Category Archives: Mental Health

The Battle For The Future Of Autism Advocacy

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The combined third/fourth grade classroom at Seattle’s Academy for Precision Learning (APL) is humming with activity. An inclusion-based private school created in 2007 to meet the needs of autistic children in grades K-12, APL boasts classrooms that accommodate a spectrum of behaviors and learning styles. Most children are seated at desks; one small group of students is working together around a table, while another child with noise-canceling headphones is sitting at the back of the room with an aide beside her. The teacher is giving a lecture about the Battle of the Alamo; children are wiggling and talking quietly to themselves. One child occasionally shouts out random words, but only a handful of the classroom’s mix of autistic and neurotypical students seem to notice.

Beautiful minds, wasted

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IN AMERICA in 1970 one child in 14,000 was reckoned to be autistic. The current estimate is one in 68—or one in 42 among boys. Similarly high numbers can be found in other rich countries: a study in South Korea found that one in 38 children was affected. Autism is a brain condition associated with poor social skills. It has a wide spectrum of symptoms, from obsessive behaviour to hypersensitivity to sound, light or other sensory stimulation, the severity of which ranges from mild to life-blighting. The range of consequences is also wide. At one end, the autism of a computer scientist may be barely noticeable; at the other, a quarter of autistic children do not speak.

Apple shares new short film on autism proves that accessibility features matter

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Apple has released a new pair of videos on its YouTube channel highlighting the effect that technology has on people with disabilities. The video, called “Dillan’s Voice,” features a teenager named Dillan Barmache, a 16-year-old kid who is autistic, and shows how he uses Apple products to express his thoughts.

Outthinking Dementia

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I first realized it the day my father asked me which number came between 3 and 5.

He had been living alone for a while in another state and I only saw him a few times a year, but while speaking to him on the phone it became more evident after he would repeatedly ask how to write a check and no longer knew where the grocery store was located. Months past and it was clear that he was not safe living alone. He was not able to manage daily situations, such as an ATM, finding milk in a store, or remembering where he was.

How To Design For Autism

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Problem: many autistic kids are super sensitive to the sight, sound, and feel of their environment. So when New York-Presbyterian decided to build an early intervention center for autistic children, they needed it designed with their needs in mind.

One in 68 American children have been diagnosed with autism, according to the Center for Disease Control. Early intervention is the most effective treatment, requiring dedicated centers, but autistic children’s hypersensitivity to their surroundings makes designing such facilities difficult.

New Food Scented Fragrance May Remind People with Dementia to Eat

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The sense of smell is closely tied to memory, a fact that designers made use of when they developed Ode, a fragrance disperser designed to help people with dementia remember to eat. People with dementia often begin to eat less and suffer from weight loss, which can trigger other health problems. The high quality food aromas released by Ode are designed to subtly reawaken an interest in food and eating, as well as remind people to eat at specific times of the day. There are three different scents in each Ode and each scent can be programmed to come on at a specific time of day. The product is still going through trials and is not yet for sale, but initial trials suggest that the product might help people living with dementia develop healthier eating behaviors, like eating meals more regularly and eating more food at each sitting.

YMCA of Greater Grand Rapids Aims to Make the Mary Free Bed YMCA the First Building in the World to have Universal Design Certification

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“Our community is embarking on the remarkable mission of building the first health and wellness facility in the world specifically designed to equally serve both able-bodied individuals   as well as those with a variety of disabilities,” said Ron Nelson, President and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Grand Rapids. “We are grateful for our partnership with Peter Blanck, of the Burton Blatt Institute, and Ed Steinfeld, of the IDeA Center, among the world’s foremost experts in universal design, and honored to have the opportunity to receive the first Global Universal Design Certification under the new guidelines. We also greatly appreciate the Mary Free Bed Guild for their thoughtful collaboration on this state-of-the-art facility.”