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Jimmy Kilpatrick 832 814-7463 
A nationally recognized professional special education advocate since 1994

Autism is a congenital (from birth) or developmental disorder that usually appears by age three. As in the case of most learning disabilities, it manifests itself from mild to severe. Autism is biological and affects the normal development of both social and communication skills.

Some of the symptoms of Autism are:

Difficulty with verbal and nonverbal communication. Difficulty with social interaction, and often a lack of empathy to others (preferring to be alone). Often marked by repeated body movements, such as: rocking, hand flapping, toe walking, and/or Manipulation of objects. Difficulty in moving from one task to another and/or handling changes in routes.

Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder: Fact Sheet
http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/autism.faqs.nichcy.htm

Current Interventions in Autism: A Brief Analysis
http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/autism.methods.compare.pdf

Asperger's Syndrome - Guidelines for Assessment and Diagnosis
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/autism/asdiagnosis.html
by Ami Klin, Ph.D., and Fred R. Volkmar, M.D., Yale Child Study Center.

Asperger's Syndrome - Guidelines for Treatment and Intervention
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/autism/astreatments.html
by Ami Klin, Ph.D., and Fred R. Volkmar, M.D., Yale Child Study Center.

Designing Social Skills Interventions for Students With Asperger Syndrome
http://www.nasponline.org/publications/cq313asperger_ss.html
published by National Association of of School Psychologists.

Assessments:

Scale for Assessing Emotional Disturbance (SAED)
(Epstein & Cullinan, 1998) is a rating scale designed to assist identifying students who may be experiencing emotional and/or behavioral difficulties within the educational setting. It is also reported to be useful as a screening device a tool for research and a method to measure a student's progress. The scale comprises 52 items which encompass Seven subscales and a single item that highlights overall educational performance.

Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function™ (BRIEF™)
Current theories hypothesize that deficits in executive functioning (EF) are responsible for the symptoms of ADHD and that specific patterns of EF deficits may be associated with different subtypes of ADHD. The present study evaluates the validity and clinical usefulness of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, a behavior rating scale designed to assess dimensions of EF.

ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE SCALES (OWLS)
(OWLS; Carrow-Woolfolk, 1996) includes a Written Language Scale designed to assess writing skills. It is has norms for ages 5-0 through 21-11 and fall and spring norms from the spring of kindergarten through the spring of grade 12 and takes about 20 minutes (10 to 30) to administer. In addition to the total score, the OWLS Written Expression provides percentile ranks for nine special Skills Areas categories in the domains of Conventions, Linguistics, and Content.

Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning
On this test, 3 memory scales (Verbal, Visual, and Learning), each consisting of 3 subtests, are provided.

OUTLINE FOR THE EVALUATION OF A TEST

Asperger's Disorder

Autism Research Findings
Explore recent findings from worlds largest online research database
www.ianproject.org

  • Best Autism Treatments
    Know ALL of Your Treatment Options NC Based Clinic with the Answers
    www.DrButtar.com
  • Speech Connections
    Speech, Occupational, and Physical Feeding Specialists
    www.therapyconnectionspc.com
  • Autism is Reversible
    Jenny McCarthy's organization. Thousands of children recover.
    www.GenerationRescue.org
  • Autism Teaching Materials
    Social stories, lesson plans, sensory activities, and more.
    www.autisminspiration.com

    Texas Council on Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders (DADS)
    http://www.dads.state.tx.us/autism

    A comparison of intensive behavior analytic and eclectic treatments for young children with autism http://www.sonoma.edu/cihs/asd/pdf/Howardetal2005.pdf
    Here are a few excerpts from this research that you may find of interest:

    "Young children with autism or PDD-NOS who received intensive behavior analytic treatment (IBT) for about 14 months outperformed comparable children who received eclectic intervention services for the same period of time on virtually every followup measure."

    "Providing at least 30 hours of competently delivered, intensive behavior analytic intervention to preschool-age children with autism produced large improvements in intellectual functioning, communication skills, and adaptive behavior."

    "If children with autism are to have any chance to close the gap between their skills and those of their typically developing peers, their developmental trajectories must be increased sharply while they are young, before the gap widens even further. That is, their learning rates need to exceed the normal rate for an extended period of time. Of the early intervention approaches investigated in this study, only IBT had that effect, producing above-normal mean learning rates in the nonverbal, receptive language, expressive language, overall communication, and social skill domains."

    "Thus the popular notion that virtually any intervention can produce meaningful benefits for children with autism if it is provided intensively has not been confirmed by two controlled studies that addressed that hypothesis."

    "The effect of eclectic treatment was to flatten or decrease rather than increase the slopes of the developmental trajectories of most children. Based on these findings, we would project that those children will lose more ground to their typically developing peers the longer they remain in such intervention programs."

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