progressive inflammatory destruction of brain tissue. Sixth, the fact that you needed bed rest and gave birth prematurely suggests you were Vitamin D deficient during your pregnancy.

Seventh, his twin sister has never had autism, despite the same intrauterine environment. This is consistent with my theory, that autism is caused from a quantitative, not qualitative, variation is one of the enzymes that metabolize Vitamin D. That is, there are no structural differences in these enzymes in autism, only a genetically determined difference in the amount present. These enzymes are responsive to estrogen; estrogen protects the brain from being damaged by low Vitamin D, probably by increasing the amount of activated Vitamin D present, explaining why boys are four times more likely to have the disease.

The report that your son deteriorated when his dose was reduced from 3,000 to 1,500 IU suggests autistic children need adult doses of Vitamin D. When you reduced the dose from 3,000 to 1,500 IU/day he worsened although his level on 1,500 IU/day was probably still greater than 50 ng/ml. This makes me think that dosage needs to be stable and suggests that Professor Reinhold Vieth's theory of a detrimental seasonal resetting of the intercellular metabolism of Vitamin D may even be true at levels above 50 ng/ml, where the body is storing the parent compound, cholecalciferol, in muscle and fat.

His current dose of 4,000 IU per day is perfectly safe and will give him a level of 80-100 ng/ml, inside the reference ranges of American laboratories. Toxicity (asymptomatic high blood calcium) begins somewhere above 200 ng/ml. Generally speaking, autistic children should take 2,000 IU per every 25 pounds of body weight for six weeks, then have a 25(OH)D blood test and adjust the dosage to get into the high end of the reference range, 80-100 ng/ml.

Although I first published the Vitamin D theory of autism theory 3 years ago, few autistic children are currently treated for their Vitamin D deficiency. This is due to several reasons. One, those who think, correctly, that autism is a genetic disease, stop thinking after that, reasoning that genetic diseases are untreatable. Such thinkers do not understand epigenetics (upon the genome). Vitamin D is probably the heart of epigenetics, as nothing works upon the genome like vitamin D. Finally, as you now know, organized medicine would say you should stop the vitamin D and watch your son deteriorate, which is why slavery to evidence based medicine is fine for scientists and unethical for practitioners.”

Oxytocin and High Functioning Autism

February 18, 2010 — Inhaling the hormone oxytocin appears to improve social interactions in adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD), new research suggests.

The study showed that compared with HF-ASD patients who were given placebo nasal spray, those who inhaled oxytocin could better differentiate between players who interacted with them and those who did not in a virtual ball toss game. In addition, the study also showed that oxytocin enhanced total gaze time when looking at pictures of human faces, particularly in the eye region.

Oxytocin, a hormone synthesized in the hypothalamus, plays a role in delivery and lactation and is also believed to be involved in the regulation of emotions and affiliated behavior.

The study results could eventually lead to a therapeutic approach for patients with HF-ASD, said lead author Angela Sirigu, PhD, director of research and director of the Neuropsychology Group, Institute of Cognitive Science, Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, Lyon, France.

This gives us a hope, a potential, for a treatment, but we need to do more studies to establish how much oxytocin patients need and the effect of oxytocin over time. This small study, incuding 13 people on the spectrum, 11 of them men, is just a start.

Read more here

Older Maternal Age Linked to Increased Risk for Autism in Children

February 11, 2010 — Advanced maternal age significantly increases the risk of having a child with autism irrespective of paternal age, a large population-based study suggests.

The research, conducted by investigators at UC Davis Health System, Sacramento, California, shows that the incremental risk of having a child with autism increased by 18% for every 5-year increase in maternal age.

"These data show that the risk of having a child with full-syndrome autism increases with maternal age, but increased risk from advancing paternal age primarily occurs among younger mothers (<30)," the researchers, led by senior investigator Irva-Hertz-Picciotto, PhD, MPH, write.

According to lead study author Janie Shelton, a doctoral student, the study challenges the hypothesis that the father's age is a key factor in increasing autism risk.

"It shows that while maternal age consistently increases the risk of autism, the father's age only contributes an increased risk when the father is older and the mother is under 30 years old. Among mothers over 30, increases in the father's age do not appear to further increase the risk of autism," Ms. Shelton said in a statement.
The study was published online February 8 in Autism Research.

Read more here

ASO Lane County Social Skills Class

The ASO Lane County Chapter is sponsoring a Social Skills Class and scheduled social outings on alternating months for adults with HFA and Aspergers who can get around independently in the community. The Social Skills class is free. The Autism Society of Oregon will help to subsidize entry fees for the activities. 

During the Social Skills Class, conversation skills will be taught, role-modeled and practiced. Doris Germain, an Autism Specialist in the Linn-Benton School District, is volunteering her time to teach the Social Skills Class. Her expertise in teaching social skills has been learned from 20 years of working with people on the spectrum. 

The Social Skills Class is taking place on  the 3rd Monday of odd-numbered months from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at St. Mary's Episcopal Church on 13th and Pearl in Eugene. The Social Skills Class will choose the activity for the following month's Social Outing. 

The Social Outing is taking place sometime during the weekend of even-numbered months-- on Friday evening or Saturday, depending on the activity chosen by the previous month's Social Skills Class. There will be no Social Outing in August because of KindTree-Autism Rocks' Autism Retreat. 

Activities have included karaoke, a picnic at Alton Baker Park, a trip to OMSI, a trip to the coast, the Asian Celebration. 

If you have questions, call ASO chapter representative Mary-Minn Sirag at 541-689-2228 or email sirag@mindspring.com

Mary-Minn's Stim Page

(Here are personal stories about autism. If you would like to see your musings on this page, please email Mary-Minn at sirag@mindspring.com.)

School Daze

When I entered kindergarten in Iowa, I changed my name Mary-Minn to Mary. Mary reflected my new non-autistic identity. The common name allowed me not to stick out, not to be found out. In the ‘50s, autistic was an odious adjective, a euphemism for “schizoid personality” or emotional disturbance beyond mere neurosis--a little bit of this and a little bit of that, all of it shameful. Autism had not coalesced into a formal diagnosis. Even after it became a formal diagnosis, it took over 40 years for the diagnosis to be helpful. What treatments existed were draconian and inhumane. People with physical disabilities were sequestered into “special” programs, hidden from the public.

Nobody told me that children with mental illness and intellectual disabilities were locked up in institutions but I knew it. The lucky kids who somehow escaped being institutionalized were placed in isolated “schools” for the “feeble-minded”, as “they” were called back then. I probably remembered hearing the psychologists advise my parents to cut their losses and get on with parenting my four siblings, even though I was nonverbal and seemingly oblivious at the time. That was back when people with intellectual challenges were perceived to have no conscious awareness besides hunger, fear and other basic discomforts. They had no real personality.

“P.E. became torture in eighth grade. I didn’t reach puberty until 9th grade, a year or two after my classmates. I was skinny and flat chested. In the shower room, my classmates ridiculed my skinny and underdeveloped figure, unenhanced by a padded training bra. I tore them to shreds verbally until they ignored me entirely. I don’t know what was worse: being ridiculed or ostracized.”

In kindergarten, one of my classmates, who was “not quite right”, peed in his chair. The puddle and the odor made me nauseous. Next thing I knew I was watching myself attacking this kid with a pencil, having heard that lead is poisonous and fully intending to kill him. The last scene of “Looking For Mr. Goodbar” recapitulates my memory of the incident. It was a wake-up call for me. I was horrified by what I had just done. More than that, though, I was terrified that were I ever to attempt to murder someone else, my mental defects would be discovered and I’d be locked up forever. Nobody had to threaten me with that consequence to scare the beejabbers out of me. After that, I learned to sublimate my freakouts into self-injury and disruptive but not violent behavior.

I was infatuated with a classmate, Roxanne. I so badly wanted to be blonde and blue-eyed like her. During recess one day, Roxanne pulled down my underpants and pushed me into a thorny bush. My scratched butt hurt less than the humiliation. I don’t remember if that ended our friendship or not. I was matter of fact about such things, chalking them up to my inferiority.

The summer before second grade, I moved to Lebanon with my parents and siblings. I was so excited about having someone to play with at home, at last. My siblings were never told why I was “different”, probably because my condition was blamed on cold and withholding “Refrigerator Mothers”, and my mother felt to blame. The fact that I not only talked but also performed academically at grade level was proof that I had been cured. Still I was an annoying embarrassment to my family, what with my rocking, humming, grabbing utensils with a fist and stabbing them into food, my difficulty putting together a coherent outfit and dressing myself.

During lunch hour in second-grade, I had my first brush with organized sports. The people on the opposing team became my enemies. I did not understand the concept of friendly competition. Balls made no sense to me. I hated these spherical projectiles that I was supposed to catch and throw but couldn’t. Another game we played was “Boys Against the Girls”. I had no use for boys and the whole cutesy girl and boy thing and wanted to kill the lot of them. I liked fighting but physical contact with anybody besides the person whom I was trying to annihilate made me feel like a deflating balloon skrinkling up when touched. I was in love-hate with one boy. When he kicked the ball, it made a beautiful arc that mesmerized me.

The only athletic pursuits I enjoyed were running, jumping from high places, fighting the neighborhood boys with my brothers. I enjoyed fighting. The rules were simple: don’t hit below the belt, don’t hit the head. The idea was to hurt, not injure. At home, I invented a game called “Brown Eyes Versus the Blue Eyes”, modeled after “The Boys Against the Girls”. I pretended that Patty, my blonde and blue-eyed best--and only--friend, had brown eyes and brown hair so that she could be on my side. I don’t know who played on the blue-eyed side, as none of my sibs were blonde or blue-eyed. I played to kill. Fortunately, I wasn’t any good. I was a wretched sport, furious and devastated when I lost, gloating when I won.

During the summer before third grade, I learned how to swim. I was terrified of putting my head under water. I had no faith that a flimsy rubber inner tube could somehow protect me from drowning. My father held me up on the surface of the water and gently let go of me. To my surprise, I was floating; I didn’t sink to the bottom of the sea and drown. That summer, I learned to dog paddle; many years later I learned the breast stroke with correct breathing. (I never learned free-style, or what we called “the crawl”. Paddling the legs without being frog-legged and breathing properly contradicted each other like patting your head and simultaneously making a circular motion over your stomach.)

I put on plays for myself ritualizing adult social behavior that made no sense and seemed artificial. I put together simple sets. Sometimes I was able to scrounge up an audience. In 4th grade, I was given puppets and a puppet stage for Christmas, so I moved on to puppet shows.

On dreaded sunny days during the winter, my sister Noonie, my best friend Patty and I roller-skated. There were no large flat surfaces so we skated on the narrow sidewalk flanking our neighbor’s summer villa. The sidewalk was a foot up from the garden. My balance was precarious and I was scared of falling. I skated timidly, looking down at the sidewalk, my knees locked, both skates on the terra firma at all times. My only way of stopping--and the only thing I enjoyed about skating--was to twirl around, my arms hyper-extended horizontally to the ground, my fingers twinkling fiercely in an effort to further slow myself down.

I was able never able to spirit Patty away from roller-skating but indoctrinated her that team sports were a stupid waste of time. We whiled away our lunch hour in the shade, plotting the course of our next weekend together, while our benighted classmates played ball and, if they were girls, jumped rope, both of which were impossible for me.

Seventh grade P.E. was a blessed respite from the unseemly combination of balls and teams. We spent the year learning gymnastics. I was skinny and supple, so I could sit on the top of a human pyramid without crushing the people standing below me on the pyramid. I learned how to do headsprings, necksprings and a gracefully slow back walkover, but never mastered cartwheels, handsprings or backsprings. I refused to get on the treacherous balance beam or parallel bars.

The teacher, Mrs. Turmelle, spent more time with me than with anybody else. At the time, I thought that I was her favorite student. In retrospect, though, Mrs. Turmelle, like my kindergarten and first grade teacher, probably found working with me an interesting challenge. The following year she became a guidance counselor and abandoned coaching.

After that, teams and balls took over P.E. There was a short track season, which was a relief because there were no teammates to disappoint with my bad performance. Though I wasn’t athletic, I took long walks and biked a lot at home, so I possessed stamina, agility and strength. I came in second in the 50-yard dash and was strong on my relay team. The one week we did archery, I did surprisingly well. These lacunae of athletic competence served only to infuriate my teammates.

P.E. became torture in eighth grade. I didn’t reach puberty until 9th grade, a year or two after my classmates. I was skinny and flat chested. In the shower room, my classmates ridiculed my skinny and underdeveloped figure, unenhanced by a padded training bra. I tore them to shreds verbally until they ignored me entirely. I don’t know what was worse: being ridiculed or ostracized.

In 1969, when I was in the 10th grade, P.E. was becoming another uncool thing to disdain. One day during track, the P.E. teacher required a girl who was sick to run the mile and she passed out. A bunch of us rebelled by running backwards, skipping, walking—everything but running forward. Now, that was my kind of team sports!

