Probation: Parents who Dumped Disabled Son / Special Ed 60 Min. Story Sunday

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Probation: Parents who Dumped Disabled Son / Special Ed 60 Min. Story Sunday

Friday, March 03, 2000

Also: * Programs Are Reducing Mental Health Problems in School-Age

Children

* Vaccine Mask Boosts Measles Fight

[From Nando Media and the Associated Press.]

http://www.nandotimes.com

Probation: Parents who Dumped Disabled Son

A Pennsylvania couple has agreed to one year's probation in exchange

for admitting they abandoned their disabled 10-year-old son at a Delaware

hospital.

The deal, announced Thursday by the Delaware attorney general's office,

means and Dawn Kelso of Exton, Pa., will avoid a criminal trial on

the misdemeanor charge of child abandonment. The trial was to begin

Tuesday.

Jim Apostolico, deputy attorney general, said the probation deal makes

sense because the Kelsos do not have a criminal past and have cooperated

with child welfare agencies.

On Dec. 26, the Kelsos dropped off their son, , in his wheelchair

at the Alfred I. du Pont Hospital for Children in Rockland, Del., with a

note saying they could no longer care for him.

In papers filed with Delaware Family Court, the couple insisted they

loved their son but were exhausted from round-the-clock care because nursing

help was unavailable during the holidays.

, who suffers from cerebral palsy, uses a tube to breathe and

eat.

The Chester County Department of Children, Youth and Families took

temporary custody of the boy. He remains at the hospital, where the Kelsos

are permitted supervised visits.

The probation agreement does not affect the custody situation. Any

change in custody conditions or visitation rights is up to the Chester

County youth department, said Todd Halliday, spokesman for the Delaware

attorney general's office.

Officials with the Chester County youth department did not immediately

return phone calls seeking comment.

* * *

Special Ed 60 Minutes Story Sunday

From the CBS website: " Do all disabled kids have the right to attend

public schools, even those who show signs of being dangerous? In the wake of

the Columbine tragedy, an Alabama school district has banned Lance Landers

for continually threatening violence. Morley Safer reports. Olian

is the producer. "

If you watch this, keep in mind that while the " Columbine tragedy " was

horrific violence, the crises atmosphere surrounding it was media inflammed

and self-serving. The reality is that school violence has been on a steady

ten year decline, a fact rarely reported. Belying the wall-to-wall media

coverage, school shoot-ups are rare. Like airplane crashes, these

spectacles inordinately command attention and create a false sense of

heightened danger.

Additionally, none of the recent school shoot ups were done by special

education students.

Nothing like a crises, real or manufactured, to stampede the public

into a backlash policy agenda. Apparently in this case, it's to weaken the

IDEA. See following story.

* * *

Programs Are Reducing Mental Health Problems in School-Age Children

[Research disputes common opinion, headlines.]

http://www.psu.edu/dept/prevention

AScribe News - Despite what the general public may believe and

headlines may imply, important and meaningful progress has been made in

preventive intervention with school-age children during the last decade.

That's according to a report co-authored by researchers in Pennsylvania

State University's Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human

Development. Researchers led by Mark T. Greenberg, director of the center,

conducted a review for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services'

Center for Mental Health Services on the effectiveness of prevention

programs for reducing mental health problems in school-age children.

Greenberg co-authored the 1999 review, " Preventing Mental Disorders in

School-Age Children, " with Dr. Celene Domitrovich, research associate, and

Bumbarger, research assistant. The review notes that advances in

theory, program development, and scientific evaluation have led to important

new findings showing the promise of preventive approaches.

" We identified thirty-four different programs found to significantly

reduce aggression, depression and anxiety and improve behavior and

problem-solving skills. This good news shows the potential promise of

widespread prevention programs to reduce mental disorders and behavior

problems in childhood in a manner similar to what our nation has done to

reduce heart disease and cancer, " says Greenberg, who holds the Edna

Endowed Chair in Prevention Research in Penn State's

College of Health and Human Development.

Public health models have long based their interventions on identifying

and reducing risk factors for disease or disorders as well as promoting

processes that protect against risk, says Greenberg. The research on

positive child development has focused the field of preventive mental health

on understanding how risk and protective factors operate, and can be

modified to alter the prevalence of mental disorders and problem behaviors

in childhood. Risk factors, he adds, include biological, social, and

contextual factors in the child, the family, the school or the community.

