The Abrahams lab works to understand the “whys” and “hows” in the Autism Spectrum Disorders and to use these insights to achieve better patient outcomes. Dr. Abrahams has identified DNA variants that increase risk for disease and discovered how some of these impact brain structure and function. Ongoing work is poised to take these insights back to the clinic and improve quality of life for patients and families.

All of the work that they accomplish begins and ends in the clinic. The Abrahams team is always actively recruiting patients (and family members) to participate in genetic studies. If you are interested in being part of their study, you can contact them directly for more information.

Widely sought by instititutions nationwide, he chose to come to Einstein and now he is choosing to speak at ICare4Autism’s upcoming August Conference Autism: A Global Perspective. This is the second time that we have invited Dr. Abrahams to speak after the rave reviews of his last speaking engagement at our Jun 6^th conference in 2011.

Dr. Abrahams speaks from a history of personal patient interaction and detailed experiments with a protein called Cntnap2. He writes that, “convergent lines of evidence support involvement of Contactin Associated Protein-Like 2 (CNTNAP2), a Neurexin family member, in the ASDs and related disorders of cognition.” The Abrahams lab explores the biological mechanisms by which mutations in CNTNAP2 may cause disease. They characterized animals in which the murine homolog is deleted.

Cntnap2 KO mice were found to have behavioral abnormalities reminiscent of core deficits observed in patients. Mutant mice were also seen to be hyperactive and show spontaneous epileptic seizures, both primary reactions in autistic patients. Treatment with the FDA approved drug risperidone alleviated a subset of behaviors in mutant mice. Dr. Abrahams will discuss further possible treatments and elaborate on the numerous successes that his team has encountered at Einstein.

The daily encounters and friction between the staff of therapists and the families of children with special needs (and sometimes also with the extended family) are often obscured within the obligations of rather complicated professional and mental challenges.

The family of the special needs child – who face a tremendous financial burden on top of the emotional burden they already bear – loses its privacy; they find themselves exposed, against their will, to the team of therapists. Often there are sensitive situations which cannot be hidden, and sometimes the family encounters open or latent criticism. The therapists also find themselves privy to the difficult emotional situation of the family members; crises in the relationships between the child’s parents; and complicated ethical problems: all of which while they are supposed to be providing professional and appropriate treatment for the child with whom they are working.

Inbar Konforti will be speaking about bridging the gap between families and therapists in home-based ABA at the upcoming ICare4Autism International Autism Conference in Israel.

The presentation will cover how parents and family members should be supported and involved in the treatment process, the difficulties experienced by the parents of children with special needs during such complex treatment and the difficulties experienced by the therapists.  She will also discuss how to optimize the effectiveness in applying such a home involvement program.

Inbar Konforti is the founder and Director of the Refael Center (www.merkaz-refael.co.il) – the National Guidance Center to Train Behavioral Therapists ABA; Certified Behavior Analyst BCABA, with 12 years’ experience working with children suffering from autism and delayed development. She is a graduate of the University of Tel Aviv for certification studies in Applied Behavioral Analysis. BA (Honors) in Special Education from Bar Ilan University. Inbar Konforti is a lecturer on ABA at various locations in Israel, instructor of the Home-Based Program, and programs designed to integrate children suffering from autism and delayed development into schools and kindergartens.

Dame Stephanie Shirley

Dame Stephanie Shirley is the British Government’s Founding Ambassador for Philanthropy, and the Chairman of the Shirley Foundation. The keynote speaker of the upcoming ICare4Autism International Autism Conference, Dame Shirley, recently expressed her thoughts on philanthropy and how to invigorate a giving culture.

Dame Shirley explained the result of having arrived in theUKin 1939 as an unaccompanied child refugee fromGermany, “my personal history is the main reason why I give. As a refugee, I need to justify the fact that my life was saved while so many others were lost. I’ve been the recipient of charity and have been sensitized to issues in a way that people who have always had enough money – not to be hungry anyway – find hard to imagine”.

She sites her two life-defining ideas as first, knowing that there is always hope and second, that even after losing everything she was never the victim of bigotry and cruelty.

Dame Shirley believes that it is important not to patronize beneficiaries and the key to this is for modern philanthropists to be actively involved.  She also believes the more open we are about our giving the more we will encourage a giving culture saying, “If I don’t talk about why and how I give, how can I get anyone else involved? A society needs models, strong models, to display personal vision and leadership.”