In the middle of 10th grade, our family moved from Lebanon to a small town in western Maryland. The school was in Brunswick, a scrappy railroad town near the foothills of the Appalachians. When we moved there, my brothers and I were the first students at Brunswick High who had lived outside Maryland, let alone abroad. We were teased for being camel-riding Ay-rabs. My brothers were beaten up. The boys followed me in the halls like the rats of Hamlin, ridiculing my gait, rocking and ticcy speech mannerisms.

P.E., beehive hairdos, cat’s eye glasses and “natural” colored wigs were still cool in Brunswick. The team captains chose me after the fat girl with the glandular condition. At least she planted herself in one place and could be played around. I, on the other hand, dashed around the volleyball court, trying to hit the ball but blocking my teammates instead. They placed me in the nether reaches of the field, far removed from where the ball was supposed to go. I spent that time autopsying in my mind what I should have said to Dixie when she tripped me in the shower.

The girls on my team threatened to beat me up after class. All the while, our teacher was yelling at us between hollow cheeked inhalations of Camel Filters to run faster, catch the ball this time. I envied the girl who was sidelined with a heart condition. Chronic illness was the mark of a 19th century Russian heroine, brave in her pallor, tragic in her evanescence. How badly I wanted to be mourned! How guilty my tormentors would feel after my untimely death! My intellect and acts of courage, unappreciated during my brief life, would shine on--a shooting star, rich with promise.

Are things better now?

Mary-Minn Sirag

Read more of Mary-Minn's Stim Pages HERE

T-shirt Page - many available NOW
Cafe Press Merchandize Page / Holiday Card Pages

C'mon Down!

Summer is over, school has started, Summer Santa’s Frozen Fun is done for the season. Ah, at last I can relax.

No. Wait. Not so fast!

First I must upload art images to kindtree.org for “This is Our Universe”, an art exhibition at Passion Flower Design featuring Stephen Peeler and Mary-Minn Sirag (see an interview with Mary-Minn). Plus, of course, make the note cards and gallery signs while Gary arranges the wine, Michelle arranges the snacks and Raven Frameworks prepares the art. The show begins with a Gala Opening at 5pm October 2. It’s gonna be great!

Then I must process the images for this year’s Holiday Card offerings. (Of course, artists, first you have to send them to me) We are lowering our prices and expanding the choices this year. We will have dozens of designs available as sets of 12 for only $12 - half the price of previous years! Please consider choosing Art by People with Autism for your holiday greetings. Visit kindtree.org soon to make your choices.

Consider visiting Coburg Road area's Baja Fresh between 5 and 9pm Saturday, October 17. Their food is great, and they will donate 15% of your purchase (including Gift Certificates for future dinners) to KindTree - but ONLY IF you have the flyer. Click hear and print. Thanks!

Next is our 6th annual Mask Making Party, a really fun way to get ready for Halloween. We will be creating masks that match your face contours and can be decorated and painted so cool. Lots of volunteers will be there to help. Jed “Mr. Sinatra” Shapiro will be hosting the karaoke stage, and the Star Wars Troopers from Cloud City Garrison will be on hand to keep you in line - in line for a picture with them. People and families with autism are encouraged to attend. We will have earplugs.

Lastly this year comes our revamped autism forum - “A Celebration of Autism”. We’re done with educational panels for now, and instead board member Rhonda Way is leading our celebration of all things autistic. Local people with autism will sing, play, recite, read, break boards with their hands and do all kinds of wonderful things - featuring the awesome TR Kelly and many more. Also included is a giant Art Sale of all our framed pieces in stock.

Please join us for this sharing of talent, this exhibition of all the surprising gifts we possess, this opportunity to see the possibilities instead of the limitations. C’mon down, bring your friends, your family, your students. Sunday, November 8, 2:30pm, the Hilyard Community Center.

So after all that, I will relax. Maybe.

But before we dive in, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Ted Kennedy. When Mrs. Shriver began her work for people with cognitive limitations half a century ago, it was common for mentally disabled people to be placed in institutions that did little more than warehouse them. Through Shriver's programs and hands-on efforts, she demonstrated that with appropriate help, most developmentally disabled people can lead productive and useful lives. She and Ted Kennedy both spent their lives dedicated to supporting those who needed just a little bit more help. Their groundbreaking efforts helped create a world where KindTree can exist, and people with differences can thrive. Thank you.

So. Let’s thrive. I’m thrivin’ now... Oh, yeah!

Tim Mueller

Opportunities:

Autism Rocks - A Celebration of Autism

KindTree Productions is looking for people of all ages on the autism spectrum to participate in an upcoming talent show,  November 8th, 2009 from 2pm to 4:30pm at the Hilyard Center.  Perhaps you're a singer, dancer, musician, poet, magician, short film maker, etc: we want you.  Or maybe you'd like to have us simply display a picture of you with a hobby.  The general public will be invited to this celebration of the Autism Community.  Refreshments will be served.  If you are interested in participating or wish to receive more information please contact Rhonda Way at Rhonda-way@kindtree.org by October 4th.

Oregon Partners in Policymaking Seeks Leaders

Oregon Partners in Policymaking is an exciting and innovative leadership training program for adults with developmental disabilities and parents of children with developmental disabilities. Oregon Partners in Policymaking makes participants better advocates for themselves, their family members, and the greater disability community.  Participants learn about communicating and advocating effectively, services and supports, best practices and approaches, and current policy issues. 
What are the Topics?
During each one-weekend session over the course of 5 months, Partners covers a different topic area, and participants build their communication and advocacy skills.
The concepts and issues presented include:
· Self-determination and self-advocacy
· Whole-life planning: person-centered plans
· Community organizing: how to work together to make systems change, and more...
Oregon Partners in Policymaking is a program of the Arc of Oregon, funded by the Oregon Council on Developmental Disabilities. Application to the program is competitive.
What does it cost?
The training program is free to participants selected to attend.
To submit an application, and to learn more, go here
 Applications are due: September 25, 2009
Selected participants will be notified by October 30, 2009
For information contact: pip@arcoregon.org , Oregon Council on Developmental Disabilities 503-945-9941; Toll free 800-292-4154 in Oregon

Autism Research Study

Child Development & Rehabilitation Center
Oregon Health & Science University - Deadline Extended
WHO: Children (between 2 yrs and 7 yrs) who have an Autism Spectrum Disorder and their parents
WHAT: A full developmental psychology evaluation and a blood draw
TIME: 5 to 7 hours/per visit with multiple visits possible
WHERE: OHSU / Doernbecher Children’s Hospital
COMPENSATION: A full report written by a pediatric psychologist
Contact: CDRC, Autism Study, 503 494-0333

Call to Artists:

Autism Rocks Holiday Cards

We will not be repeating our Holiday Card promotion this year, due to limited sales of a limited group of card sets. Instead we will focus on marketing a wider variety of cards and a wider variety of choices through our website and eFLASH ! newsletters. Please be encouraged to submit your holiday themed design as soon as you can, and we will feature them on the website in early October. art@kindtree.org

From the Studio to the Gallery Scholarships

KindTree received a grant from Lane Arts Council for our Studio to the Gallery program for 2009, renewed again for 2010 (thank you!) as well as a significant 2009 grant from the REX Foundation (thank you, too!). These funds will allow us to again offer ART GRANTS to a few artists. Go here for the application – the deadline is December 1st, 2009.

Recipients will receive a scholarship for an art class or tutor, or assistance in purchasing materials, and will be required to submit a form listing all money spent after purchase of materials or services, with receipts attached.

Grant recipients will be expected to produce at least one submission to the “Autism Artism 2010” Gallery Exhibition, due by Feb 1, 2010, for potential display TBA.

Autism Artism 2010

KindTree will be accepting submissions for Autism Artism 2010 during January 2010. Details will be published later at www.kindtree.org. Please visit or call for details then.

Insight Gallery

This is a Call to Artists with physical and/or developmental disabilities:
The InSight Gallery is accepting submissions in all media; submissions are due September 25, 2009. Call Elizabeth Black (541) 753-1711 for an appointment to submit work for selection, or submit digital images for selection to insightgallery@arcbenton.org.

"The Art of Possibility" at the InSight Gallery,
414 NW Fourth St., Corvallis..
Opening Reception October 10, 2009.
   fax: 541.758.1354
   http://www.arcbenton.org
  kf@arcbenton.org

Holiday cards at www.kindtree.org

ASO Respite Program:
Take a Break on ASO
ASO-LCC will help pay respite care expenses while you
Take a Break.
Read more here...

What’s the Most Fun Ever?

KindTree’s Autism Camp Retreat feedback

The other day I was doing my yearly volunteer thing for KindTree Autism Rocks. I got up early and I would have been at camp Siltkoos at least an hour early for my delivery of fishing poles and giving boat rides. Here is, in order, what went wrong and what was in God's hands.

1. I forgot to put the new tag's on the boat and had to backtrack ten miles to get said tags off my kitchen table, and begin again.

2. At which time I picked up a nail and had to stop and get it fixed. Manager at good year on Mohawk fixed it for free cause he knew where I was trying get to.

3. Clear lake road closed for construction, back tracked to Beltline.

4. Fell off boat onto dock very unceremoniously  much like the drunken sailor I used to be.

5. The water was very choppy and the wind was up, so everyone got wet and cold on the boat rides.

6. None of the life guards had ever been fishing. So as I couldn't be both on the boat giving ride's [One life guard, one Autistic person, and I] and teaching kids to fish,  the fishing must have sucked. But I was happy to have the help.

7. At the last ride of the day my boat engine died, and after trying all I knew to fix it, it still remains deceased.

8. As I got out of the boat onto the dock,  my toe once again snagged on the side of my boat and I fell into the water. The dock was pitching in the wind and tide and I couldn't get up on the dock without the help of two of our lifeguards.

Now that's all the weird stuff.

The good stuff is I had a wonderful day on the water helping people who needed me.After I got out of the water I brushed myself off and started the long walk to the Boy Scout Lodge, maybe 3/4 mi.

The cool part was, one of the Autistic adults ran up to me and said he would walk with me to the lodge. He talked about his life and his dream to meet a girl with the same capabilities as he. He told me the schools he went to and the things he was good at, and the things that were hard for him.

I almost immediately got ok with who I am, and I saw this young man [25 to 30 yrs old] as a messenger of acceptance, humility, and calm serenity.This guy was a gift from my creator.

I began seeing the world through his eye's, albeit only a smidgen, and I felt an overwhelming gratitude for having had many times in my life, what this fellow wanted only once for a moment. This humbled me. Today was busy, but I'm still humbled.         

Thomas Finney, volunteer

Camp/Retreat 2009

Save the date:
August 27-29, 2010

Mary-Minn's Stim Page

(Here are personal stories about autism. If you would like to see your musings on this page, please email Mary-Minn at sirag@mindspring.com.)

Why I Am Not Autistic

I wonder whether I’m really autistic. I feel normal. It’s 8-ish in the morning, not 10:00, and I’m fully awake. I was able to get up as soon as I first awoke. I made it to bed at what my husband would call a “decent” hour because I was able to get through my bedtime rituals in less than a half hour last night; I even had 45 minutes to read. This morning, I didn’t have to go back to bed for another 15 or 20 minutes before giving it yet another college try.

My brain feels crystal clear. I woke up cheerful and optimistic this morning. My husband and I meditated for a half hour, and I was able to focus for about 3 breaths. I feel invigorated and calm. I take a leisurely shower. I look at my various scents and am able to resist slathering myself with one of them. I work with someone who’s chemically sensitive. This morning, I am perfectly fine with no scent to protect me from the little stenches that usually chip away at my well-being.

I have time to read the paper this morning. I read the front page rather than cutting to the chase and reading the horoscope and the weather first. I turn on The Marriage of Figaro while I make myself breakfast. We forgot to pick up eggs, so I make myself a bowl of oatmeal instead. I actually have time to listen to the first CD. It’s wonderful waking up to my favorite opera.

“I see fatigue as a balloon filled with bad breath. Dreams are infinitesimal holes punctured by sleep that ever so slowly fizzes out the foul-breathed fog.”

My neighbor revs up his Harley. My central nervous system does not bristle up from the inside from the shattering low overtones, which pleasantly surprises me. I can’t believe it!

I am well rested and centered inside my body. I look at the clock and it’s earlier than I thought, even taking into account that my husband set it 5 minutes later than it is. Usually it takes me twice as long to keep on moving forward to the climactic moment of leaving the house.

The phone rings and the ringing does not irritate or disappoint me. My friend wants to just check in with me. Even though we spent over three hours just yesterday on our weekly walk down to and back from the Rose Garden then a longer than estimated foray to Costco and the World Market, I am in the mood to connect with her this morning. Nothing much has happened since yesterday but I have plenty of time to chat this morning. It’s still early.

