Temple Grandin Film and J-Mac

On Tuesday, Courtney Stanton, Lauren Resetarits, Lisa Totaro and I went to see the film Temple Grandin which depicts the life of a girl living with autism. After the movie, there was a panel featuring J-Mac, a boy from Rochester who has autism. J-Mac has been on Oprah for playing in a basketball game during high school, when he scored numerous three pointers. Basketball is his dream. The film was very well done. Before the film, I had no knowledge of who Temple Grandin was. Temple Grandin was a girl who was diagnosed with autism at the age of 4. The movie was an excellent way to see in the mind of someone who has autism. Temple Grandin was sensitive to noises and didn’t like being touched by others. More importantly, Temple had an amazing mind and was a magnificent visual thinker. It was amazing to watch Temple come up with contraptions, and perform studies on her own. She could glance at a page, and have the whole page memorized. The message I obtained after watching the film was that everyone should develop and strive to achieve goals in life, regardless if you have a disability or not. The message for parents of children with autism is to never give up and persevere.
The second part of the presentation was a panel with J-Mac, his coach and father, an autism specialist, and a mother of an 18 year old with autism. I thought the panel could have been better. Jason only talked a couple times and I would’ve liked to hear more from him about his remarkable story. A lot of the questions from the audience were personal, and I felt that people should’ve asked more general questions about autism. It was really interesting to hear people from the audience say, “my autistic child,” or “my autistic grandchildren,” instead of putting the child before the disorder, a concept that has been drilled into use this past year. We repeatedly spoke of this concept during case studies as well. I wanted to hear Jason’s perspective on living with autism, but we learned later on during the presentation that he doesn’t like talking about autism. One good question that came from the audience was if the experiences with Temple were similar to what Jason had experiences. Jason’s father replied and said that when Jason was a baby, his ears were very sensitive to noise. His father said a dump truck would go past the house, and Jason would scream. I thought the autism specialist did a nice job answering questions from the audience and she answered a lot of thoughts I previously had. For example, everyone with autism does not necessarily have a unique talent. Some do have extraordinary abilities, but others with autism have harder times functioning. Additionally, it was interesting to hear that the incidence of autism has increased dramatically. Now, autism occurs in 1/150 children, and the ratio of boys to girls is 4:1. One reason for this dramatic increase is both genetic predisposition, and environment.
Overall, I would recommend this presentation to anyone, especially the school age population. Majority of the audience at this presentation were older adults. I feel that people our age and middle and high school students should go to this presentation to become aware of autism disorders and learn from people with autism spectrum disorders. People should be educated at an early age help decrease stigmas and bullying. Both the film and the panel were very informative and brought me insight into the lives of people living with autism.

Traumatic Brain Injuries and YouTube Videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4orQo9_rVhA (The Today Show)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuxuKVKem78

Before reading these articles, my knowledge on TBI was minimal. I thought the articles were very interesting to read, especially with patients who have TBI related to combat injuries. The quotes at the beginning of the article, “Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury,” allowed me to see how people are affected by TBI. I thought it was mind blowing, how cognitive impairments resulting from TBI are not recognized often, and it seems as though caregivers don’t have adequate knowledge on TBI as a whole. I also previously thought, that a young child with TBI could bounce back quicker than an adult with TBI because the brain of a young child is still growing. I found it surprising that recent research believes there are greater possibility of long term effects with young children. After reading these articles, I find TBI to be fascinating, and I would love to get experience with patients in hospitals. On YouTube, I found a video from the Today Show that depicts a woman who violently shook her newborn, leaving her with a severe brain injury. Sarah, a 3 year old girl, is currently leaning to speak, and walk. Now, it seems as though parents are putting their child’s medical records online to seek help from doctors in hopes of providing treatments or getting information about their children with brain injuries. Although, I find it scary to share medical records with strangers, I think it’s a good idea, as the website provides a community where people can share similar experiences and offer their knowledge. After watching the YouTube film, it seems as though many doctors are not sure what to do with TBI. The second YouTube video shows an 8 year old boy who was hit by a car while riding his bike, leaving him in a coma. This video really shows that people with TBI, who receive therapy, can improve tremendously.

Inter-Disciplinary Teamwork

After the class discussion on inter-disciplinary teamwork, it seems as though there are many similarities between working with children with autism, selective mutism, and with traumatic brain injuries. The members of an interdisciplinary team are essential when providing adequate treatment and intervention services to the clients. As each group discussed their articles, it seemed as though the members of the interdisciplinary team were very similar. Most of the team members included family members, educators, SLP’s, classmates, 1 to 1 aid, and teacher’s assistant. I feel this list could go on forever. I believe family members are the most important in any intervention plan. Families provide support, and continuing help outside of the school, hospital and clinic. These families know the client best, and with or without the lack of support, can either have positive or detrimental affects on the client. With the right interdisciplinary team, the team members can do more good than harm. They each contribute their own ideas and skills from previous experiences. Team members work together to come up with a game plan and can individually work with the child to help improve the client’s communication skills.

I have noticed when working in my middle school as a teacher’s assistant, the amount of additional teachers in the room. When I was in middle school, the main education teacher was the only one present in the classroom. I remember one teacher who would come into my English class to help one or two students, but it was rare to see additional teachers. We didn’t even have an SLP in the school. Now when I go into work, there may be two assistants per classroom in addition to the teacher, and others coming in and out of the classrooms, pulling children out for either speech, or special education services. Now, the SLP has her own office at the school. From what I have seen, there is more involvement between the teachers and their students. This hopefully makes for a better learning environment and learning outcome for the students.