You may not recognize the name or even the picture but you have been touched by Kim Peek. While the movie 'Rain Man' is not based on his life, Dustin Hoffman based many of his mannerisms and speech-patterns on Mr. Peek. Hoffman even thanked Mr. Peek in his Oscar acceptance speech and went so far as to give Mr. Peek his personal Oscar. Below is a wonderful video about his life.
Enjoy and gods speed Kim...
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Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Welcome 2010...
A quick series of interesting articles that have been sitting in my 'tabs' for days:)
First up are a couple of NY Times blog posts.
1) How to raise IQ in Toddlers with Autism by Tara-Parker Pope
It's all about the Early Start Denver Model. They published results of a 2-year study with 48 participants in the journal Pediatrics. The results suggest that, as a result of their intervention, children in the Early Start program demonstrated greater gains than a control group. I am 100% in the pro-early intervention camp but have a couple of concerns with this article and research. The article frames the Early Start Denver Model as a new approach. Far from it, the Denver Model is a fairly classic early-intervention program based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis. There are many such programs and all show similar results. As to the research, this is not 'double-blind' research by any stretch of the imagination. Research is conducted and data compiled by people with personal, professional and financial investments in the outcomes. Does this make it suspect? Not really as their results merely add to the body of research supporting early intervention but as someone who has worked in University funded 'community-based' schools, I can assert that any data taken in-situ by staff (IOA be damned:) is somewhat suspect...
Lastly, this school is supported by the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute so this 'community-based' school has multiple PhDs. on staff, many Master's students employed there and a extremely highly-trained staff. This model is NOT transferable to your average school...dont' get me wrong. I LOVE center-based research but these models do not work well in non-university based settings...
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2) Can you teach empathy to children? by Lisa Belkin.
This piece revolves around an essay by Liane Carter who runs and founded a sports league for children with a range of deficits and disabilities. Here's a taste as a mother of one of the teenage volunteers call her:
“I need a report describing your program, discussing what my son has contributed, and what kind of growth you’ve seen in him. And also, what he’s learned from working with those kids,” she says.
Those kids.
“I’m sorry, what did you say your son’s name is?” I say, starting a slow seethe.
“Jeremy.”
Who is Jeremy? I honestly don’t remember him. We have so many volunteers.
But as usual I am polite. “Sure, happy to,” I say, savagely chopping the tomatoes, thinking: If it’s your kid’s community service, why isn’t he calling me himself? Why isn’t he writing his own report? “Oh, just one more thing. Could you have it for me before Friday? I can pick it up, just leave it in your mailbox.”
“No problem,” I say, and hang up. I whack at a pile of carrots, thinking: Let me save you the trouble. I’ll just give him a T-shirt that says: “Look, I’m selfless and wonderful. I volunteer with autistic children.”
It's a short post but check out the posts at the bottom. It really touched a lot of nerves...not just parents of children with disabilities but average readers who took issue with Mrs. Carters 'empathy':)
First up are a couple of NY Times blog posts.
1) How to raise IQ in Toddlers with Autism by Tara-Parker Pope
It's all about the Early Start Denver Model. They published results of a 2-year study with 48 participants in the journal Pediatrics. The results suggest that, as a result of their intervention, children in the Early Start program demonstrated greater gains than a control group. I am 100% in the pro-early intervention camp but have a couple of concerns with this article and research. The article frames the Early Start Denver Model as a new approach. Far from it, the Denver Model is a fairly classic early-intervention program based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis. There are many such programs and all show similar results. As to the research, this is not 'double-blind' research by any stretch of the imagination. Research is conducted and data compiled by people with personal, professional and financial investments in the outcomes. Does this make it suspect? Not really as their results merely add to the body of research supporting early intervention but as someone who has worked in University funded 'community-based' schools, I can assert that any data taken in-situ by staff (IOA be damned:) is somewhat suspect...
Lastly, this school is supported by the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute so this 'community-based' school has multiple PhDs. on staff, many Master's students employed there and a extremely highly-trained staff. This model is NOT transferable to your average school...dont' get me wrong. I LOVE center-based research but these models do not work well in non-university based settings...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Can you teach empathy to children? by Lisa Belkin.
This piece revolves around an essay by Liane Carter who runs and founded a sports league for children with a range of deficits and disabilities. Here's a taste as a mother of one of the teenage volunteers call her:
“I need a report describing your program, discussing what my son has contributed, and what kind of growth you’ve seen in him. And also, what he’s learned from working with those kids,” she says.
Those kids.
“I’m sorry, what did you say your son’s name is?” I say, starting a slow seethe.
“Jeremy.”
Who is Jeremy? I honestly don’t remember him. We have so many volunteers.
But as usual I am polite. “Sure, happy to,” I say, savagely chopping the tomatoes, thinking: If it’s your kid’s community service, why isn’t he calling me himself? Why isn’t he writing his own report? “Oh, just one more thing. Could you have it for me before Friday? I can pick it up, just leave it in your mailbox.”
“No problem,” I say, and hang up. I whack at a pile of carrots, thinking: Let me save you the trouble. I’ll just give him a T-shirt that says: “Look, I’m selfless and wonderful. I volunteer with autistic children.”
It's a short post but check out the posts at the bottom. It really touched a lot of nerves...not just parents of children with disabilities but average readers who took issue with Mrs. Carters 'empathy':)
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