In the meantime, my tea has gotten lukewarm but so what. I don’t have to pop it into the microwave to return it to its original scalding temperature and then be disappointed by the slightly altered taste. The caffeine content is the important thing, after all.

I bask in a glow of self-righteousness. Usually, I’m not even out of bed by now. I can’t believe how easy it was this morning and how hard I usually make it. The secret to getting up at a reasonable hour is to get to bed at a respectable time. All I need to do is to turn off the computer by 10:00 and move forward through my nighttime ablutions, making it to bed by 10:15. Last night, I didn’t need to stay up perseverating to husband about the future of my jewelry class; I stopped at the end of the chapter of my book rather than sneaking in another chapter. I’m so glad I’ve finally figured this sleep thing out and am looking forward with great eagerness to having more time every morning. I’ve figured this out many times before, but this time I’ve really got it.

What’s so hard about just getting out of bed when I first awake? I can’t believe that it usually takes 3 or 4 dry runs out of my muzzy morass. All I really had to do all along was to sit up, step off the bed, go to the bathroom and take my shower. What’s so hard about that? I don’t have to savor the fading ghost of my fascinating dream, regaling my husband with its every nuance and then plopping back onto my pillow, just trying to figure out what it was really about.

My dreams come in series of set and settings. Why do we have dreams? Why do we sleep? I see fatigue as a balloon filled with bad breath. Dreams are infinitesimal holes punctured by sleep that ever so slowly fizzes out the foul-breathed fog.

I have just started a new dream cycle, set in a Manhattan that’s recognizable only from inside the actual dream. Inside this cycle is a mental map of the train‘s pathway. It’s an elevated subway on a roller coaster track, except that it’s going around horizontal curves rather than up and down. I can take my sense of direction for granted during this dream cycle. I write the dream down and am done with it without falling back into it. This morning, my dream is then, now is now. I get up with no regrets. My husband doesn’t have to prod me to keep moving forward.

Before I know it, I’m ready to leave the house. My launching pad is ready. My purse is on the couch and my lunch is in the insulated zippered box with a cold pack. I go through my checklist again to make sure I have everything. I walk out of the house. I kiss my husband and don’t have to ask him to rush back and bring out my day planner or something else I forgot and can’t live without. I got that all together last night. I am already looking forward to my teriyaki chicken and brown rice, with cucumbers and gomasio, and plum tomatoes picked this morning. My mouth waters in anticipation. I even have some Santa Rosa plums to munch on. For the past week or so, I have been successfully avoiding refined sugar so I am not craving sweets. In fact, they don’t even sound good to me.

I decide to take a different route today just for the heck of it. I think I’ll branch out from my usual lockstep and take a new side street today. I turn on the radio and they just happen to be playing a song that I’d completely forgotten about but that fills a nostalgic hole. The nostalgia washes over me like a puddle of warmth. Usually I’m not very nostalgic about my past. I know all the words so I can sing along with it in full voice without la-la-la-ing it. Although I burned out this song back in 9th grade by rocking to it over and over again until I was good and sick of it, hearing it brings back all kinds of good memories I never even realized I had from that wretched period of my life. The usual negativity is overpowered by the soothing image of palm trees swaying against a stormy Mediterranean sky. In my memory, I’m drawing the palm trees as the dramatic sky as our French teacher Monsieur Schoucair scolds each of us in turn for our various vices. He shakes his index finger at me. “Laziness is my worst enemy. Je deteste la paresse.” He accents the silent “e” in “deteste”. Somebody behind me snickers and my heart feels caught up. But that’s just the way 9th graders are. I let it go, using my image of the palm trees as my personal safe place of repose. That was over 40 years ago, after all.

I am driving well today. It’s already warm out but I have the AC at a perfect temperature. I don’t have to keep on fiddling with the dial to get it just right. I merge effortlessly, anticipating the SUV trying to crowd me out. This time, I was tracking my right, rear-view and left mirrors, as well as in front of me. I feel slightly superior to it all rather than reeling from a near death experience and wishing I never had to get behind the wheel again.

I notice that my mouth is parched, a sign of impending stress. As Bob Dylan sang, “Something is happening, and you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones?” As soon as I get to the stoplight, I reach for my blue Aqua Vista bottle. I take a swig of water and then another.

I pause a second to mentally recite an affirmation, in an attempt to switch my brain back. As one of my students puts it, “I’m calm and in a peaceful mood. I’m. Figuring. It. All. Out.” I feel a crawly tightness on the surface of my cranium. I try futilely to crack my neck. I realize that I’ve mistaken a 2-way stop for a 4-way one, and the other car had the right-of-way. Fortunately, he was paying attention.

I should have taken my old lockstep, where there are protected lefts and no 2-way stops. I forgot that there is a bicycle-only sign that I have to go around it in order to get to Jefferson Street. My brain is not ready for figuring this out efficiently. I curse myself for having such a slow brain. I roll down the windows and shriek in frustration. I feel electric and taste the electric reverberating through my body. My face, especially behind the eyes, is hot. I feel as if my outer skin has been peeled off, but the pain is not physical.

I am autistic, after all. What was I thinking? Oh, well.

Mary-Minn Sirag

Read more of Mary-Minn's Stim Pages HERE

Tell us a about your background in art. . . .

My creativity first expressed itself when I was very young­­ in singing and acting. By the time I was in 2nd grade, I was composing music for myself and making up songs. On my eighth birthday I got a harmonica and discovered I could play tunes on it. I also liked to make up and produce silly plays.

I had no talent whatsoever for art, but that was what my mother encouraged us in, so by junior high, I started to be mistaken for an artist. From the time I was little, my mother (an artist) let us get out of chores if we drew or posed for her, so I put in many hours drawing still-lifes and portraits of my siblings.

You graduated with honors in art from Cornell College in Iowa. Tell us about that time in your life?

By the time I was in college I was fairly proficient, though not very creative. My focus was life drawing. I loved the self-contained perfection and complexity of the human body. Nude is THE perfect form. The thing in drawing . . . it’s all about looking. You spend more time looking at the subject than the paper. You are in dialogue with the subject. I was kept honest by the way that it had to look like something, not just an abstract. To be in “art mind” you have totally empty your head.

When I left college, I moved to New York where I studied life sculpture at the Art Students’ League for a short time. After that, I got horrible artist’s block because I had no model to draw. I moved to the Bay Area, where I lived next to an artist and we did collages together. Eventually, I got bored of the images and frustrated with the poor image resolution.

Tell us a little about how you discovered drawing with the Etch-A-Sketch.

I discovered the Etch-A-Sketch by accident at another friend’s house while living in the Bay Area. I had never been able to draw with it when I was a kid because I couldn’t draw well enough. But that one visit at a sister’s friend, when I was almost 30, represented a quantum leap for me. I picked up the Etch-A-Sketch and drew a portrait then and there.

Etch-A-Sketching gave me renewed confidence. I am fairly ambidextrous. Each hand exercises and relaxes a different part of my brain. When my brain gets tired of writing with one hand, I switch hands to relieve the other hand and clear my head. In junior high, I amused myself in study hall by doing mirror writing and upside down writing. I am now trying to learn how to do vertical Etch-A-Sketch, which requires thinking in a rotationally convoluted way: it’s more complicated than turning the left knob counter-clockwise to make a horizontal left line and right to make an upward vertical line and a combination of the two to make a diagonal one.

You work with many media, now including watercolor. Do you have a favorite?

It really changes for me. I’ve worked with collage, drawing, pen and ink, dabbled in acrylic, and of course the Etch-A-Sketch. I like to let the medium take me over. With any medium, I really like to USE the medium. For instance Etch-A-Sketch masters use really precise lines. I prefer to go with what the Etch-A-Sketch does, to go with the rectilinear quality of the curves. For me, everything is about interaction with the medium. You want acrylic to look acrylic, pencil, like pencil, etc.—not like a photograph, for instance. I like to be spontaneous and interactive with materials instead of conquering materials. If you’re frustrated with a medium, either go deeper with it or switch media.

Mary-Minn, you teach a popular jewelry-making class at the Hilyard Center in Eugene. Can you talk a little bit about your work with jewelry, too?

I became a more serious artist after starting to teach my jewelry class for Adaptive Recreation, which I’ve been teaching since 2001. I went in knowing nothing about making jewelry, but not knowing what I’m doing has never deterred me from teaching other people what I don’t know. We learned together and taught each other, and nobody acted the wiser for it. Jewelry got me into exploring color and functional design. I had never really explored color before. Through a series of circumstances, I started teaching painting, which forced me to think about color and composition in a more freewheeling way. Having never studied painting, I started to invent techniques in watercolor and acrylics in order to teach my students. My art is a series of such experiments.

How do you feel when you’re producing?

My creative process in doing art is mostly experimental. I usually just noodle around, experimenting with different techniques that come up. In the rare instances where I start out with an idea or image, it comes out unrecognizably different from what I started out with. I love the surprises. It’s all different. I do meticulous pen and ink drawings. Though I detest most painstaking tasks, I find the painstaking of pen-and-ink to be very relaxing and grounding.
There’s a lot of inertia. I should go out and sketch everyday. The hardest thing about sketching is just showing up. With anything really “creative” I’m slow at first to get into it. I need about four-five hours and that’s hard to create that block of time, so I need to do art in shorter periods of time, As well as in a more leisurely time frame. Discipline comes in with time management. I like to work with friends. Talking relaxes my brain and it gets more diffuse. When it gets wonderful is when the medium speaks to me in collaboration and dialogue. It takes on a life of its own. The pre-conceived ideas in the beginning metamorphoses into an art space and it doesn’t matter. It becomes a “zen” space and then it’s hard to stop!

Donor and Volunteer Thank You List 2009
Without you....

THANK YOU!!

Better Get Ready

Come One, Come All, see the daring display of skill and finesse, see the handiwork of artists from another planet, a new culture, a different ability, see “Autism Artism 2009 - Better Get Ready!”

LCC Art Gallery will again be the site of our display of beautifully framed, purchasable visual art by local and international artists with autism. From our very own President

Mary-Minn Sirag, to little Leah DeMonia and far off Torger Berstad, there are images to delight, inspire and inform. You can see them online or in person. But the only way to join the party is to attend the Gala Opening June 20, 4 - 8pm (with the program at 6pm) and meet the artists, listen to Zambuko Marimba, enjoy the free refreshments, watch the Eugene Disability Cheerleaders perform and share your thoughts with Mayor Kitty Piercy as she joins us for another celebratory event. Its this weekend, on Saturday. We all had a blast last year. Don’t miss it.

Many of the images and the notecards and prints that feature them, will also be available at Art & the Vineyard in Alton Baker Park July 4th weekend.

Coming this Fall, we will be featuring Mary-Minn and Stephen Peeler in a special show at Passion Flower Gifts on Broadway in Eugene. We hope this event, as well as our Autism Artism 2009 show, will provide an income boost for Stephen, who is in very poor health and may not even survive until November as he has end stage cystic fibrosis and is waiting for a double lung transplant. Whew. His family is asking for help. Stephen is a great guy and a wonderful artist. He frequently sets up residence at KindTree's booth at Art & the Vineyard, creating art on the spot - folks are fascinated. You can help Stephen and his family out by donating to his special account as well as by buying his art. Find out more at www.kindtree.org and plan to join us in early October for the show's opening when we can really show our support.

Our “Lunch with Harvey” fundraiser was a great success, with patrons donating over $1500 for scholarships alone! If you are wishing you could afford to attend our Autism Camp Retreat, now you can. Scholarship applications are available online. Don’t hesitate - join the family.

And for our eager newcomers and returning guests, get your reservations in, space will fill up. We have a great lineup of fun stuff, including a gluten free cooking class with Michelle Cheney, and Nancy Bright to teach us all watercolor techniques. We only do this once a year. We’d love to share it with you and your family.

We are hoping to feature some great local autism videos at our Forum, scheduled for November 1st this year. We may also be able to feature some great commercially produced documentaries. More on that later. Keep the date open. It’s just a few weeks after the Mask Making Party. Can you handle all that fun? I think I can...

Thanks for listening Tim Mueller

Letter to the Editor
Dear Tim, So nice to receive the good news!  As we have been going in and out of the Psychiatry office and the hospital, with Lexi's challenging behavioral issues.  She is in the middle of puberty and has been going through some med changes this year.  We all know how difficult that can be.  We only wish she knew how special she is, we think she rocks too! 
Thank you and KindTree for all you have done with Lexi's creative art.  Lexi's “Mystic” pic, had been chosen as a featured image for this years poster! 
Thank You for the amazing news, it lifted our spirits, during these difficult times!    The Sias Family!      

New Support Group in Portland Helping Spouses of Asperger Syndrome

Dr. Kathy Marshack, is launching a new support group, “Asperger Syndrome: Partners and Family of Adults with ASD,” in Portland, OR. Portland, Oregon, May 11, 2009 –

Licensed psychologist, Dr. Kathy Marshack, is launching a new support group, “Asperger Syndrome: Partners and Family of Adults with ASD,” in Portland, OR. This is not a therapy group, rather a place for people to learn from others and to share their story about the often frustrating and isolating life of loving an adult with Asperger Syndrome Disorder (ASD).