She also noted that there needs to be a shift in the way that governments, media and nonprofits interact with philanthropists.  Dame Shirley states that giving is voluntary and philanthropist don’t always respond to the most ‘needy’ so it is naïve for governments to rely on philanthropists to pick up the slack when services are cut.  She states that that the media need to find a way to both praise and critique the work of philanthropists.  Dame Shirley believes that nonprofits need to encourage their donors to voice their support to inspire others to follow in their footsteps.

The thoughts she wanted to leave the audience with were succinct and inspiring, “One: Be strategic in your giving. Make a difference. Two: Provide a role model. Be prepared to stand up and be counted. And: Always, but always, be humane.”

ICare4Autism International Autism Conference will be held in Jerusalem on the 1st and 2nd of August 2012. Autism: A Global Perspective will bring together top leading medical and educational professionals and researchers working in autism.

The purpose of the ICare4Autism conferences are to share current groundbreaking research into the causes and treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders , and to be a catalyst for powerful interdisciplinary collaborations to tackle the global autism crisis. Registration is now open.

A drawback to these videos is that some children have a hard time connecting with the subjects in the videos as they can’t relate to them. However, according to research in autism, children with autism do relate to their own face and can recognize it in a mirror.

Sen-Ching (Samson) Cheung, an associate professor in the University of Kentucky College of Engineering’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a faculty member within the UK Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments, has a son with autism.  Most of his research has been in the area of multimedia information analysis – it occurred to him that his area of research could be used to help his son and others like him.

“I enjoy solving problems and developing new theories, working on new technology and future products,” Cheung said. “Though we were disappointed about the diagnosis, we began taking our son to different therapies and reading about effective ways to help children with autism,” Cheung recalls.

Cheung hypothesized that if children with autism could watch themselves accomplishing basic daily living tasks they would be more likely to develop those skills given their inclination to want to look at themselves.

Working with UK pediatric professor Dr. Neelkamal Soares, autism expert from the UK College of Education Lisa Ruble and developmental psychologist from the College of Arts and Sciences Ramesh Bhatt, Cheung has submitted proposals for funding to develop what is called a “virtual mirror.” In the virtual mirror, a child will be able to look at himself in a large computer display. As he is looking at himself, the program will take his image and virtually create the child carrying out the very actions he needs to learn (speaking, sitting still, social interactions with others, etc.). Cheung hopes that this new technology can help children like his son better concentrate on behavioral learning and generalizing abstract concepts to daily life.

Sen-Ching (Samson) Cheung, associate professor in the University of Kentucky College of Engineering’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

“Developing something new that will help autistic children is incredibly rewarding for me. I am taking my background and expertise and connecting them to something I have a personal stake in seeing succeed. It’s for our child and also for countless other parents of autistic children who need help.” Cheung says.

“I am hopeful for the virtual mirror’s possibilities — it is the most important work I have ever done,” he says. “But even more so, I am extremely hopeful for my son.”

Accurate description of an individual’s communication level is very important in both research and practice. Describing the communication status of individuals with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities is difficult because these individuals often communicate with means that may not be readily recognized. The researchers goal was to design a communication scale and summary score that could be applied across populations of children and adults with limited communication forms.

Researchers developed the Communications Complexity Scale (CCS), a tool for researchers and clinicians to measure the communication development of both children and adults with disabilities as diverse as Autism Spectrum Disorders, deaf-blindness and cerebral palsy.

“Understanding the communication status of individuals with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities is difficult because they often communicate in ways that may not be readily recognized, even by clinicians,” said Brady, who pioneered a communication assessment and intervention for children with deaf-blindness.

One of the goals of the CCS was to provide a measure that would reflect an individual’s current status on the communications continuum, rather than a particular chronological age or other comparison group, a downside of many current measures.

Researchers found that scores on the CSS were within expected ranges for those studied. Comparison across other measures indicated significant correlations with standardized tests of language. Those who knew the children filled out reports on their communication abilities and tended to place children at higher levels of communication. Expert opinions generally favored the development of the CCS.

CSS is also designed to be more sensitive to change over time as well as to an individual’s response to behavioral and medication interventions.

The CCS has 11 levels of behaviors associated with the stages of communication development. It was developed, tested and refined by two teams of researchers at the University of Kansas and a third at the University of Washington. The study focused on three groups of 178 participants who represented a variety of ages, diagnoses, exposure to languages (other than English), motor and sensory abilities, including ASD, Down syndrome and motor impairments. None could express more than 20 words of speech, signs or symbols.

