HCMC teacher offers lesson in compassion

Independent study: Relying on information from the Internet, Huynh Ngoc Bang Tuyet devises interesting lectures for her students.

VietNamNet Bridge – "Bang Tuyet" means ice and snow, but this teacher -- who decided overnight to devote her life to helping children with Down syndrome and autism -- has a warm heart that contradicts the coldness of her name.

Huynh Ngoc Bang Tuyet's eyes brightened and filled up at the same time.

One of her students with Down syndrome at the Niem Tin (Belief) School for Disabled Children had just said something praising her.

The student's words could only be understood with difficulty, but for Tuyet, the praise was ample reward for the time and effort she has spent year after year, teaching her students to perform such simple actions as washing their hands, brushing their teeth, and using a spoon to eat.

For her current class of 12 students aged seven to 16, Tuyet is more than a teacher. Over the eight years she has spent at the school, she has been a mother, a nurse and a caregiver for many children. But it is not a job that she had planned to take.

"I once watched a television report on schools for disabled children. I came to the school asking for information so I could arrange to send my nephew, who has special needs, to study here. Unfortunately, it was not a suitable school," Tuyet recalled.

But while walking around the school and seeing the children there, she was deeply moved and wanted to do something for them.

"I felt sad for them, so I applied for a job here."

Tuyet does not just turn up every day and help the children with whatever they need. She frequently visits bookstores and browses the Internet in order to get more information on teaching methods and materials that she can use to help her wards.

When she applied for the job, Tuyet knew that she would have to take care of the children for years. Some students are 10 or 13 years old, but have the mental growth of nine-month-old infants.

Nguyen Thi Hue, who sends her 12-year-old grandson, Nguyen Ba Duy, to Tuyet's class, said the boy has begun behaving well at home in recent years thanks to Tuyet's teaching methods. He is now able to take care himself and invite others to have meals at home.

In tears, Hue said: "Tuyet is a good teacher. She never accepts gifts from me as she knows my family's situation."

Tuyet, who'd previously had 26 years of experience in pre-school education, talks frequently with her students' relatives to understand more about their background so that she can fashion appropriate teaching strategies.

Apart from being a teacher, she has to play the roles of a mother and even a nurse when she is class.

Some of her students suffer from frequent epileptic fits, so she has to know very well the measures to be taken to deal with them. She also has know-how to deal with several different problems and conditions that her students live with.

"I am aware that I have to be devoted and patient to help the children to know the simplest thing and develop the most basic skills, like drinking water, eating rice, going to the restroom," Tuyet said.

It is not so difficult to be devoted and patient once people realize what a big difference such small skills make, she added.

This is why she is always smiling, although taking care of 12 children afflicted by these conditions is a daunting task.

Tuyet recalled that when she began teaching at the school, she was beaten by the children and could not understand why they did it. Later, she recognized that the children were unhappy. Approaching them with compassion, she tried to find ways to understand them better and instruct them in basic daily activities.

Now, several of her students can wash their hands, hold a glass to drink water, peel boiled eggs. These simple achievements have required great efforts from the teacher who is always looking to be creative and make her lessons simple and interesting.

After class, she returns home, but refused my request to visit her family.

I found out later that she takes great care of her parents-in-law and husband. Tragedy visited her happy family in 2000 when her husband had a serious traffic accident and "lost his mind". Despite such a tough situation and the meagre salary that the school gives, she insists on helping the children.

Do Thi Xuan, another teacher at the school, said she admires Tuyet and has learnt a lot from her.

In fact everyone who meets Tuyet learns from her. Her limitless patience and love are a lesson in compassionate living for everyone.

Source: VNS

USA - Link found between child prodigies and autism

A new study of eight child prodigies suggests a possible link between these children's special skills and autism.

Of the eight prodigies studied, three had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders. As a group, the prodigies also tended to have slightly elevated scores on a test of autistic traits, when compared to a control group.

In addition, half of the prodigies had a family member or a first- or second-degree relative with an autism diagnosis.

The fact that half of the families and three of the prodigies themselves were affected by autism is surprising because autism occurs in only one of 120 individuals, said Joanne Ruthsatz, lead author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University's Mansfield campus.

"The link between child prodigies and autism is strong in our study," Ruthsatz said. "Our findings suggest child prodigies have traits in common with autistic children, but something is preventing them from displaying the deficits we associate with the disorder."

The study also found that while child prodigies had elevated general intelligence scores, where they really excelled was in working memory - all of them scored above the 99th percentile on this trait.