The group is being organized through Meetup.com. Those interested in joining the group in Portland, Oregon can go to http://www.meetup.com/Asperger-Syndrome-Partners-Family-of-Adults-with-ASD/.

“After I posted the first chapter of my new book on my website, I was completely overwhelmed by the huge response from people around the world looking for guidance and support on how to navigate a relationship with a partner with Asperger Syndrome.”

ASO Respite Program:
Take a Break on ASO
ASO-LCC will help pay respite care expenses while you
Take a Break.
Read more here...

What’s the Most Fun Ever?

KindTree’s Autism Camp Retreat
Swimming / Canoeing
Karaoke by CenterStage KaraokeTalent Show
Fabric painting and fashion show
Gluten Free Cooking Class
Arts & Crafts
Participatory Music and Dancing
Movement with Benjamin Luskin
JenaGuru Marimba
Glen Jones in Concert
Non-competative games
Piñata
Reverse Hide-an'-Seek
Campfires and s’mores
Nature Walks / Hikes
Home Cooked Food
Family Networking
Structured Events All Day
Nancy Bright Art Class
Water games and much more...

Retreat Scholarships Available

Thanks to the generosity of party goers at our “Lunch with Harvey” fundraiser, we have scholarships available for our Autism Camp / Retreat.

Mary-Minn's Stim Page

(Here are personal stories about autism. If you would like to see your musings on this page, please email Mary-Minn at sirag@mindspring.com.)

Show Off

In second grade, I was given my first starring role, as Lisa, the Queen of Litterbugs. Lisa was the ringleader of a gang of litterbugs wreaking havoc at a picnic. I got to sing the title song, which went like this: “We’re litterbugs, we’re litterbugs. My name is Lisa and I’ll always be the Queen of Litterbugs.” The title song was a taunt with a similar singsong cadence to the timeless favorite, “Look at the Little Baby”.

This role fit my less than regal personality. I was not one of those girlie-girls who fancied herself a princess. Neither was I one to squander entire afternoons dressing up their Barbies or rocking my Baby Dear. (My best and only friend, Patty, owned a Barbie and a Ken doll. I owned a Baby Dear doll only because Patty did.) I equated girls who dressed up as little princesses with prissy tattle-tales.

The only baby doll I enjoyed playing with was Ehre Der Voyjsh Der Vinn, a peeing savant. My role as mother was to feed her water from a tiny baby bottle and watch her pee. Even back then, I had no trace of maternal instinct. Ehre Der Voyjsh Der Vinn made me laugh until I was a helpless blob of protoplasm squirming helplessly on the floor, my sides hurting, almost wetting my pants, as if in deference of her special talent.

“Mellie’s mother, who was dedicated to her daughter’s academic success, did not approve of me because I distracted Mellie from her true destiny as scholar. ”

I had just moved to Lebanon and, for the first time, was exposed to a large assortment of foreign languages. The elaborate fake-German name I had given Ehre Der Voyjsh Der Vinn was testimony to my devotion to her.

I loved the sound of foreign languages, especially those I made up. I reveled in impossible Slavic heapings of consonants, the scolding cadence of German, and the angry sound of guttural Arabic vowels. R was my favorite consonant because it could be mispronounced in so many exotic ways.
When I could find no one with whom to discuss “philosophy” in my fake-German (my father was a philosophy professor and I loved the grandiose vocabulary), I contented myself with my own nonsense polemics. The longer these two- or one-way conversations lasted, the more intoxicated I became. My siblings and I spoke English in a Lebanese accent with our Lebanese friends, which, doubtless, did their English no favors. Unlike the French, we reveled in English scented by foreign-accents, grammatical flips and roundabout locutions.

Back to the stuff from which great theater is made: Our third-grade class put on a puppet show of Cinderella. We built puppets with paper maché faces and hand-sewn bodies. My evil step-sister’s face was all nose and colored in sinister dark-colored streaks that added up to a globby gray-brown. The precarious connection between her oversized head and messily sewn body resembled my own tenuous brain-and-body connection and poor coordination, when I look back on it.

I must have done a competent job in acting and singing because, for the rest of my elementary school career, I was cast in the starring roles of our school productions, which covered the gamut from cookie-cutter Christmas Pageants to medleys of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. (“The H.M.S. Pinafore” was the first album to which I rocked out blissfully. I acquired it even before the Beatles’ “Hard Day’s Night”.)

I was fearless on stage. I had an excellent memory for lines and a strong voice. I was confident that I could improvise myself out of any slip-up.

Acting and singing to an audience were a consolation for me. I was the third child in a rapid succession of five births, and was, by no means, the funniest of my siblings. My older sister and youngest brother were the mimics with rubber faces and quick wit. My oldest brother and I, on the other hand, inherited our father’s virtuosic whistling and instant knowledge of the harmonica. I was able to sing tongue-in-cheek renditions of songs from the ‘20s that my grandfather had sung, such as “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” as well as in a style loosely approximating comic operetta.

I took the responsibility of my starring roles seriously. My enthusiasm and diligence far surpassed my genius in acting. Between school productions, I practiced my dubious craft. I put on plays and puppet shows of my own, replete with precarious sets and backdrops, thrown together costumes, and a loose improvisational story line that functioned as a script. I practiced my shrieks and facial contortions in front of the mirror to the accompaniment of thunderstorms, with which I’ve always been obsessed. The acoustics of the mountains, where we lived, were particularly bombastic.

Sixth grade was a bittersweet time for me. It heralded the beginning of junior high, a temporary hiatus of theater, as I knew it. On the other hand, I became friends with an Armenian girl called Mellie. She was wilder and more imaginative than Patty; almost as important, she did not roller-skate and had as little use for organized fun as I did.

Her family lived on the 6th floor of an apartment in Ras Beirut, the Europeanized section of Beirut. Her apartment had all the modern conveniences lacking in our big stone house in the mountain village of Beit Meri: hot running water, central heat, a drain beneath the kitchen sink, a bathroom devoid of tarantulas.

The only amenity I truly envied, though, was the built-in audience. Across from her balcony with Danish Modern glass and metal railings were other balconies with Danish Modern railings. At nine o’clock in the evening, we figured that people were getting ready for bed and needed some bedtime entertainment.

Mellie and I regaled them with Ricky Nelson and Dave Clark Five songs (anything more recent, except for the Beatles, was too rough for my overly refined taste); maudlin soap operas, which were contraband; belly dancing, a mainstay of Lebanese television; and TV commercials, which were a hybrid of such Lebanese classics as the Chiclet commercial (in which little kids are showered with Chiclets, an ironic twist on the relentlessly pursuing Chiclet boys in Beirut) and American commercials depicting frustrated middle-aged women in house coats bemoaning their hubby’s ring around the collar; a reassuring doctor with a creamy voice and coiffed Grecian Formula hair representing the precisely-98% of physicians who recommend Anacin for headaches; a cross-section of the face of a man afflicted by post-nasal drip, replete with upwellings of mucous; a nauseous-pink animation of a stomach pulsating “blpb blpb” from heartburn. TV was forbidden fruit. What little we did get to see on the sly went a long way in our productions.

Mellie’s mother, who was dedicated to her daughter’s academic success, did not approve of me because I distracted Mellie from her true destiny as scholar. Mellie, on the other hand, was smart enough to get A’s barely cracking a book, and did not squander this talent of hers. I emulated her study habits, with less brilliant results.

During the summer leading up to 7th grade, Mellie’s family moved to Athens, abandoning me to the onset of other kids’ puberty and the confusing psychedelic 60’s. My acting ability lay fallow.
I resumed my short acting career in 11th grade, but it was never quite the same. I found myself typecast as the crazy old hag or the neurotic middle-aged woman, roles that matched my personality too closely to be challenging for me. At least, my hours in front of the mirror weren’t for naught.

Mary-Minn Sirag

Read more of Mary-Minn's Stim Pages HERE

“I was really awestruck with the topographic diversity of Oregon, as opposed to Minnesota, which is basically a pancake,” he said. “So my interest in geology was kindled (early).”

Last month, Kingsbury joined more than 500 classmates in Fairbanks earning their undergraduate degrees. A geology enthusiast — a self-described “geo-freak,” to be precise — he was one of a handful of graduates who had shaken some fairly unique challenges to earn it. Kingsbury lives with Asperger syndrome, a developmental disorder in the autism spectrum. It’s a disorder that, for the few who experience it — there were roughly a dozen students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks last year who identified themselves as living with degrees of autism or Asperger — makes the college-level leap to independence that much broader of a jump.

Kingsbury’s interest in geology continued through his college search, leading him to Fairbanks. When he chose Alaska, he and his parents visited early to help make things more familiar for his first year. After his sophomore year, he “homesteaded” his dorm room, keeping the same one for the final four years of his five-year track. He visited the school’s disability-services office and learned to take steps to ensure professors knew of his disability and the possibility he’d need a bit of help — extra time on tests or some assignments — if the occasion arose.

Individuals on the autism spectrum who function highly enough to hold jobs or attend school often still receive great benefit from the use of daily structures and routines. They might be heavily reliant on the use of checklists and personal planners, said Betsy Kruth, a specialist at the Alaska Autism Resource Center. Even small inconsistencies in those structures can prove challenging; a canceled class, for example, might prove an anxiety-producing stimulus — through a shift in routine — for someone with autism while others simply enjoy the break, she said.

For Kingsbury, UAF, which is more than 1,000 miles from home in Oregon, provided a key challenge many of his classmates could relate to: the transition to independence. He said Fairbanks proved far enough from home to help “force” him to break some of his reliance on help with many tasks.

“If I would have gone to any college closer to home, I would be calling my parents more often and asking them to pick me up and take me home for the weekend,” he said. “With this location, that wasn’t possible. I had to adapt.”

Kingsley said he worked with the school’s disabilities office to help minimize the impacts of depression that accompanied the transition into school, and he continued studies through the high and low points, retaking a few classes when needed.

“This gentleman went from hanging his head and counting the minutes until his first break to actually, really, totally enjoying himself on campus and the relationships he made,” said Mary Matthews, who directs disability services at the university. Kingsbury avoided using a disability as a crutch and instead looked to meet challenges, she said. “He simply got the job done, and that’s why he will make an excellent employee.”

Some classes proved tougher than others — particularly second-semester calculus — because of difficult material or a professor whose teaching style didn’t suit his learning style. But he said teachers generally worked with him, extending extra time if needed.

The list of fun courses was topped by a summer field geology camp, which landed a handful of students in the eastern Talkeetna Mountains. The group spent weeks mapping folds in the rock patterns across 36 square kilometers and recording the observations on topographic maps, he said.

The work proved fascinating for a fan of rocks. Kingsbury said Alaska’s fault lines — which were knocking Interior Alaska on Monday evening with a series of small earthquakes — have sliced, diced and carved rock beds into complex patterns that prove difficult even for scientists to explain and understand.

“The geology of that region, as well as most other regions of Alaska, is basically like someone stuck a layered cake into a blender and hit the button,” he said.

Kingsbury said he hopes his interest in geology carries him into graduate school. He’d like to be an academic, to conduct research and maybe do some teaching. He said he’s seen figures that up to 7 in 10 individuals on the autism spectrum are either unemployed or only work part time.

“My goal is to get into that other 30 percent,” he said.

Ed Note: Cole attends KindTree’s Autism Retreat

Capturing the birth of a synapse

Published on 27 May 2009, 05:26 Insciences.org

University of Oregon-University of California, Davis, collaboration finds mechanism locking two neurons.

EUGENE, Ore. – (May 27, 2009) – Researchers have identified the locking mechanism that allows some neurons to form synapses to pass along essential information. Mutations of genes that produce a critical cell-adhesion molecule involved in the work were previously linked to autism.

The discovery – captured with fluorescent imaging of excitatory neurons harvested from rat pups shortly after birth and studied in culture as they continued to develop – is described in a paper placed online May 18 ahead of formal publication in the open-access journal Neural Development.

"We've caught two neuronal cells in the act of forming a synapse," said principle investigator Philip Washbourne, professor of biology at the University of Oregon. He describes the cell-adhesion neuroligin proteins on the membranes of receptor neurons as "molecular Velcro."

The research team of six UO and University of California, Davis, scientists found one of many finger-like filopodia, or spines, that reach out from one neuron is nabbed by neuroligin molecules on the membrane of another neuron. In turn, neuroligins recruit at least two other key proteins (PSD-95 and NMDA receptors) to begin building a scaffold to hold the synapse components in place. The moment of locking is captured in a video that will appear with the paper's final version at the journal's Web site.

