Brookes Publishing Co. offers the Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) Pocket Guide. PRT is an autism intervention that uses natural learning opportunities to help children make lasting improvements in communication, behavior, and other key areas. The PRT Pocket Guide offers a “how-to” introduction to the scientifically-validated PRT approach, showing readers how to work with children’s natural motivations to target core behaviors and bring about rapid sweeping improvements.
PCI Education launched PCI Reading Program-Level Three Software, a new online component to the PCI Reading Program, a reading series for students with intellectual disabilities. Level Three Software delivers interactive lessons to help students master decoding through a suite of engaging virtual games. The online, subscription-based software covers the same concepts presented in print and focuses on building phonemic awareness and phonic skills.
AutismPro, a product of Trumpet Behavioral Health, offers a suite of professional development and management resources available for educators, healthcare professionals, and managed care organizations working with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays.
Monarch Teaching Technologies produces VizZle, an easy-to-use, web-based authoring tool that empowers educators to create fun, interactive, visually supported curriculum customized to the needs of children with autism and other learning challenges. The VizZle Player App for iPad takes advantage of a child with autism’s affinity for iPad’s Multi-Touch display and gives educators and parents access to important academic and social skill building lessons.
TeachTown Inc., a developer of educational software and video modeling technology, has launched an information-packed website in support of children with autism and special needs. Educators and parents can find the latest research on autism, learn best practices of classroom technology, read educator and student stories, download fun activities, and watch demos of two TeachTown curriculum-based instructional programs.
The most recent figures
The CDC study is considered the most comprehensive U.S. investigation of autism prevalence to date. Researchers gathered data from areas in 14 states – Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin.
They looked specifically at 8-year-old children, because most autism is diagnosed by that age. They checked health and school records to see which children met the criteria for autism, even if they hadn’t been formally diagnosed. Then, the researchers calculated how common autism was in each place and overall.
An earlier report based on 2002 findings estimated that about 1 in 150 children that age had autism or a related disorder. After seeing 2006 data, the figure was revised to about 1 in 110. The estimate of 1 in 88, based on 2008 data, is about 1.1 percent of kids that age.
The study also found that autism disorders were almost five times more common in boys, while a growing number of black and Hispanic children were also reported to have them. And an increasingly large proportion of children with autism have IQs of 85 or higher, it said—a finding that contradicts a past assumption that most autistic kids had IQs of 70 or lower.
What causes autism?
The CDC is also studying the cause of autism, which has remained a mystery. Scientists say genetics play a role.
Latest posts by staff and wire services reports
(see all)
Comments are closed.