Ruthsatz conducted the study with Jourdan Urbach of Yale University. Their results were published in a recent issue of the journal Intelligence.

For the study, the researchers identified eight child prodigies through the internet and television specials and by referral. The group included one art prodigy, one math prodigy, four musical prodigies and two who switched domains (one from music to gourmet cooking, and one from music to art). The study included six males and two females.

The researchers met with each prodigy individually over the course of two or three days. During that time, the prodigies completed the Stanford-Binet intelligence test, which included sub-tests on fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual spatial abilities and working memory.

In addition, the researchers administered the Autism-Spectrum Quotient assessment, which scores the level of autistic traits. The prodigies' scores on the test were compared to a control group of 174 adults who were contacted randomly by mail.

Ruthsatz said the most striking data was that which identified autistic traits among the prodigies.

The prodigies showed a general elevation in autistic traits compared to the control group, but this elevation was on average even smaller than that seen in high-functioning autistic people diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome.

Autism is a developmental disability characterized by problems with communicating and socializing and a strong resistance to change. People with Asperger's are more likely than those with autism to have normal intelligence, but tend to have difficulties with social interaction.

The prodigies did score higher than the control group and the Asperger's group on one subsection of the autism assessment: attention to detail.

"These prodigies had an absolutely amazing memory for detail," she said. "They don't miss anything, which certainly helps them achieve the successes they have."

Ruthsatz said it was not the three prodigies who were diagnosed with autism who were driving this particular finding. In fact, the three autistic prodigies scored an average of 8 on attention to detail, compared to 8.5 for the entire group of prodigies.

On the intelligence test, the prodigies scored in the gifted range, but were not uniformly exceptional. While five of the eight prodigies scored in the 90th percentile or above on the IQ test, one scored at the 70th percentile and another at the 79th percentile.

But just as they did in the autism assessment, the prodigies stood out in one of the sub-tests of the intelligence test. In this case, the prodigies showed an exceptional working memory, with all of them scoring above the 99th percentile.

Working memory is the system in the brain that allows people to hold multiple pieces of information in mind for a short time in order to complete a task.

The findings paint a picture of what it takes to create a prodigy, Ruthsatz said.

"Overall, what we found is that prodigies have an elevated general intelligence and exceptional working memory, along with an elevated autism score, with exceptional attention to detail," Ruthsatz said.

These results suggest that prodigies share some striking similarities with autistic savants - people who have the developmental disabilities associated with autism combined with an extraordinary talent or knowledge that is well beyond average.

"But while autistic savants display many of the deficits commonly associated with autism, the child prodigies do not," Ruthsatz said. "The question is why."

The answer may be some genetic mutation that allows prodigies to have the extreme talent found in savants, but without the deficits seen in autism. But the answer will require more study, Ruthsatz said.

"Our findings suggest that prodigies may have some moderated form of autism that actually enables their extraordinary talent."

Provided by The Ohio State University

http://medicalxpress.com/

USA - Autism research may be about to bear fruit

ATLANTA (AP) -- More than $1 billion has been spent over the past decade researching autism. In some ways, the search for its causes looks like a long-running fishing expedition, with a focus on everything from genetics to the age of the father, the weight of the mother, and how close a child lives to a freeway.

That perception may soon change. Some in the field say they are seeing the beginning of a wave of scientific reports that should strengthen some theories, jettison others and perhaps even herald new drugs.

"I do think over the next three to five years we'll be able to paint a much clearer picture of how genes and environmental factors combine" to cause autism, said Geraldine Dawson, a psychologist who is chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks.

The effort has been infused with new urgency by a recent federal report that found autism disorders are far more common than was previously understood, affecting 1 in 88 U.S. children. Better diagnosis is largely responsible for the new estimate, but health officials said there may actually be more cases of autism, too.

If autism's causes remain a mystery, "you're not going to be able to stop this increase," said Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a researcher at the University of California, Davis who is leading a closely watched study into what sparks autism disorders.

In the past week, a spate of studies released during National Autism Awareness Month has offered tantalizing new information about potential causes. Research published in the journal Nature widened the understanding of the genetic roots of some cases and confirmed the elevated risks for children with older fathers. Another study, released online Monday in Pediatrics, suggested maternal obesity may play a role.

To be sure, finding the causes of autism - an umbrella term for a variety of disorders that delay children socially or intellectually - remains daunting. The causes are believed to be complicated, and not necessarily the same for each child. Some liken autism to cancer - a small word for a wide range of illnesses. In many cases, autism can be blamed on both genetic problems that load the gun and other factors that pull the trigger.