Two neuroligin family members (3 and 4) have been linked to autism in the last decade.
"Chemical synapses are the primary means for transmitting information from one neuron to the next," said Washbourne, who is a member of the UO's Institute of Neuroscience. "Synapses are initially formed during development of the nervous system, and formation of appropriate synapses is crucial for establishing neuronal circuits that underlie behavior and cognition. Minor irregularities can lead to developmental disorders such as autism and mental retardation, and they may contribute to psychological disorders."

Receptors are needed for synapses to become functional. Neuroligin (red) on the surface of the cell is tethered to neurotransmitter receptors (mauve) that reside in intracellular vesicles. This enables both synaptic components to move together to a site of synapse formation. (Courtesy of Philip Washbourne)

The findings, he added, reflect a clearer understanding of how synapses form, providing a roadmap for research that someday may lead to new therapies or a cure for autism, a brain development disorder that affects a person's social and communication abilities. The disorder affects 1 in every 150 American children, according to the Autism Society of America.

The new window opened by Washbourne's team captures the essence of synapse development, which occurs over and over among the estimated 100 billion neurons that make some 100 trillion synapses in a single human being. That leaves a lot of room for errors in the DNA-driven instructions for synthesizing molecules responsible for synapse formation, Washbourne said.
"Basically," Washbourne said, "we have found mechanisms by which two very important molecules, NMDA and PSD-95, are brought to a newly forming synapse."

Co-authors on the paper with Washbourne were postdoctoral researches Stephanie L. Barrow and Eliana Clark at UC-Davis, A. Kimberley McAllister, a professor in the UC-Davis Center for Neuroscience, and John R.L. Constable, a postdoctoral researcher in Washbourne's UO lab. Constable is funded by a medical research fellowship provided by Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (National Institutes of Health), the Florida-based non-profit Whitehall Foundation and New York-based Autism Speaks, the nation's largest autism science and advocacy organization, funded Washbourne's research. McAllister was funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and National Eye Institute.

Autism, health insurance, and unintended consequences
by expatyank Sat May 23, 2009 DailyKos.com

Today, many states have passed or are considering mandating coverage for autism by private insurers. In this diary I point out some possible unintended consequences of these bills, and suggest some helpful directions.

First, I should tell you a little about myself. I have an autistic son who is now a young adult. That means I remember the bad old days where a mid-size city like Portland, Oregon served fewer than 20 children in specialist classrooms, and only those with additional mental retardation were eligible. What was done in those classrooms was containment not education. For other children on te spectrum, there was nothing. It was parents from my generation who became activists to force school districts to recognise the numbers of children on the autism spectrum they needed to serve, and to push for effective and humane education.

We aren't there yet, as any parent who has fought the system knows.

Like everyone else, we also experienced our son being excluded from receiving speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and ongoing care by specialists because of autism. In fact, he could receive little routine medical care either, unless we could pay out of pocket, as autism has been an excluded condition on most insurance plans since forever. You'd be surprised at how many health problems, when the person who has them has an autism diagnosis, are suddenly attributed to the person's autism by insurers, despite the fact that none of them are part of the diagnostic criteria. Like most doctors, ours did their best to find ways to serve our son. He has dyspraxia as well, which WAS covered, and allowed him a grandiose six weeks of service from BCBS at one point. That's not enough. So I definitely support the removal of autism as an excluded condition. It's like mental health parity, an issue of basic fairness.

Fast forward to today. I now work in autism research. My main area is education, the only thing we know of that actually works to help all children with autism. And here's where those unintended consequences come in...

In the US, most of the medical therapies children with autism receive are delivered through the school system--speech, OT, PT. If insurance starts covering these, expect districts to start expecting parents to have insurance so they can bill it.

Second, most of the therapies our children receive through the education system do not meet the standard for evidence-based medicine. That's because they're not medicine--despite the use of sciencey talk about "trials" and words like "treatment," therapy," and "intervention." This includes ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis), no matter what those who try to sell it have told you. We know this in education research (outside of those departments set up by behaviourists), although we also know it includes some useful techniques that any teacher or parent should know about and use. But the results reported by the few half-decent studies don't hold up under statistical scrutiny. I know this, because my team was just involved in doing a heavy-duty scrutiny of those results for a foreign government. That doesn't mean that Child A might not benefit, it just means we can't determine from the research whether Child A's experience is definitely because of ABA or something else, or whether it will apply to Children B through Z.

And here's the thing: Insurance companies live and die by evidence-based medicine. They just won't add unproven treatments to their coverage and leave them there for long, regardless of public clamour.

For years, I have been waiting for school systems to stand up and say the emperor has no clothes, but that's harder to do. Parents and school district employees know each other as people, and besides, ABA is a valid educational method, amongst many. For certain children, it may be the best one. I believe it will now be the insurance companies, or the big HMOs in response to rejected claims, that will do this. I know that Kaiser, for example, has been conducting internal investigations of autism "treatments" since the late 90s.

I won't mourn the demise of ABA as an industry, having seen too many families bankrupt themselves for little gain, and knowing too many adults with autism who speak movingly about the humiliation and harm they suffered by being forced to comply with an adult's seemingly nonsensical wishes for 40 hours per week in poorly designed programs run by half-trained half-wits. I'll be sorry to see the loss of the better aspects of the approach, and the benefits of well-designed and respectful programmes run by good staff, if the baby is thrown out with the bathwater.

And by the way, it's not just ABA. The research evidence for sensory integration therapy is even worse. The research on SLT, PT and OT techniques that are autism-specific is also not as robust as most people think. TEACCH, the set of educational methods and principles that is usually put forward as an alternative to ABA, has been very poorly researched as well, since the university department that created it has a sweet deal with the state where it's located that means it doesn't have to do such evaluations. In fact, the research into the only actual medical treatment--the drug rispederone, which got fast-track approval in the US as a "treatment" for challenging behaviour in people with autism a few years back--is even more distressingly bad. A tiny study group, no long-term studies, etc.

The solution is to start funding research into approaches that help people with autism who are alive today: education, speech and language therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and I think sensory work as well--the evidence works for me, because it comes from people with autism as well as parents and therapists. We need well-designed, long-term studies, based on current knowledge about people with autism (and the sub-groups that are slowly emerging), and as uncontaminated by financial interests as is possible.

We need to let go of our addiction to spending billions instead on genetic research that, while fascinating, adds nothing to my son's quality of life, and never will.

And we need to stop telling parents that their child is only worthwhile if he can be "cured" or made "indistinguishable from his peers." Because until we get there, the pressure will always be one to spend money chasing miracles instead of doing the hard graft required to individualise educational approaches that work for each individual child on the spectrum, and to provide the support and services required for children, adults and their families for life.

Why brain nutrition could empower our schools
By Jenson Hagen, blueoregon.com

Education reforms need to take into account the early moments of development to set kids on the right course from the start. Reform efforts should not ignore the need to help expecting mothers consume the foods and nutrients that will promote healthy brain development. It’s a matter of preventing this increase in autism, ADHD and depression. It’s also a matter of optimizing the human potential.

Of most importance, provide the guidance as part of the normal school curriculum—not as a whole class, but give it the attention it deserves. The brain makes use of large amounts of fatty acids, especially the omega-3’s. Those would be docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic (EPA) acid. Yes, I actually know these by heart . . . literally! Whereas palmitic acid found in high concentrations among animal products is neurodegenerative (nicht gut!), Omega-3’s form many of the compounds the brain needs to function and grow. It becomes essential to know these fatty acid chains just as well as the ABC’s. In fact, the best sources of fats are represented by the mnemonic FFOCN. That’s right! The FFOCN healthiest fats are in Fish, Flax, Olive Oil, Canola Oil and Nuts.

What about the herbs Gingko and Gotu Kola just to name a few? Perhaps you call this stuff alternative medicine. I like to call it evolutionary medicine since it fits within the product of 800 million years of mammalian evolution. Ensuring that every growing brain has what it needs should lessen the impact of the mental and behavioral problems plaguing our schools as well as create an overall better tabula rasa upon which to write new memories. It’s about optimizing human potential, and we must embody the notion that mental acuity and displayed behaviors are firmly rooted in neural processes.

Food for thought! We have one of the most powerful resources on nutrition right here in Oregon. NCNM is the oldest naturopath school in the country. Why not access the nutritional expertise at this school to make a DVD or a presentation using Microsoft Powerpoint® that could be available to all the students of Oregon? Let’s try something new this century using all the new knowledge we have about the human body and brain. Let’s teach the next generation of parents what items would support healthy brain activity so the next generation coming to Oregon’s schools will have a dynamic sponge

Are You Ready for Harvey?

Greetings,

KindTree works because of the enthusiasm and dedication of our volunteers. Two such folks have just retired from KindTree’s board - Sarah Fields and Jeanne-Marie Moore. Both of these giving people have earned our heartfelt “thanks,” and have pledged to continue with us as volunteers, Sarah coordinating our computer exchange program, and Jeanne-Marie reaching out to folks in need of support. The world is better with them in it.

We are also very pleased to announce that Elizabeth King has been elected to join us on the board this year. Elizabeth is an active member of the autism community and a reliable supporter of our Art Program. She is an accomplished author and mom. Welcome aboard, Elizabeth.

KindTree’s Autism Forum, usually held in April or May, will be scheduled for November this year. We are looking for films made by people with autism to display. I know you are out there - give us a call. 541 521 7208.

“Autism Artism 2009” is now on track, with our GALA Opening scheduled for June 20 at the LCC Art Gallery in Bldg 11. We had such a great time last year, and we sold over 20 pieces. 2009 should be even better. And this year our “From the Studio to the Gallery” program was fully funded by the Lane Arts Council and the REX Foundation. We were able to give a $50 grant to Leah DeMonia, $150 to Lexi Sias, $200 to D J Svoboda and $300 to Stephen Peeler. Congratulations, all! We’ll see items from all these artists in June. Stephen is also headlining a show with Mary-Minn at Passion Flower Gifts in October. More on that in our next issue.

For the rest of you artists, you still have a few days to submit your art - the deadline is April 15. Look at the info to the right and send your work in. We have already accepted a few new artists’ work and are looking forward to seeing some favorites return, as well. Our jury of art insiders will choose the best for the show. Put this event on your calendar and come celebrate artists with autism.

Registration is now open for the Camp / Retreat 2009, scheduled for August 21-23. The prices are the same as last year. We always fill up. Get registered early. Go here...

While you’re busy try to fit all these events in your schedule, don’t forget the most important one - that KindTree needs your financial support and your presence at “Lunch with Harvey”, our silent auction luncheon, Sunday April 26 at noon in the Vista Room at the Eugene Hilton.. We’ll have great food, great view, great fun, and Tim Chuey will be our guest MC. Come have fun with us, wear your clothes from the 40’s, and meet Harvey and Elwood P Dowd. They’ll be there. Autism Rocks.

Thanks for listening Tim Mueller

If You Could Say it in Words
is a great new film about an autistic protagonist Nelson and his experience with love. The film explores Nelson's Asperger's Syndrome without mentioning the diagnosis. The choice is intentional because many individuals with Asperger's remain undiagnosed. This is the first narrative feature film to explore Autism in such depth without hitting the audience over the head over and over again with the fact that it's about autism. Additionally, the film appeals to an audience greater than the autistic community because the questions it raises about love apply to autistics and neurotpyicals alike. See if you can find it.

KindTree's Alex C Way is a Winner

Alex C. Way is an extremely intelligent young man with both autistic gifts and challenges.

Alex has won several awards for his giftedness. First of all, he is a KindTree Autist - Artist, being featured in 3 juried art shows produced by KindTree Productions. He has won a placement into "Who's Who in Middle School" three consecutive years based on standardized test scores and extra curricular activities. He is an intermediate Suzuki violinist, as was the great scientist Albert Einstein, who came before him.

He has experienced both gifts and challenges in Traditional Tae Kwondo. He has taken placements in several tournaments in both sparring and Hyungs (patterns), including tying for first place in Hyungs this last Saturday, in a tournament in Oregon City.

One of his biggest gifts is programming. He has started a business, Way Cool Products, along with his family, in which he programs educational games to help support non-profits, while supporting his extracurricular activities and hobbies.

In taking the time to get to know Alex even more, one will discover that Alex is an extremely forgiving and non-judgmental person with wisdom beyond his years in human psychology. He is a great role model for both Autists and Neuro-normals alike.

Lunch with Harvey
Sunday April 26 noon - 3:30PM
Hilton Vista Room 12
Eugene Downtown

Guest MC Tim Chuey

Mudzidzi Mbira - Surprise Guest
Italian Buffet - Wine - Magic
Auction Items from
Craftsmen, Restauranteers,
Retailers and friends

Too FUN!!
$20 each, $10 under 16
$12 people with autism

ASO Respite Program:
Take a Break on ASO
ASO-LCC will help pay respite care expenses while you
Take a Break.
Read more here...

