A World Beyond Words/ Music and Child's Brain/ Bipolar Child.

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FEAT DAILY NEWSLETTER Sacramento, California http://www.feat.org

" Healing Autism: No Finer a Cause on the Planet "

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May 15, 2001 Search www.feat.org/search/news.asp

SCIENCE AND MEDICINE

Also: * Music May Influence Child’s Regional Brain Growth

* The Bipolar Child

* Prototype Formation In Autism

* Hypothetical Confusion: Letter

A World Beyond Words

U-Va. Student Develops Simpler Sign Language

By Leef Washington Post, Tuesday, May 15, 2001.]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26867-2001May14.html

Deep in study for finals last week, University of Virginia senior

Nikki Kissane took a break to check her e-mail.

She expected a note from her father. But what she found was startling:

a thank-you from a mother in Soldotna, Alaska; congratulations from an

admirer in Carlsbad, Calif., and praise from strangers in Monroe, Mich. None

has ever met Kissane, but all went on at length, telling her about their

autistic or retarded children and the impact her undergraduate work has had

on their lives.

" I just found your wonderful creation today and I'm so thrilled that

I'm getting goose bumps, " gushed the mother of two autistic boys who found

Kissane's research project -- a simplified sign language -- on the Internet

and began using it with her sons. " You have solved a huge problem for us. .

.. . P.S. -- I certainly hope you got an 'A'!! "

Kissane, who is still awaiting her grade, spent 600 hours over 3 1/2

years developing the communication system for nonspeaking children and

adults, specifically those with physical limitations because of autism or

stroke.

With the guidance of psychology professor Bonvillian, director of

linguistics at U-Va. whose earlier research was the backbone of Kissane's

project, the 21-year-old pre-med student created a lexicon of 500 signs. The

gestures are easy enough for those who are limited physically and

cognitively, yet comprehensive enough to act as a language of sorts, she

said.

Most of the signs are based on simple hand motions -- for example,

using one finger or a fist rather than the more complex hand shapes and

motions used in American Sign Language. Kissane's lexicon also relies on

pantomime, such as a rocking motion for the word baby.

" Any person should be able to get the gist of what's being said . . .

without much hassle, " said Kissane, whom Bonvillian credits with doing most

of the work on the project.

While attempts to create a simplified sign language have been made

nationally and internationally, Bonvillian said that this effort benefited

from his research and the work of other U-Va. students who analyzed common

errors made by autistic children learning to sign.

" This should be easier to use, " he said, adding that it will take two

or three years, after field tests, to know whether it is a success.

For now, Kissane's work has been posted on a Web site,

www.simplifiedsigns.org , drawing responses from parents and others who say

they have spent years struggling to communicate with their loved ones.

Kissane, a graduate of Jefferson High School for Science and

Technology, said she was drawn to the project partly because of her

grandfather, who suffered a debilitating stroke when she was young. Later,

she watched autistic children struggle to hold brushes in an art class

taught by her mother.

Kissane culled through more than 20 sign-language dictionaries

provided by Gallaudet University, selecting 900 mimelike gestures for

consideration in her lexicon. The gestures were tested on a panel of U-Va.

students: If more than 70 percent could recall a sign quickly, it was

included. About 120 gestures were modified by Kissane to be more

recognizable and easier to perform.

The lexicon is not intended to be a language, as it lacks linguistic

and grammatical structure. Rather, it's a simplified way of communicating

with those for whom American Sign Language is too difficult.

In the fall, Kissane will start classes at the Medical College of

Virginia, leaving the lexicon in the hands of Bonvillian, who hopes to

publish the work in the next year.

At home in Woodbridge before graduation this Sunday, Kissane said she

once yearned to make a difference in someone's life in her career as an

orthopedic surgeon but never imagined she would do so as an undergraduate.

" I knew I was doing something good, and I really liked my project because I

knew it would make a difference, " she said, " but I never thought I would see

and feel how much good it's bringing to people. I can feel it in my heart. "

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

* * *

Musical Training During Childhood May Influence Regional Brain Growth

http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/aan-mtd042701.html

Research has revealed significant differences in the gray matter

distribution between professional musicians trained at an early age and

non-musicians, as presented today at the American Academy of Neurology's

53rd Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. The musicians in the study had more

relative gray matter volume in left and right primary sensorimotor regions,

the left more than the right intraparietal sulcus region, the left basal

ganglia region and the left posterior perisylvian region, with pronounced

differences also seen in the cerebellum bilaterally.

" We were interested to know whether intense environmental demands such

as musical training at an early age influenced actual brain growth and

development, " comments study leader Gottfried Schlaug, MD, PhD. Results of

this cross-sectional study may indicate use-dependent brain growth or

structural plasticity of gray matter volume in response to such demands

during a critical period of brain maturation.

" An alternative explanation may be that these musicians were born with

these differences, which may draw them toward their musical gifts. " Fifteen

male professional musicians and 15 age and gender matched non-musicians were

included in the study conducted by neurologist Schlaug and Gaser Christian,

PhD, of Germany, at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. Using

a magnetic resonance imaging sequence, they compared high resolution

anatomical datasets of the professional musicians’ and non-musicians’ brains

on a voxel-by-voxel basis using SPM99 software.

" Musicians typically commence training at an early age, making them

ideal subjects for this type of investigation, " notes Schlaug. These

presumed cerebral adaptations may not only lead to modifications of

functional sensory and motor maps, but may also lead to structural

adaptations within the sensorimotor system.