It has been a growing public concern for two decades, as studies have found it to be more and more prevalent. The U.S. government dramatically increased funding for autism research in the last decade, and now budgets about $170 million a year through the National Institutes of Health. That's only about a quarter of what NIH will spend on breast cancer research and $50 million less than what it will spend on asthma.

But more than a half-dozen foundations and autism advocacy groups have been adding to the pot, putting annual research spending in recent years at more than $300 million. About a third of that has been devoted to finding autism's causes.

The lion's share of money for finding a cause has been spent on genetics, which so far experts believe can account for roughly 20 percent of cases. The earliest success was in the early 1990s and involved the discovery of the genetic underpinnings of Fragile X syndrome, a rare condition that accounts for just 2 to 4 percent of autism cases but is the most common form of inherited intellectual disability in boys.

The focus on genetics has been bolstered by dramatic improvements in gene mapping as well as the bioengineering of mice with autism symptoms. Dozens of risk genes have been identified, and a half-dozen drug companies are said to be working on developing new treatments.

"We've made some very significant progress on the genetics end of this search," said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

Scientists have used autistic mice to test new drugs. Among the most promising is a small, white, strawberry-flavored pill that is so experimental it doesn't have a name. Developed by a Massachusetts company called Seaside Therapeutics Inc., the drug is aimed at a problem area in the brains of autistic children, where neurons connect and conduct signals through the nervous system.

It's a bit like the way tree-hopping ants might cross the twig ends of one tree branch to another. In Fragile X syndrome, scientists have noted the branches are thinner and the twigs too numerous. The experimental drug thins the twigs and strengthens the branches, allowing a more solid and centralized bridge.

The same problem hasn't been as visible in other types of autism, but many believe the phenomenon is somewhat similar.

The drug was deemed successful in mice and is now being tested in children and adults. In small, early studies, the drug made a striking difference in small groups of Fragile X children, causing hermit-like youngsters to start hanging out in the kitchen to chat with their mothers, said Dr. Paul Wang, Seaside's vice president of clinical development.

Now it is being tried in a preliminary study of about 150 children with a range of other autism disorders, including Asperger's. The results are expected to be presented at a scientific conference in the next year.

"It's going to be an exciting time, we hope," when those results come in, said Dawson, from Autism Speaks.

But even genetics enthusiasts acknowledge that genes are only part of the answer. Studies of identical twins have shown that autism can occur in one and not the other, meaning something outside a child's DNA is triggering the disorder in many cases. Some cases may be entirely due to other causes, Dawson said.

That broad "other" category means "environmental" influences - not necessarily chemicals, but a grab bag of outside factors that include things like the age of the father at conception and illnesses and medications the mother had while pregnant.

For years, the best-known environmental theory involved childhood vaccines, prompted by a flawed 1998 British study that has been thoroughly discredited. Dozens of later studies have found no link between vaccines and autism.

But there are other possible candidates. In all cases, these are "association" studies - they don't prove cause and effect. They merely find connections between certain factors and autism. And sometimes these conclusions can be skewed by other things researchers failed to account for. Some study results expected within a year:

-       Hertz-Picciotto's study of 1,600 children in Northern California is comparing autistic children, youngsters with other developmental disabilities, and those who have no such diagnoses. Some results have been released already, including the recent finding that suggests a link between autism and a mother's obesity. An earlier part of the study found that children born to mothers living less than two blocks from a freeway were twice as likely to have autism - presumably because of auto exhaust and air pollution, the researchers speculated.

-       A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study involves 2,700 families nationwide. The researchers are interviewing parents and poring over medical records to look for common threads among autistic families, as well as doing genetics tests and checking hair samples for mercury. Much of the focus is on illnesses, medications, nutritional deficiencies or other problems during pregnancy.

-       A study by Pennsylvania researchers involves 1,700 families in various regions of the country. Scientists are doing brain-imaging to look for changes over time in the brains of infants who have an older autistic sibling.

-       A large Scandinavian study is examining patient registries in six countries for prenatal risk factors.

As study findings are reported, researchers are hoping to see repetition - confirmation, that is - that certain factors are playing significant roles.

Even so, scientists are still casting nets.

Said Coleen Boyle, a CDC official overseeing research into children's developmental disabilities: "We're at the infancy of just understanding how these factors relate to autism."

MIKE STOBBE

AP

Online:

CDC study under way: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/seed.html

Northern California study: http://beincharge.ucdavis.edu

Pennsylvania researchers' study: http://www.earlistudy.org