Mary-Minn's Stim Page

(Here are personal stories about autism. If you would like to see your musings on this page, please email Mary-Minn at sirag@mindspring.com.)

Blissed out with no place to go

When I was three, I was sent to live with my grandparents on their farm in Iowa, as my parents didn’t have the resources to care for a nonverbal and behavioral autistic child, in addition to three other children. My grandmother couldn’t leave me with a babysitter so she took me with her wherever she went—to visit her friends and in-laws, play Royal Rummy, catch up on gossip and Iowa weather talk.

I kept myself fully occupied exploring the intimate bowels of her friends’ purses, where lipstick and perfume scents mingled with face powder, handkerchiefs and battered half-tubes of Life Saver Pep-O-Mints. I asked them to lend me their diamond rings, and become entranced by the coruscations of prismic light. If I got caught doing any of these things, my grandmother grounded me, a good incentive to be more restrained in my curiosity and fondness of scent. I loved going visiting, although my role as a small child was to sit quietly–and space out into my world of heightened senses that blended into what were to become my favorite memories.

“We charged around inside the pitching ship, holding onto the railing of the stairs, leaping into the air as the waves buffeting the ship crested and landing nimbly as the ship plunged into the depths, the movement soft, gentle and yielding”

My earliest memories are not so much of people but rather of white lace curtains against white overcast and snow, ice crystals twinkling from the turquoise-ultramarine infinity of sky, spring pansies brought home from Sunday school juxtaposed against a backdrop of the deepest purple of approaching storm, the happy duet of firefly Morse code and my first bowl of blackberry ice cream on my grandparents’ picnic table at night, and Vanishing Cream–a boudoir baby-pink foray into the invisible!

I loved storms, above all, and the Iowa ones were among the best and the brightest. The muggy heat buzzed and the sky vibrated at inaudible frequencies I could only feel. As I got older, my terror of climbing stairs evolved into an equally intense fascination with heights that has never since left me. My two neighbor friends and I would climb the hay escalator into the hay mow in the barn, where we feasted on Tootsie Rolls, marshmallow circus peanuts, Cheetos and cherry Kool Aid, and shared dark secrets as we monitored the approaching storm. The grownups describe the west sky as black, but I knew that it was a brilliant-deep Prussian purple.

The leaves before a storm turned inside out, exposing the subtler inner side where the veins protrude. Gusts combed the corn like invisible hands brushing corduroy ever so gently. The lightning pranced and, as the storm approached, cracked open the sky. The thunder purred periwinkle chords of gentle softitude from the distance and sharpened as it approached. We climbed down to terra firma when the ozone quickened the air, followed by giant splashy drops. I jumped up and down as sound, color, light and smell blended into cresting ecstasies outside of time, space and personal safety.

When I was 7, I moved to Lebanon to live with my parents and siblings. We crossed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean on a small Dutch freighter while being chased by a hurricane. Furniture was bolted to the floor and the tablecloths were wetted so as to prevent the food and table settings from flying off into the air. The waves and wind ripped apart the ladder up to the bridge of the ship. For about a week, we were forbidden to go outside. We charged around inside the pitching ship, holding onto the railing of the stairs, leaping into the air as the waves buffeting the ship crested and landing nimbly as the ship plunged into the depths, the movement soft, gentle and yielding. The rocking at night calmed and soothed me; after we disembarked at the port of Beirut, I savored my dwindling sea legs, ever more nostalgic for the comforting movement.
I don’t remember whether I discovered the comfort of rocking during this trip across the Atlantic, which was to be a high point in my life, or whether I had discovered it before our transatlantic voyage.

My grandparents listened to very little music but, knowing that I loved to sing, had bought me a small red and white plastic record player and a 45 rpm record, “The Lollipop Tree” by Hoagy Carmichael, to which I rocked myself into an oceanic oblivion of Kelly green and cobalt-yellow scintillations. My rocking shook the cares of the world out of my body tight from the day’s tensions and cares. They discharged toxic build-up that led to freakouts.

Our house was built of heavy hand-hewn limestone, inside walls of whitewash, high ceilings, floors of loosened smooth ceramic tiles that chimed different notes as I sneaked across them in the night to go to the bathroom. My father listened to classical music from the time he came home from teaching to the time he went to bed. The acoustics in that house were grand. My father had rigged up from metal cookie boxes a sound system that broadcast music brilliantly through the large house: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (the tawny yellow-orange of late afternoon sun on limestone), Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (royal-sky blue of encroaching night), Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (cherry-pie red), Albinoni’s Adagio (the dark blue of mid-Atlantic waves), Corelli’s Christmas Concerto (august lacquer red). His choice of pieces, which he had recorded onto reel-to-reel tapes, evolved over time through different musical periods. I played the music in my head as my father drove us to school, teasing apart key changes and chord progressions, though I knew absolutely nothing about music and could play nothing beyond the harmonica. Over time, I was graced with melodic visitations that fit themselves conveniently into whatever span of quiet solitude opened up for me. I rocked myself against the back seat as I hummed these personal symphonies to myself.

At home, I rocked in bed for hours on end, becoming more and more blissed out and liberated from my daily grind of embarrassment, frustration and bewilderment. Whenever I had a bad day or, even worse, a freakout, I salved it by rocking on my bed, my right arm over my mouth and nose, partaking of the golden-brown scent of the crook right under my elbow, which provided a portable comfort zone.

In fourth grade, I played the role of Josephine in a medley we sang from The H.M.S. Pinafore. Throughout elementary school, I was given leading roles because I was fearless on stage and an inveterate show off. I had a favorite few stanzas of a long aria that I played over and over again from an album that I got for Christmas. In this particular song (which was not in our medley), Josephine, the supposed captain’s daughter, is bemoaning her sad fate (See Page 4) of being in love with a lowly sailor and facing a less privileged lifestyle than the one she had grown up in. My heart would sink in anticipation of the passage when the soprano Elsie Morrison’s voice changes from bright and luxuriant to dark and claustrophobic: “…On the one hand, papa’s luxurious home/Hung with ancestral armor and old brasses/Carved oak and tapestry from distant Rome/Rare “blue and white” Venetian finger glasses/Rich oriental rugs, luxurious sofa pillows/And everything that isn’t old, from Gillow’s/And on the other, a dark and dingy room/In some back street with stuffy children crying/Where organs yell and clacking housewives fume/And clothes are hanging out all day a-drying/With one cracked looking-glass to see your face in/And dinner served up in a pudding basin!…” On the last word, her voice choked up in a suppressed sob of unspeakable desolation. I also regaled myself with this passage during the climax of storms, which were especially dramatic on the mountain where we lived.

The following year, I discovered the Beatles and, when they broke up, other groups, and serious classical music. My favorite pieces and songs have always been earnest and serious because these had more emotional depth and provide better escape for me than light tongue-in-cheek fare. I reserve my sense of humor for everything but music.

My addiction to rocking made college dorm life difficult. My roommates would barge into the room with their boyfriends, and I’d be caught rocking to a song that had a particularly poignant key progression, spaced out and embarrassed. (Finally, in my junior year, I was assigned to what I called a “psychiatric double-single”.)

At the edge of the college campus was a small bridge under which a freight train would pass at a little past noon. The hairs on my entire body would stand up straight and my body would thrill to the richness of sound coming at me. Sometimes, but not often, I could survive the blast of overtones without plugging my ears. Regardless, the climax was almost unbearably-deliciously intense.

About ten years ago, neck pain and motion sickness forced me to give up the emotional and energetic release of rocking. At the same time, as I had burned through more music, it became more difficult for me to find music to fall head over heels in love with. My taste has become more jaded despite my best efforts to practice moderation and conserve my musical balm. I am on the constant prowl for new genres.

This withdrawal has been a mixed blessing and curse for me. On the one hand, rocking used to provide a release that helped to keep freakouts at bay. On the other hand, it was an insatiable addiction. The more I rocked, the hungrier I got for the oblivion it afforded me and the more time I spent doing it instead of attending to more practical endeavors.

I think that my freakouts and meltdowns have become more frequent and intense as my escape of rocking to music has become more elusive. I am finding myself compelled to seek out and create more neuronormal ways to tame my freakouts. Maybe this urgent need for a replacement stim will get me to paint and draw more. This is a prospect that pleases.

Read more of Mary-Minn's Stim Pages HERE

Advocates Say Bullying Still A Problem Despite 2001 Law

BY CHRIS LEHMAN Salem, OR March 9, 2009 6:19 p.m. Opb.org

In 2001, Oregon lawmakers passed a bill aimed at cracking down on schoolyard bullying. The measure was an effort to make schools safer places after a rash of school shootings across the country, including one in Springfield. But those who pushed for the bill say it hasn’t worked.

Bullying remains a problem in Oregon schools. Now, lawmakers are again considering what to do about bullying. A new bill would require school districts to more aggressively deal with it. The measure got its first hearing in front of a legislative committee Monday. Salem correspondent Chris Lehman reports.

Meet Thomas. He’s like a lot of 11-year-old boys. He has a pretty good sense of what he wants to do when he grows up.

Thomas: “I wanna do something high-tech, like maybe game-tester.”

Thomas is not his real name. His mother doesn’t want his real name used because she fears for her son’s safety. Thomas is a fifth-grader in Lebanon, Oregon.

He has Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a form of autism. Thomas has trouble expressing himself. Sometimes he has a speech impediment. And he’s just a little different.

A few of his classmates don’t understand why. One boy in particular has been extra tough on him.

Thomas: “He keeps on calling me ‘retard, stupid.’ And it kinds of makes me feel bad about myself, like I’m not good enough. It makes me feel that I don’t even want to live anymore.”

The bully makes Thomas so angry he wants to lash out.

Thomas: “I feel like I actually want to, wham, you know. He is just so mean.”

Thomas’ mother, Deborah, says she’s talked with school officials about the harassment. But she says the situation still isn’t resolved.

Oregon teen with severe autism accused of murder
AP from www.kgw.com Saturday, March 14, 2009
(Comments from readers follow the article)

COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) -- A Coos County teenager who once attacked an instructor and is described as severely autistic and unable to speak has been charged with murder in the death of a 59-year-old woman who lived with his father.

The suspect was identified as Henry Cozad, 18, who lived in the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Coos Bay with his father, Fred, and Linda Foley.

Authorities wouldn't say how Foley died on Thursday, except to label it "homicidal violence" and say details would await an autopsy.

District Attorney R. Paul Frasier told The World of Coos Bay that he couldn't prosecute the youth for an attack last year on special education instructor Tim Waits, but he would press a murder case against him in Foley's death. He said, though, that the severity of Cozad's disability would play a role.

"There's a problem with prosecuting people with extreme mental issues because under the law you have to be competent to proceed. ... That basically means you need to be aware of the charges against you, and you have to be able to assist in your defense," Frasier said.
Waits told the newspaper on Friday that when he learned Cozad had been arrested, he felt guilty he hadn't done more.

"I was afraid something like this would happen," he said. "I had a feeling he was going to kill someone."

In February 2008, Waits said, the two were in a house on the Marshfield High School campus used for life skills training when Cozad attacked.

The boy put him in a headlock and shoved him against walls, Waits said. The attack damaged his spinal cord.

"In my personal opinion this student, had he grabbed anyone else, he most likely would have killed them," he wrote in an April victim's impact statement.

He asked that Cozad be placed in a group home.

Waits said Cozad had hurt other employees over the years. The director of the South Coast Education Service District life skills program, Tenneal Wetherell, could not verify that. She said Cozad has had a long-term struggle with social behavior.

After a suspension, Cozad returned to school, under the supervision of two adult specialists, Wetherell said.

He most recently was enrolled in the adult transition program, although Cozad hadn't attended weekly classes in about a month. He was kept away from other students, she said.

District Superintendent George Woodruff said it is a challenge to help students such as Cozad.
"When you have someone who is nonverbal, how do you communicate with them? How do we respond to people with such needs?" he asked. "It's a challenge for the whole community."

Following are reactions to this story from www.kgw.com:

I worked in an alternative classroom with many autistic young adults who had severe behaviors for 6 years. The reason they are in school is that we have laws for the disabled. By and large, this is a wonderful advancement over how this population was treated before the Americans With Disabilities Act was implemented. A mental retardation orautism diagnosis, as I understand it, takes precedence over a mental- illness diagnosis, however. And how can mental illness be properly diagnosed in someone with a severe communication disorder? Some people are both mentally handicapped and mentally ill, and many of these students have a history of extreme abuse because their behaviors are so very frustrating and people in their early lives are ill-equipped to deal with them. It's very sad.

i think people in that condition have no right to be in the public or attend public schools.