Development is complex, and it is unlikely that there is a single cause of,

or risk factor for, any disorder.

Thus, it is doubtful that most childhood behavioral disorders can be

eliminated by treating causes that are purported to reside in the child

alone, says Greenberg.

" It is also apparent that many identified risk factors are not linked

to a specific disorder, but may associated instead with a variety of poor

outcomes such as delinquency, violence, substance abuse, psychopathology, or

school failure, " says Greenberg. " A focus on increasing protective factors

therefore may lead not only to a lower incidence of mental disorder, but

also to improving the overall behavioral, social, and emotional competence

of children. "

The researchers also identified several characteristics that effective

programs shared. Effective universal prevention programs (programs that were

addressed to broad populations of children, families, and schools) focused

on teaching emotional self-regulation as well as thinking and

decision-making skills that improve social and emotional competence.

Effective programs also created changes in the school and family ecology

that supported the use and reinforcement of these new skills. Finally, they

lasted one or more school years and were used regularly.

The review also found ten programs that have successfully reduced the

risk for conduct problems. Disorders of conduct are one of the most

prevalent and stable child psychiatric disorders.

" Many of our most costly and damaging societal problems, such as

delinquency, substance use, and adult mental disorder, have their origins in

early conduct problems, " says Greenberg. Of the programs aimed at reducing

the risk for conduct problems, Greenberg notes, a new generation of

multi-component models that target the child, school, family, neighborhood,

parents, teachers and peers seem to provide the promise of greater impact

than programs that focus only on the child or family.

In addition, the review found several programs that have successfully

reduced depressive symptoms, including programs that have reduced symptoms

of anxiety and risk for suicide. These effective programs focus on teaching

children and youth how to alter and utilize more effective thinking and

behavioral coping strategies. The programs also showed children and

adolescents how to more effectively use the support of others in times of

stress. In addition, other programs were identified that successfully impact

children experiencing the stress-related effects of divorce or childhood

bereavement that often manifest themselves in mental or behavioral problems.

" The fact that we were able to identify more than thirty well-evaluated

programs to reduce mental health problems in school-age children shows the

potential promise of prevention. It also validates the progress made in

prevention research over the past decade and reinforces the need for

implementing research-based programs and holding them accountable for

results, " says Greenberg.

The Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development

aims to promote the well-being of children and youth and to reduce the

prevalence of high-risk behaviors and poor outcomes in children, families

and communities.

A copy of the report, " Preventing Mental Disorders in School-Age

Children, " is available under the publications' link on the Center's website

at www.psu.edu/dept/prevention

* * *

Vaccine Mask Boosts Measles Fight

http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/health/newsid_664000/664825.stm

BBC News Online - A painless measles vaccine delivered by aerosol spray

through a mask could be a useful weapon against the potentially killer

virus.

Experts are hopeful that the inhaled vaccine could be used in mass

innoculisation programmes in developing countries.

It could do away with the need for hundreds of thousands of syringes,

reducing both the cost and the risk of injury and infection to medical

workers.

As it is painless, it could also increase the number of children who

come forward to receive the vaccine.

In fact, studies in South Africa - where the aerosol was developed -

show that it could be more effective at preventing the disease than the

traditional jab.

The research on 1,000 schoolchildren aged between five and 14 was

published this week in the Lancet medical journal.

A vaccine works by giving a small dose of de-activated viruses, and

this, although not causing the illness, lets the body prepare its defences

for a real infection at a later date.

The body prepares by creating " antibodies " which are tuned to attack

that particular virus.

One month after vaccination with the aerosol spray, nearly 85% of the

children had developed levels of antibodies high enough to protect them from

the measles virus.

This compared to only 79% and 63% who had received one of two different

kinds of traditional jab.

Only 3.6% of the children had no measles antibodies in their blood,

compared to 14% of injected children.

Dr Athmanundh Dilraj, from the South African Medical Research Council,

which organised the trial, said that the vaccine worked in a different way

when given by aerosol.

He said: " Some of the mechanisms could be that when you give the

vaccination by injection, especially as a booster dose, the circulating

antibodies can destroy some of the vaccine.

" However, the vaccine given by aerosol doesn't go by this route. "

Although it is seldom a fatal illness in the UK, measles still kills

thousands of children in less-developed countries every year.

The high fever it produces can also be permanently disabling.

The study's findings are to be presented to the World Health

Organisation as it meets to discuss its measles eradication programme later

this month.

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