" However, " Schlaug concludes, " additional study is necessary to

confirm causal relationships between intense motor training for a long

period of time and structural changes in motor and non-motor related brain

regions. " Schlaug is continuing this study to identify areas of the brain

that are different, and to determine if training and experience create the

differences.

A neurologist is a medical doctor with specialized training in diagnosing,

treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system.

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* * *

The Bipolar Child

[Additional text by Carla Cantor, Editor, CBS HealthWatch by

Medscape.]

http://www.medscape.com/LCM/InfMind/2001/03.01/tim0301.02.down.html

The Infinite Mind is a weekly public radio show that focuses on the

art and science of the human mind and spirit, behavior, and mental health.

Dr. Fred Goodwin, former director of the National Institute of Mental

Health, hosts the show. The Infinite Mind is supported in part by the

National Science Foundation and the D. and T. MacArthur

Foundation.

Bipolar disorder, also called manic-depressive illness, is

underdiagnosed and undertreated among adults. For children with this

disorder, the problem is even more daunting. Bipolar children are up against

a persistent belief among most mental health professionals that bipolar

disorder rarely occurs before adolescence.

As a result, when symptoms of bipolar disorder do appear, they're

often misdiagnosed. The rage, moodiness, and irritability are often seen as

symptoms of attention deficit disorder (ADD) or some other condition. Worse

yet, the standard medications for ADD can provoke violence, psychosis, and

even suicidal mania in bipolar children. But other treatments called mood

stabilizers have been proven both safe and effective in bipolar children.

Early recognition and treatment are very important.

Janice Papalos and Dr. Demitri Papalos, authors of a book on bipolar

children, say that parents may talk about bipolar children as if they were

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. " They will go upstairs in one mood and come down in

another, " says Mrs. Paplos. Dr. Paplos, an associate professor of psychiatry

at Albert Einstein Medical College in New York City, says that major

symptoms begin when they get into school, where attention difficulties,

distractibility, hyperactivity, and fidgetiness become very prominent for at

least 90% of these children.

" As time goes on, you begin to see oppositional behavior, " Dr. Paplos

says. " They really have a tremendous problem accepting any kind of

criticism. They begin to react with tremendous rage, when a parent will say

'no,' for example, or be mildly critical of their behavior. These rage

attacks or temper tantrums can last sometimes up to 7 hours. "

Follow here to listen to more of the interview with Janice Papalos and Dr.

Demitri Papalos. (duration; 13'25 " ).

http://www.medscape.com/LCM/InfMind/audio/bipolar/bipolar2.ram

* * *

Prototype Formation In Autism.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_ui

ds=11346046 & dopt=Abstract <-- address ends here

1: Dev Psychopathol 2001 Winter;13(1):111-24 Books

Klinger LG, Dawson G.

Department of Psychology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa 35487, USA.

lklinger@...

Individuals with autism have difficulty integrating information and

generalizing previously learned concepts to new situations. It was

hypothesized that these problems result from an underlying impairment in

category formation.

Persons with autism may not abstract a summary representation (a

prototype) during category learning and, instead, may form categories by

memorizing a list of rules. Children with autism, Down syndrome, and normal

development participated in one set of category learning tasks that could be

solved using a rule-based approach and a second set of tasks in which there

was no rule that defined category membership (prototype tasks).

In the rule-based tasks, all groups were successful at using a rule to

learn a new category. In the prototype tasks, only the typically developing

children were able to learn a new category. Neither the persons with autism

nor the persons with Down syndrome appeared to develop a prototype during

category learning.

These data suggest that persons with autism and D own syndrome have

difficulty categorizing new information by forming prototypes and, instead,

tend to rely on a rule-based approach to learning.

PMID: 11346046 [PubMed - in process]

* * *

Hypothetical Confusion: Letter

I'm sorry to see that you are including articles from the medical

journal " Medical Hypotheses " in the FEAT Newsletter. There is so much

desperation for information among the parents I see, that the vast majority

is unable to understand that a hypothesis is not a fact.

Regards,

Wm M. Bolman, M.D.,

Professor of Child Psychiatry,

University of Hawaii

Dear Dr. Bolman,

Thank you for taking the time to share your concern for the

scientifically unsophisticated readers amongst us.

When the FEAT Daily Newsletter started five years ago, the readers

where mostly professional level autism parents, with some greater than

average knowledge of science or medicine. The subscription roles also

contained a few clinicians and other medical types - all of us scrambling

for whatever morsels of quality information we could find about autism on

the Internet. As the population of autism grew, so did our ranks with a

greater diversity, if not awkward mingling, of parents and professionals

(and a growing combined segment of medical professionals with autistic

children.) There was so little organized, centralized information about

autism at that time that even human interest stories, political matters,

education issues, etc. got tossed into the editorial format where they

remain today.

We still have a sizable segment of medical readers who find our

cross-discipline compiling of research abstracts and essays useful, if not

unique. I suppose that when the day comes that the medical journals start

providing this service to their disciples, we'll back away from the practice

and let the pros take over. Meanwhile, our children can’t wait.

But we've yet to receive any complaint from a parent who said they

made a poor medical decision based on exposure to complicated information in

the newsletter.

If you would like to provide the FEAT Daily Newsletter with less

technical but learned explanations of topical medical developments, it would

do much towards providing the quality information our readers crave.

Lenny Schafer

Izak's dad

Editor

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Lenny Schafer, Editor PhD Ron Sleith Kay Stammers

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