I feel for the family of the victim. It sounds like this young man will have to be institutionalized for the rest of his life

i have know this boy since birth and if you knew the back ground you would totally understand and surprised it hasn't happen sooner. It sucks because had the poor guys home life been even in the slightest bit better it never would have happened. poor Henry

Autistic persons are not freaks. I can understand the anguish of this person's former instructor. As a retired instructor of severely autistic multiply handicapped adolescents, I have observed the magic of finding the combination of giving the young person a way to communicate with simple signs, an alphabet board, picture menus, etc. and appropriate medications to lessen the aggressive tendencies. How would the young person learn how to behave around others and express his needs if he is isolated?

It never ceases to amaze me how easily our judicial and governmental systems fail to protect us. I am a Mother of a child with Autism, he is NOT violent at all. I can only imagine the pain of everyone involved and the fear in this young mans mind that he is unable to speak of. Autism comes in many shapes and sizes, please remember when passing judgement, this is a real event effecting real people. Not only today but in future court proceeding this may set a precedence. God speed all decision makers in this process and let them make just and fair decisions for all parties involved.

So, after this severely autistic non-verbal kid injured his instructor's spinal cord, he was sent back to school with two "adult specialists" and kept separate from other students? I'm sorry, but why the hell were we bothering? I'm not saying every person with autism needs to be locked away. My nephew is autistic and is enrolled in a similar program. He and his fellow students are doing great and learning about money, how to work in a supermarket stocking shelves, etc. If this kid requires two "specialists" just to attend class where no other students are present, how do we expect him to get along in society?
I have had the opportunity to have known several folks who have had children with Autism. In each case, when the children have reached an age of about 20 they have moved into a group home for similar adults.First example: A boy who became increasingly agitated at home, flourished in the new environment. The behaviors subsided, he makes regular visits, "home." His older brother, also autistic, made this same move a few years later. The stresses on his parents subsided substantially and they are much happier.Second example: A girl, higher functioning than the first boy. She also just had issues becoming increasingly agitated. Her parents, who thought they could handle things for life, were backed into a corner, so to speak. They really hated to let someone else take responsibility for her. She comes to visit, sometimes spends the night at home, and then back to the group home. The stress level on her parents was great before, now they are relaxed and ready to deal with her when she visits.This is not the solution for all kids in this situation, just my observation of these two families. The group home decision wasn't their first choice but it has made everyone happier in these homes.

You can't "Mainstream" everyone. With all due respect to "Cuckoo's Nest" and "Rain Man"...some people NEED to be in an institution.

More students struggle with autism
Rise has led to calls for a state panel to coordinate services, offer information
By Mackenzie Ryan • Statesman Journal • March 12, 2009

One-third more children in Oregon have autism this year than three years ago — far outpacing the increase of students with other disabilities, according to data released Wednesday by the Oregon Department of Education.

There are 7,579 students as old as 21 who meet the educational requirements for autism and are receiving special-education services this school year. Autism among children has grown between 7 percent and 13 percent each year for the past few years.

Most Mid-Valley school districts also are seeing similar increases in autism — in some cases outpacing the state.

Salem-Keizer School District has nearly 40 percent more students with autism this school year than three years ago. Willamette Education Service District, which serves special-education students in Marion, Polk and Yamhill counties, served 60 percent more students with autism in 2008 than in 2004.

"It's probably one of our fastest-growing groups," said Ruth Gelbrich, the director of student services for Salem-Keizer. "Nationally, it's on the rise."

The rise of autism — which educators say is, in part, due to better diagnosing — has prompted calls to create a state commission on autism.

In the Oregon Legislature, House Bill 3001 would create a commission that would be charged with coordinating services for people with autism and providing accurate information about the spectrum disorder. On Tuesday, the bill was referred to the House human-services committee with subsequent referrals to Ways and Means.

"We don't know the cause of autism," said Nancy Latini, the state assistant superintendent of student learning and partnerships. "You can ask five different people, and they'll each have five different reasons."

Nearly 2,000 more children are receiving educational services for autism this school year than in 2005-06, according to state data. Autism makes up about 9 percent of all students as old as 21 with disabilities in Oregon.

The rise in autism far outpaces the overall increase of other disabilities among students as old as 21. This school year, nearly 82,000 children have a disability in Oregon, up nearly 3 percent from three years before.

"It's challenging because it's such a wide range … we can have children who have very low abilities to those who are extremely bright and intelligent, but still have the characteristics of autism that need to be addressed," Latini said.

"They're our children, our students, so we accommodate where we need to," said Linda Warberg, the director of special services for Gervais School District.

maryan@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6750

More story here

THANK YOU Silent Auction Donors so far...

Are You Ready for Harvey?

Greetings,

KindTree works because of the enthusiasm and dedication of our volunteers. Two such folks have just retired from KindTree’s board - Sarah Fields and Jeanne-Marie Moore. Both of these giving people have earned our heartfelt “thanks,” and have pledged to continue with us as volunteers, Sarah coordinating our computer exchange program, and Jeanne-Marie reaching out to folks in need of support. The world is better with them in it.

We are also very pleased to announce that Elizabeth King has been elected to join us on the board this year. Elizabeth is an active member of the autism community and a reliable supporter of our Art Program. She is an accomplished author and mom. Welcome aboard, Elizabeth.

KindTree’s Autism Forum, usually held in April or May, will be scheduled for November this year. We are looking for films made by people with autism to display. I know you are out there - give us a call. 541 521 7208.

“Autism Artism 2009” is now on track, with our GALA Opening scheduled for June 20 at the LCC Art Gallery in Bldg 11. We had such a great time last year, and we sold over 20 pieces. 2009 should be even better. And this year our “From the Studio to the Gallery” program was fully funded by the Lane Arts Council and the REX Foundation. We were able to give a $50 grant to Leah DeMonia, $150 to Lexi Sias, $200 to D J Svoboda and $300 to Stephen Peeler. Congratulations, all! We’ll see items from all these artists in June. Stephen is also headlining a show with Mary-Minn at Passion Flower Gifts in October. More on that in our next issue.

For the rest of you artists, you still have a few days to submit your art - the deadline is April 15. Look at the info to the right and send your work in. We have already accepted a few new artists’ work and are looking forward to seeing some favorites return, as well. Our jury of art insiders will choose the best for the show. Put this event on your calendar and come celebrate artists with autism.

Registration is now open for the Camp / Retreat 2009, scheduled for August 21-23. The prices are the same as last year. We always fill up. Get registered early. Go here...

While you’re busy try to fit all these events in your schedule, don’t forget the most important one - that KindTree needs your financial support and your presence at “Lunch with Harvey”, our silent auction luncheon, Sunday April 26 at noon in the Vista Room at the Eugene Hilton.. We’ll have great food, great view, great fun, and Tim Chuey will be our guest MC. Come have fun with us, wear your clothes from the 40’s, and meet Harvey and Elwood P Dowd. They’ll be there. Autism Rocks.

Thanks for listening Tim Mueller

If You Could Say it in Words
is a great new film about an autistic protagonist Nelson and his experience with love. The film explores Nelson's Asperger's Syndrome without mentioning the diagnosis. The choice is intentional because many individuals with Asperger's remain undiagnosed. This is the first narrative feature film to explore Autism in such depth without hitting the audience over the head over and over again with the fact that it's about autism. Additionally, the film appeals to an audience greater than the autistic community because the questions it raises about love apply to autistics and neurotpyicals alike. See if you can find it.

KindTree's Alex C Way is a Winner

Alex C. Way is an extremely intelligent young man with both autistic gifts and challenges.

Alex has won several awards for his giftedness. First of all, he is a KindTree Autist - Artist, being featured in 3 juried art shows produced by KindTree Productions. He has won a placement into "Who's Who in Middle School" three consecutive years based on standardized test scores and extra curricular activities. He is an intermediate Suzuki violinist, as was the great scientist Albert Einstein, who came before him.

He has experienced both gifts and challenges in Traditional Tae Kwondo. He has taken placements in several tournaments in both sparring and Hyungs (patterns), including tying for first place in Hyungs this last Saturday, in a tournament in Oregon City.

One of his biggest gifts is programming. He has started a business, Way Cool Products, along with his family, in which he programs educational games to help support non-profits, while supporting his extracurricular activities and hobbies.

In taking the time to get to know Alex even more, one will discover that Alex is an extremely forgiving and non-judgmental person with wisdom beyond his years in human psychology. He is a great role model for both Autists and Neuro-normals alike.

Lunch with Harvey
Sunday April 26 noon - 3:30PM
Hilton Vista Room 12
Eugene Downtown

Guest MC Tim Chuey

Mudzidzi Mbira - Surprise Guest
Italian Buffet - Wine - Magic
Auction Items from
Craftsmen, Restauranteers,
Retailers and friends

Too FUN!!
$20 each, $10 under 16
$12 people with autism

ASO Respite Program:
Take a Break on ASO
ASO-LCC will help pay respite care expenses while you
Take a Break.
Read more here...

Mary-Minn's Stim Page

(Here are personal stories about autism. If you would like to see your musings on this page, please email Mary-Minn at sirag@mindspring.com.)

Blissed out with no place to go

When I was three, I was sent to live with my grandparents on their farm in Iowa, as my parents didn’t have the resources to care for a nonverbal and behavioral autistic child, in addition to three other children. My grandmother couldn’t leave me with a babysitter so she took me with her wherever she went—to visit her friends and in-laws, play Royal Rummy, catch up on gossip and Iowa weather talk.

I kept myself fully occupied exploring the intimate bowels of her friends’ purses, where lipstick and perfume scents mingled with face powder, handkerchiefs and battered half-tubes of Life Saver Pep-O-Mints. I asked them to lend me their diamond rings, and become entranced by the coruscations of prismic light. If I got caught doing any of these things, my grandmother grounded me, a good incentive to be more restrained in my curiosity and fondness of scent. I loved going visiting, although my role as a small child was to sit quietly–and space out into my world of heightened senses that blended into what were to become my favorite memories.

“We charged around inside the pitching ship, holding onto the railing of the stairs, leaping into the air as the waves buffeting the ship crested and landing nimbly as the ship plunged into the depths, the movement soft, gentle and yielding”

My earliest memories are not so much of people but rather of white lace curtains against white overcast and snow, ice crystals twinkling from the turquoise-ultramarine infinity of sky, spring pansies brought home from Sunday school juxtaposed against a backdrop of the deepest purple of approaching storm, the happy duet of firefly Morse code and my first bowl of blackberry ice cream on my grandparents’ picnic table at night, and Vanishing Cream–a boudoir baby-pink foray into the invisible!

I loved storms, above all, and the Iowa ones were among the best and the brightest. The muggy heat buzzed and the sky vibrated at inaudible frequencies I could only feel. As I got older, my terror of climbing stairs evolved into an equally intense fascination with heights that has never since left me. My two neighbor friends and I would climb the hay escalator into the hay mow in the barn, where we feasted on Tootsie Rolls, marshmallow circus peanuts, Cheetos and cherry Kool Aid, and shared dark secrets as we monitored the approaching storm. The grownups describe the west sky as black, but I knew that it was a brilliant-deep Prussian purple.

The leaves before a storm turned inside out, exposing the subtler inner side where the veins protrude. Gusts combed the corn like invisible hands brushing corduroy ever so gently. The lightning pranced and, as the storm approached, cracked open the sky. The thunder purred periwinkle chords of gentle softitude from the distance and sharpened as it approached. We climbed down to terra firma when the ozone quickened the air, followed by giant splashy drops. I jumped up and down as sound, color, light and smell blended into cresting ecstasies outside of time, space and personal safety.

When I was 7, I moved to Lebanon to live with my parents and siblings. We crossed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean on a small Dutch freighter while being chased by a hurricane. Furniture was bolted to the floor and the tablecloths were wetted so as to prevent the food and table settings from flying off into the air. The waves and wind ripped apart the ladder up to the bridge of the ship. For about a week, we were forbidden to go outside. We charged around inside the pitching ship, holding onto the railing of the stairs, leaping into the air as the waves buffeting the ship crested and landing nimbly as the ship plunged into the depths, the movement soft, gentle and yielding. The rocking at night calmed and soothed me; after we disembarked at the port of Beirut, I savored my dwindling sea legs, ever more nostalgic for the comforting movement.
I don’t remember whether I discovered the comfort of rocking during this trip across the Atlantic, which was to be a high point in my life, or whether I had discovered it before our transatlantic voyage.

My grandparents listened to very little music but, knowing that I loved to sing, had bought me a small red and white plastic record player and a 45 rpm record, “The Lollipop Tree” by Hoagy Carmichael, to which I rocked myself into an oceanic oblivion of Kelly green and cobalt-yellow scintillations. My rocking shook the cares of the world out of my body tight from the day’s tensions and cares. They discharged toxic build-up that led to freakouts.