The scale appears to be useful for describing a given individual’s level of communication. Further research is needed to determine whether it is sensitive to developmental growth in communication.

Dr. Joshua Weinstein, CEO & Founder of ICare4Autism and Shema Kolainu – Hear Our Voices

The workshop featured an introduction by Dr. Joshua Weinstein, CEO & Founder of ICare4Autism and Shema Kolainu – Hear Our Voices.  He spoke about ICare4Autism’s Autism Workforce Initiative which will be the first of its kind. The initiative will be an integral component of ICare4Autism’s Global Autism Center for Research and Education in Jerusalem.

It will encompass workforce entry services providing high school students with autism with the opportunity to discover their interests and abilities by participating in a variety of vocational experiences, and works with students and their families to develop realistic transition plans when preparing to leave school and enter the workforce.

There will be vocational and employment services ranging for the semi-skilled, placing individuals in (or work as subcontractors on) jobs performing tasks such as light assembly, packaging, recycling, collating, lawn and garden work, etc. There will also be the placement for the high functioning placing individuals in jobs that build off their existing strengths and personality traits in such areas as computer programming, maintenance and operation of machines and equipment, laboratory technician, animal training and care, horticulture, handicrafts, photography, etc.

In recognition to the large number of opportunities in the technology sector and the unique skills that persons with Asperger’s possess there will be a special targeted program to place persons with Asperger’s Syndrome in technology sector jobs.

Dr. Weinstein also discussed ICare4Autism’s International Autism Conference scheduled for August this year and those in attendance were lucky enough to receive a special discount on registration for the conference.

Dr. Stephen Shore, Assistant Professor at Adelphi University

Dr. Stephen Shore then took the floor, speaking to a full house about employment opportunities for people with Autism.  Even those individuals with ASD who achieved post secondary education or have highly developed skill areas often have difficulty selling themselves in job interviews and maintaining working relationships on the job. Drawing on his personal and professional experiences as an adult living with Autism, Dr. Shore shared the strategies he has used successfully to find and secure employment and meet the expectations of employers for people throughout the autism spectrum.

Dr. Shore reiterated the point that when looking for employment, those with autism should focus on their strengths and what could make them uniquely employable given special talents or interests.

The next workshop at Shema Kolainu – Hear Our Voices, The Road to Independence, is on the 28^th of March and will cover issues such as toilet training, self care skills and pre-vocational skills.  Click here to see the full workshop schedule.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh

Australian politician, Anna Bligh has announced that $50 million of funding will go to new initiatives for education for special needs students across the state of Queensland. This announcement comes after reports that funding for services for children with autism in Australia was so dire that families were forced to leave the country.

Ms Bligh made the announcement at Mitchelton Special School as she continued to campaign around Brisbane today.

“Education matters to every child and I want to make sure every Queensland child gets a flying start with the best possible education and that means making sure we look after those students who have a disability or special need,” she said.

The announcement included a new autism center for excellence, $13.1 million to adapt the curriculum for children with autism, including 50 scholarships for postgraduate autism teacher studies, and a further $9.8m in training for principals and $8.2m for teacher aides.

“This package will see the biggest investment in professional development for teacher aides, teachers and principals that we’ve seen for many years,” Bligh said.

“It will also fund additional equipment to assist teachers who are working with students with special needs.”
The initiative will be funded through a combination of grants from the Queensland Education Trust and National Partnership Agreement funding.

One investigation found that proposed revisions to the American Psychiatric Association’s definition would exclude about 75% those currently diagnosed with milder forms of autism.

The proposed revisions, which would come into effect in 2013, are likely to have big repercussions for those who would have once been eligible for services that experts say can improve an individual’s abilities to socialize, learn and ultimately live independently. The changes to DSM-5 have also sparked a broader discussion over the value of a diagnosis for behavior differences, and how to fairly allocate services at a time when resources are dwindling.

Parents are justifiably concerned that any tightening of the autistic spectrum will threaten their children’s eligibility for vital services. A campaign has therefore been launched by The Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership, Inc. to lobby the DSM-5 task force to keep a broad spectrum concept of autism.  The campaign urges those affected to contact the DSM-5 Committee to protest the newest changes.

Debate has also been rife among medical professionals.  Many divisions of the American Psychological Association have banded together to issue an open letter and petition to the DSM-5 task force and American Psychiatric Association urging that both associations should be working together on any revisions of the DSM and also publicly opposing various aspects of the proposed changes.  The letter states, “Psychologists are not only consumers and utilizers of the manual, but we are also producers of seminal research on DSM-defined disorder categories and their empirical correlates.”

