Want to Ride a Bike?

We bought Valerie an adult size tricycle and enrolled her in the Special Olympics cycling group. It did not work out. She gets very anxious after a few minutes on her bike. Our occupational therapist has attempted to work on cycling skills, but she says there are prerequisite skills that need work first. This looks like an interesting option to check out. This article appeared in Philly.com  To learn more, visit http://icanshine.org

Two-wheeled self-confidence: Special bikes for special kids

This week, Colin and 23 other young people are participating in iCan Bike, a Paoli-based program that aims to turn riding a bicycle into something everyone can achieve.Year after year, Colin MacDonald could hardly stand it for more than a few minutes. The frustration was just too great.

The 10-year-old Yardley student had to steer, balance, pedal, and watch the road - all at the same time.

Riding a two-wheel bike for Colin, who has a form of autism, seemed insurmountable, no matter how many shiny new bicycles or fresh attempts at lessons.

So word of a special camp with custom-designed bicycles to teach people with disabilities came as welcome news. Perhaps he might have a better chance of joining in an activity that seemed a youthful rite of passage for everyone but him.

"A lot of children with disabilities are at a disadvantage when it comes to socializing and being included in community," said social worker Stephanie DeSouza, director of an iCan Bike summer session at Holland Middle School in Bucks County. "They don't fit in, and this is one more thing they can't do."

Riding a bike can help foster interaction with peers and family, and also boost self-confidence, DeSouza said.

The program is an initiative of iCan Shine, a nonprofit that offers recreational learning opportunities for people with disabilities. Founded in 2007 under its former name, Lose the Training Wheels, the organization last year offered 90 iCan Bike programs in 32 states and two provinces in Canada, serving nearly 2,500 people with disabilities.

A new bike camp is scheduled to begin Aug. 19 at St. Joseph's University.

"It's one of the few things a child can do independently of parents and have control of where and how fast they want to go," said Jeffrey Sullivan, of Malvern, who cofounded iCan Shine. "It's the sense of independence and accomplishment."

The program uses a special bike invented by Richard Klein, a retired mechanical-engineering professor, who started operating bike camps in the 1990s. Cone-shaped rollers are attached to the back wheel.

The iCan system uses eight sizes, each tapered so that the cones have a different degree of contact with the ground. As riders become more proficient in balancing, rollers are switched progressively to those with less ground contact.

"We don't tell them we are going to change from one roller to the next. We don't want to stress them out," Sullivan says. "So when they're ready, we tell them: 'Great job. Go get a drink of water.' Then we flip the roller. When they come back, they jump back on."

Each camper is constantly monitored by at least one camp volunteer, preferably two.

On Wednesday, the third day of the five-day camp, Declan Kelly, 18, of Doylestown, became the first in the week's 8:30 a.m. session to ride solo.

Amid the applause and "woo hoos," Kelly, who has Down syndrome, glided in for a triumphant fist-pump with his mom, Deb Corsini.

"I'm so proud of him." Corsini said.

Kelly said he was taking the lessons because "I want to ride bikes with my friends."

The most difficult part of the camp was "the crash," Kelly said. The best: his solo ride.

"It was so good, so good," he said.

The Holland camp is being hosted by AMICA (from the Latin for friend), a group founded by DeSouza that helps youngsters with autism enhance their social skills.

ICan Shine partners with community groups to host the camps and supply the bicycles and supervising staff. Campers must be at least 8 years old to participate.

About 80 percent of iCan Shine campers successfully learn to ride during the camp. For the remaining 20 percent, organizers teach parents how to continue the lessons.

Mariah Drenth-Cormick watched from the bleachers as daughter Kathryn Drenth, 8, circled the gymnasium on her bike.

Drenth-Cormick, who runs the Bucks County Down Syndrome Interest Group, a parent support group, has been waiting for her daughter's eighth birthday so that she could enroll her in the camp.

Kathryn has been so enthusiastic that she tried several times to break for the gymnasium door so that she could ride outside in the parking lot - something reserved for more-advanced campers, said her "spotter," Matt Krumenacker, 17, of Doylestown, a camp volunteer.

But if Kathryn can't ride solo by her last session Friday, her mom says she's OK with that.

"I hope she's closer to riding it than when she started," Drenth-Cormick said, "and that she has the confidence that will take her closer."

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Contact Kristin E. Holmes at 610-313-8211 or kholmes@phillynews.com.

When Occupational Therapy is Unavailable, An Option

Valerie has a great occupational therapist working with her now. It took me 4 years to find her. If her husband gets a transfer back to the midwest, where she is from, I will be looking again. Having the financial resources for OT is not the only consideration. Occupational therapists are in high demand in schools and clinics and have busy schedules. Finding one who will want to work with your child, especially if tantrums and aggression are an issue, can be difficult when they have so many options.
Here is one solution to that problem. It may not be a perfect substitute for an OT, but it might be better than nothing. This article was found in Autism Daily Newscast.