Our house was built of heavy hand-hewn limestone, inside walls of whitewash, high ceilings, floors of loosened smooth ceramic tiles that chimed different notes as I sneaked across them in the night to go to the bathroom. My father listened to classical music from the time he came home from teaching to the time he went to bed. The acoustics in that house were grand. My father had rigged up from metal cookie boxes a sound system that broadcast music brilliantly through the large house: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (the tawny yellow-orange of late afternoon sun on limestone), Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (royal-sky blue of encroaching night), Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (cherry-pie red), Albinoni’s Adagio (the dark blue of mid-Atlantic waves), Corelli’s Christmas Concerto (august lacquer red). His choice of pieces, which he had recorded onto reel-to-reel tapes, evolved over time through different musical periods. I played the music in my head as my father drove us to school, teasing apart key changes and chord progressions, though I knew absolutely nothing about music and could play nothing beyond the harmonica. Over time, I was graced with melodic visitations that fit themselves conveniently into whatever span of quiet solitude opened up for me. I rocked myself against the back seat as I hummed these personal symphonies to myself.

At home, I rocked in bed for hours on end, becoming more and more blissed out and liberated from my daily grind of embarrassment, frustration and bewilderment. Whenever I had a bad day or, even worse, a freakout, I salved it by rocking on my bed, my right arm over my mouth and nose, partaking of the golden-brown scent of the crook right under my elbow, which provided a portable comfort zone.

In fourth grade, I played the role of Josephine in a medley we sang from The H.M.S. Pinafore. Throughout elementary school, I was given leading roles because I was fearless on stage and an inveterate show off. I had a favorite few stanzas of a long aria that I played over and over again from an album that I got for Christmas. In this particular song (which was not in our medley), Josephine, the supposed captain’s daughter, is bemoaning her sad fate (See Page 4) of being in love with a lowly sailor and facing a less privileged lifestyle than the one she had grown up in. My heart would sink in anticipation of the passage when the soprano Elsie Morrison’s voice changes from bright and luxuriant to dark and claustrophobic: “…On the one hand, papa’s luxurious home/Hung with ancestral armor and old brasses/Carved oak and tapestry from distant Rome/Rare “blue and white” Venetian finger glasses/Rich oriental rugs, luxurious sofa pillows/And everything that isn’t old, from Gillow’s/And on the other, a dark and dingy room/In some back street with stuffy children crying/Where organs yell and clacking housewives fume/And clothes are hanging out all day a-drying/With one cracked looking-glass to see your face in/And dinner served up in a pudding basin!…” On the last word, her voice choked up in a suppressed sob of unspeakable desolation. I also regaled myself with this passage during the climax of storms, which were especially dramatic on the mountain where we lived.

The following year, I discovered the Beatles and, when they broke up, other groups, and serious classical music. My favorite pieces and songs have always been earnest and serious because these had more emotional depth and provide better escape for me than light tongue-in-cheek fare. I reserve my sense of humor for everything but music.

My addiction to rocking made college dorm life difficult. My roommates would barge into the room with their boyfriends, and I’d be caught rocking to a song that had a particularly poignant key progression, spaced out and embarrassed. (Finally, in my junior year, I was assigned to what I called a “psychiatric double-single”.)

At the edge of the college campus was a small bridge under which a freight train would pass at a little past noon. The hairs on my entire body would stand up straight and my body would thrill to the richness of sound coming at me. Sometimes, but not often, I could survive the blast of overtones without plugging my ears. Regardless, the climax was almost unbearably-deliciously intense.

About ten years ago, neck pain and motion sickness forced me to give up the emotional and energetic release of rocking. At the same time, as I had burned through more music, it became more difficult for me to find music to fall head over heels in love with. My taste has become more jaded despite my best efforts to practice moderation and conserve my musical balm. I am on the constant prowl for new genres.

This withdrawal has been a mixed blessing and curse for me. On the one hand, rocking used to provide a release that helped to keep freakouts at bay. On the other hand, it was an insatiable addiction. The more I rocked, the hungrier I got for the oblivion it afforded me and the more time I spent doing it instead of attending to more practical endeavors.

I think that my freakouts and meltdowns have become more frequent and intense as my escape of rocking to music has become more elusive. I am finding myself compelled to seek out and create more neuronormal ways to tame my freakouts. Maybe this urgent need for a replacement stim will get me to paint and draw more. This is a prospect that pleases.

Read more of Mary-Minn's Stim Pages HERE

Advocates Say Bullying Still A Problem Despite 2001 Law

BY CHRIS LEHMAN Salem, OR March 9, 2009 6:19 p.m. Opb.org

In 2001, Oregon lawmakers passed a bill aimed at cracking down on schoolyard bullying. The measure was an effort to make schools safer places after a rash of school shootings across the country, including one in Springfield. But those who pushed for the bill say it hasn’t worked.

Bullying remains a problem in Oregon schools. Now, lawmakers are again considering what to do about bullying. A new bill would require school districts to more aggressively deal with it. The measure got its first hearing in front of a legislative committee Monday. Salem correspondent Chris Lehman reports.

Meet Thomas. He’s like a lot of 11-year-old boys. He has a pretty good sense of what he wants to do when he grows up.

Thomas: “I wanna do something high-tech, like maybe game-tester.”

Thomas is not his real name. His mother doesn’t want his real name used because she fears for her son’s safety. Thomas is a fifth-grader in Lebanon, Oregon.

He has Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a form of autism. Thomas has trouble expressing himself. Sometimes he has a speech impediment. And he’s just a little different.

A few of his classmates don’t understand why. One boy in particular has been extra tough on him.

Thomas: “He keeps on calling me ‘retard, stupid.’ And it kinds of makes me feel bad about myself, like I’m not good enough. It makes me feel that I don’t even want to live anymore.”

The bully makes Thomas so angry he wants to lash out.

Thomas: “I feel like I actually want to, wham, you know. He is just so mean.”

Thomas’ mother, Deborah, says she’s talked with school officials about the harassment. But she says the situation still isn’t resolved.

Oregon teen with severe autism accused of murder
AP from www.kgw.com Saturday, March 14, 2009
(Comments from readers follow the article)

COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) -- A Coos County teenager who once attacked an instructor and is described as severely autistic and unable to speak has been charged with murder in the death of a 59-year-old woman who lived with his father.

The suspect was identified as Henry Cozad, 18, who lived in the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Coos Bay with his father, Fred, and Linda Foley.

Authorities wouldn't say how Foley died on Thursday, except to label it "homicidal violence" and say details would await an autopsy.

District Attorney R. Paul Frasier told The World of Coos Bay that he couldn't prosecute the youth for an attack last year on special education instructor Tim Waits, but he would press a murder case against him in Foley's death. He said, though, that the severity of Cozad's disability would play a role.

"There's a problem with prosecuting people with extreme mental issues because under the law you have to be competent to proceed. ... That basically means you need to be aware of the charges against you, and you have to be able to assist in your defense," Frasier said.
Waits told the newspaper on Friday that when he learned Cozad had been arrested, he felt guilty he hadn't done more.

"I was afraid something like this would happen," he said. "I had a feeling he was going to kill someone."

In February 2008, Waits said, the two were in a house on the Marshfield High School campus used for life skills training when Cozad attacked.

The boy put him in a headlock and shoved him against walls, Waits said. The attack damaged his spinal cord.

"In my personal opinion this student, had he grabbed anyone else, he most likely would have killed them," he wrote in an April victim's impact statement.

He asked that Cozad be placed in a group home.

Waits said Cozad had hurt other employees over the years. The director of the South Coast Education Service District life skills program, Tenneal Wetherell, could not verify that. She said Cozad has had a long-term struggle with social behavior.

After a suspension, Cozad returned to school, under the supervision of two adult specialists, Wetherell said.

He most recently was enrolled in the adult transition program, although Cozad hadn't attended weekly classes in about a month. He was kept away from other students, she said.

District Superintendent George Woodruff said it is a challenge to help students such as Cozad.
"When you have someone who is nonverbal, how do you communicate with them? How do we respond to people with such needs?" he asked. "It's a challenge for the whole community."

Following are reactions to this story from www.kgw.com:

I worked in an alternative classroom with many autistic young adults who had severe behaviors for 6 years. The reason they are in school is that we have laws for the disabled. By and large, this is a wonderful advancement over how this population was treated before the Americans With Disabilities Act was implemented. A mental retardation orautism diagnosis, as I understand it, takes precedence over a mental- illness diagnosis, however. And how can mental illness be properly diagnosed in someone with a severe communication disorder? Some people are both mentally handicapped and mentally ill, and many of these students have a history of extreme abuse because their behaviors are so very frustrating and people in their early lives are ill-equipped to deal with them. It's very sad.

i think people in that condition have no right to be in the public or attend public schools.

I feel for the family of the victim. It sounds like this young man will have to be institutionalized for the rest of his life

i have know this boy since birth and if you knew the back ground you would totally understand and surprised it hasn't happen sooner. It sucks because had the poor guys home life been even in the slightest bit better it never would have happened. poor Henry

Autistic persons are not freaks. I can understand the anguish of this person's former instructor. As a retired instructor of severely autistic multiply handicapped adolescents, I have observed the magic of finding the combination of giving the young person a way to communicate with simple signs, an alphabet board, picture menus, etc. and appropriate medications to lessen the aggressive tendencies. How would the young person learn how to behave around others and express his needs if he is isolated?

It never ceases to amaze me how easily our judicial and governmental systems fail to protect us. I am a Mother of a child with Autism, he is NOT violent at all. I can only imagine the pain of everyone involved and the fear in this young mans mind that he is unable to speak of. Autism comes in many shapes and sizes, please remember when passing judgement, this is a real event effecting real people. Not only today but in future court proceeding this may set a precedence. God speed all decision makers in this process and let them make just and fair decisions for all parties involved.

So, after this severely autistic non-verbal kid injured his instructor's spinal cord, he was sent back to school with two "adult specialists" and kept separate from other students? I'm sorry, but why the hell were we bothering? I'm not saying every person with autism needs to be locked away. My nephew is autistic and is enrolled in a similar program. He and his fellow students are doing great and learning about money, how to work in a supermarket stocking shelves, etc. If this kid requires two "specialists" just to attend class where no other students are present, how do we expect him to get along in society?
I have had the opportunity to have known several folks who have had children with Autism. In each case, when the children have reached an age of about 20 they have moved into a group home for similar adults.First example: A boy who became increasingly agitated at home, flourished in the new environment. The behaviors subsided, he makes regular visits, "home." His older brother, also autistic, made this same move a few years later. The stresses on his parents subsided substantially and they are much happier.Second example: A girl, higher functioning than the first boy. She also just had issues becoming increasingly agitated. Her parents, who thought they could handle things for life, were backed into a corner, so to speak. They really hated to let someone else take responsibility for her. She comes to visit, sometimes spends the night at home, and then back to the group home. The stress level on her parents was great before, now they are relaxed and ready to deal with her when she visits.This is not the solution for all kids in this situation, just my observation of these two families. The group home decision wasn't their first choice but it has made everyone happier in these homes.

You can't "Mainstream" everyone. With all due respect to "Cuckoo's Nest" and "Rain Man"...some people NEED to be in an institution.

More students struggle with autism
Rise has led to calls for a state panel to coordinate services, offer information
By Mackenzie Ryan • Statesman Journal • March 12, 2009

One-third more children in Oregon have autism this year than three years ago — far outpacing the increase of students with other disabilities, according to data released Wednesday by the Oregon Department of Education.

There are 7,579 students as old as 21 who meet the educational requirements for autism and are receiving special-education services this school year. Autism among children has grown between 7 percent and 13 percent each year for the past few years.

Most Mid-Valley school districts also are seeing similar increases in autism — in some cases outpacing the state.

Salem-Keizer School District has nearly 40 percent more students with autism this school year than three years ago. Willamette Education Service District, which serves special-education students in Marion, Polk and Yamhill counties, served 60 percent more students with autism in 2008 than in 2004.

"It's probably one of our fastest-growing groups," said Ruth Gelbrich, the director of student services for Salem-Keizer. "Nationally, it's on the rise."

The rise of autism — which educators say is, in part, due to better diagnosing — has prompted calls to create a state commission on autism.

In the Oregon Legislature, House Bill 3001 would create a commission that would be charged with coordinating services for people with autism and providing accurate information about the spectrum disorder. On Tuesday, the bill was referred to the House human-services committee with subsequent referrals to Ways and Means.

"We don't know the cause of autism," said Nancy Latini, the state assistant superintendent of student learning and partnerships. "You can ask five different people, and they'll each have five different reasons."

Nearly 2,000 more children are receiving educational services for autism this school year than in 2005-06, according to state data. Autism makes up about 9 percent of all students as old as 21 with disabilities in Oregon.

The rise in autism far outpaces the overall increase of other disabilities among students as old as 21. This school year, nearly 82,000 children have a disability in Oregon, up nearly 3 percent from three years before.

"It's challenging because it's such a wide range … we can have children who have very low abilities to those who are extremely bright and intelligent, but still have the characteristics of autism that need to be addressed," Latini said.

"They're our children, our students, so we accommodate where we need to," said Linda Warberg, the director of special services for Gervais School District.

maryan@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6750

More story here

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