The preliminary draft revisions to the current diagnostic criteria for psychiatric diagnoses are available for public review on the DSM-5 website.  Publication of the fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders will be in May 2013.  Despite mounting criticism the DSM-5 task force has shown no signs of amending their recommendations for changes to the definition of Autism.

Abnormalities in the immune system that imitate those seen with autism spectrum disorders have been connected to the amyloid precursor protein (APP), reports a research team from the University of South Florida’s Department of Psychiatry and the Silver Child Development Center.

Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP)

A recent study using a mouse model of autism proposes abnormalities in the immune system could be linked to pervasive developmental disorders.

The research proposes that heightened levels of an APP fragment circulating in the blood could explain the abnormalities in immune cell populations and function – both of which are seen in some autism patients. The conclusions of this study were published online in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

The USF researchers have come to believe that the protein fragment might not only be a biological marker for the disorder but also a new area of research targeted at understanding the physiology of autism.

“Autism affects one in 110 children in the United States today,” said research team leader Jun Tan, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and the Robert A. Silver Chair, Rashid Laboratory for Developmental Neurobiology at USF’s Silver Child Development Center. “While there are reports of abnormal T-cell numbers and function in some persons affected with autism, no specific cause has been identified. The disorder is diagnosed by behavioral observation and to date no associated biomarkers have been identified.”

“Not only are there no associated biomarkers, but the prognosis for autism is poor and the costs associated with care are climbing,” said Francisco Fernandez, MD, department chair and head of the Silver Center. “The work of Dr. Tan and his team is a start that may lead to earlier diagnosis and more effective treatments.”

The amyloid precursor protein is usually studied in connection with Alzheimer’s disease.

However, recent studies have shown elevated levels of the particular protein fragment, called, sAPP-α, in the blood of autistic children.

The fragment is a well-known growth factor for nerves, and studies imply that it also plays a role in T-cell immune responses.

ICare4Autism and University of Haifa Autism Conference
Applying Technology for Intervention with Children with Autism

November 22, 2011

9:00am to 1:30pm

Hecht Auditorium, University of Haifa

This Haifa conference is another in ICare4Autism’s series of events to highlight autism issues in the North of Israel developed by Joshua Weinstein, PH.D., MBA, ICare4Autism’s CEO  & Founder. Professor Tamar Weiss of the University of Haifa has spearheaded this important conference in conjunction with ICare4Autism. Dr. Weinstein will be presenting the latest technology used when working with children with autism. The conference will focus on how to apply media and technology to increase social skills, speech, independence and learning for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). There will be live demonstrations on how to apply the technology as well. The conference is free and open to all. To RSVP please email blevine@icare4autism.org

Opening Remarks and Greetings

Dr. Batya Engel-Yeger, Chair, Dept. of Occupational Therapy

Dr. Massimo Zancanaro,  Fondazione Bruno Kessler – Irst, Cospatial Coordinator

Prof. Onn Winkler,  Office of the Rector, University of Haifa

Presentations

“Using Technology to Increase Independence and Learning”
Dr. Joshua Weinstein, Director, ICare4Autism, International Center for Autism Research and Education

“Applying CBT for children with ASD via technology”

Prof. Nirit Bauminger, School of Education, Bar-Ilan University

“Using table top technologies to improve social interaction skills of children with ASD”

Dr. Eynat Gal, Dept. of Occupational Therapy, University of Haifa

“Technology supported collaborative construction of storytelling by children with high functioning ASD”

Dr. Rachel Yifat, Dept. of Communication Disorders, University of Haifa

“Using multi-media to teach children with ASD to identify emotions”

Dr. Ofer Golan, Dept. of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University

“Using technology for children with ASD: Boon or Bane?”

Prof. Tamar Weiss, Dept. of Occupational Therapy, University of Haifa

Demonstrations

Dr. Massimo Zancanaro,  Fondazione Bruno Kessler – Irst “Cospatial collaboration software”

Dr. Sigal Eden, School of Education, Bar-Ilan University “Cospatial collaboration software”

Orit Almog, Center for Educational Technology, “Social interaction via the Internet”

Tal Goren and Dr. Orit Hetzroni, Faculty of Education, University of Haifa “A computerized kit to prepare parents for the evaluation process”

Sarit Tresser, Timocco, Inc. “Interactive games based on body motion tracking technology”