Online Program Offers Affordable Therapy for Autism

August 12, 2013 by Laurel Joss

It is a known fact that children with autism suffer from sensory dysfunction. Sensory issues can range from mild to severe, and can manifest in many different ways. Occupational therapists trained in sensory integration can help, but their services are expensive, and may not always be covered by insurance.

Mendability is an online program developed by Eyal Aronoff and Kim Pomores that helps parents develop a custom, home-based Sensory Enrichment Therapy program to meet their child’s needs. Parents fill out an online assessment, which generates specific activities they can work on with their child at home. The activities take between 1 – 10 minutes to complete, and they are scheduled at different intervals throughout the day. They include things like walking on textured mats, or dipping your hand into bowls of warm and cold water. The activities are structured in a way that stimulates the child’s senses, while strengthening connections between various parts of the brain.

A study by Michael Leon, professor of Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of California Irvine, showed promising results. He tested 28 boys with autism over six months. They were divided into two groups. Both groups received standard behavioral therapy, but only one group completed daily environmental enrichment exercises like those on the Mendability web site. The results showed that 42% of the boys in the sensory enrichment group showed improvement relating to others and responding to sensory input, while only 7% of the boys in the behavior-only group showed such improvement. Also, 69% of the parents of the children in the sensory enrichment group reported improvements in perception, reasoning, and overall autism symptoms.

The program is based on neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to create new internal connections based on daily experiences. While early intervention is still best, scientists have discovered that the brain can forge new connections throughout the lifespan. Recent studies have shown that children with autism have weaker connections between certain parts of the brain, which could be a factor in the symptoms of their disability.

For example, many children with autism have weak connections in the corpus callosum, the part of the brain that connects the two hemispheres. Activities such as placing the hands in two bowls of water, one warm and one cold, and then switching hands, causes signals to be sent to both sides of the brain, activating the corpus callosum and creating new connections.

Parents complete the activities with their child, fill out the online assessment, and move on to new activities once their child has mastered the old ones. There are also online forums where parents can discuss challenges and progress, and regular access to program specialists who can help fine tune difficulties that may arise. Subscriptions start at $59 per month.

Parents such as Rebecca Terry of Colorado report amazing results from Mendability.

“Now I have a child who hugs me, who tells me how much she loves me, and she knows what it means.”

For more information, visit their website at www.mendability.com.

Low Levels of Thyroxine in Pregnant Mother's Linked to Higher Risk of Autism

It's good to have another possible risk factor for autism that can be controlled! I found this article in Autism Daily Newscast, which is another website that might be helpful to visit.

Low Thyroxine levels in expectant mums linked to Autism

August 18, 2013 by Shân Ellis

A large scale study published on August 13 in the Annals of Neurology , demonstrated that mothers with low levels of the chemical Thyroxine in their system during pregnancy were almost four times more likely to have children with Autism or an ASD diagnosis.

Thyroid hormone T4 is responsible for regulating the metabolism in the body. A lack of this hormone, or Hypothyroidism(underactive Thyroid) is caused by a lack of Iodine in the diet, and can cause metabolism to reduce dramatically causing weight gain, lethargy and circulatory problems.

T4 deficiency is more pronounced during pregnancy, when the body makes higher demands on diet. Researchers from the Houston Methodist Neurological Institute and Erasmus Medical Centre tested 4,000 Dutch mothers and their children. Previous smaller scale research in this field has tenuously hinted at a link.

The research demonstrated that the lower the levels of the hormone T4 in the mother’s system, the more pronounced the symptoms of Autism were likely to be in the child.

Lead author Dr. Gustavo Román, a Neurologist and Neuroepidemiologist who directs the Nantz National Alzheimer Center said in a press release: “It is increasingly apparent to us that autism is caused by environmental factors in most cases, not by genetics . That gives me hope that prevention is possible.If you are planning to become pregnant, have your doctor measure urine iodine and thyroid function beforehand. If you have just become pregnant, have your doctor measure urine iodine, thyroid function, and begin using prenatal vitamins, making sure iodine is present.”

It is thought according to research conducted by the World Health Association that globally up to one in seven of us could be T4 deficient. Levels are lower in USA because of the introduction of Iodised table salt in the 1920′s.

One of the main authorities on hypothyroidism and effects during pregnancy is a 1988 study conducted by The American college of Obstetricians and Gynecologists which demonstrated that difficult pregnancies were related to low levels of Thyroxine in the bloodstream.