By Stacy M. Sadove, Esq., Littman Krooks LLP

As school is closing and summer is starting, many parents are looking to find ways to integrate their children in community events and activities for summer. Americans consider baseball a national pastime.  Children of all ages look forward to attending a ball game with friends and family to root on their favorite team.  Yet for children with disabilities, and particularly for children on the spectrum, attendinga baseball game may be too overwhelming.

Autism Speaks and Major League Baseball have teamed up for their Annual event in recognition of Autism Awareness Month to bring a unique experience to fans on the spectrum. Both the Mets and Yankees are participating in this event. The Mets held their game on May 1, 2016, and the Yankees game is set for August 6, 2016.

The games specifically targets fans with Autism, and seek to provide a friendly environment for individuals and their families affected by Autism. Individuals with Autism often have difficulty integrating in community events. Loud noises and over-stimulating environments often prevent individuals on the spectrum from being able to attend events such as a baseball game.

By providing certain accommodations such as dimmed lighting, muted announcements and certain deemed quiet zones with sensory friendly environments, individuals on the spectrum can enjoy the ball park in a whole new way.  A part of the proceeds from ticket sales will go to Autism Speaks. This exciting event is just one of many events scheduled in our area to promote further awareness for Autism. It is encouraging to see so many people educating and reaching out to provide support for Autism awareness.

Littman Krooks applauds and encourages Autism outreach activities. I look forward to this and many more events in our community that our clients can share with children on the spectrum. Let’s play ball.

Learn more about our special needs planning and special education advocacy services at www.littmankrooks.com or www.specialneedsnewyork.com.

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Now, several technology companies have set out to change this situation for the better.

Cognoa is a new company founded by Dr. Dennis Wall, an integrative biologist who has run research labs at both Harvard and Stanford. He has used his research to develop an assessment protocol that predicts a child’s risk for autism or other developmental delay with 90 percent accuracy.

Parents can download the Cognoa app to a mobile device. In just 10 minutes, parents can complete a confidential questionnaire and upload a few videos of their child completing a specific activity. A team of doctors and scientists reviews the profile, and then gets back to parents a few days later with a risk assessment. The resulting information, which parents can give to their family doctor, should assist in getting a more timely diagnosis.

Startups are not the only companies taking on autism. Tech giant Google recently announced a partnership with Autism Speaks to assist in the sequencing of DNA from 10,000 autism patients and their relatives.

Through the use of Google Genomics, genetic researchers will not only be able to access all of the genetic data in one place, but they will also be able to match that data in dynamic ways, such as by region or by sequence. According to Wired magazine, genetic data takes up a lot of storage space, and the use of Google Genomics will give researchers a major leg up in the quest to find the genetic factors that influence autism.

According to ABC News, Google will open its autism database to anyone who would like to access it, meaning that scientists and researchers anywhere in the world can use and analyze the data.

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Our guest blogger this week is Liane Kupferberg Carter, Writer, Journalist, and Autism Advocate.

(Originally published by The Chicago Tribune)

Maybe it’s just this time of year making me pensive. Summer is ending. Kids are leaving for college. Social media are crammed with articles and advice on how to weather the seismic family shift: “Get Your Heart and Mind Ready.” “Loosen the Times That Bind.” “How to Navigate What Comes Next.”

My autistic son, Mickey, has finished high school. In our state, a developmentally disabled child “exits” the school system at 21. They call it “exiting” — not “graduating.” He has “transitioned” — to a Byzantine, chronically underfunded system of government services for disabled adults. Mickey hasn’t graduated, exactly. Neither have I.

This point was recently driven home when a woman in our neighborhood emailed us an invitation to a barbecue for a club she was starting for “empty nesters.” I get it. When our older son, Jonathan, left for college, it felt like a rift in the family fabric. Mickey, then 14, summed it up when he asked, “My brother doesn’t live here anymore? Are we divorced?”

My husband, Marc, and I inhabit a peculiar no man’s land. Our children are grown, but we are not empty nesters. The realization that we will in all likelihood never be empty nesters is a sadness all its own.

For the past two years I’ve been a member of an invitation-only Facebook group of middle-aged female writers. My fellow midlifers are prolific bloggers. They lament their empty nests, but mostly they write with excitement and joy about rediscovering themselves. They celebrate their newfound freedom to travel, return to the workplace, new hobbies or new passions. Initially the group was called Generation Fabulous: The Women of Midlife.
I don’t feel fabulous.

Maybe it was the woman who last week posted a picture of herself poolside in Hawaii. It wasn’t a self-portrait. It was a photo of her manicured toes. Next to a glass of red wine. Beside a bowl of chocolate-covered cherries. Yes, she styled that self-satisfied photo herself. Yes, I’ve read the study that says Facebook makes people discontented because everyone else seems to live a perfect life. And, yes, I know that people curate what they post. They share their highlight reels. Those chocolate-covered cherries did me in anyway.

I’m embarrassed to admit how much I envy these women. I’m not scaling Machu Picchu, sailing the Galapagos or climbing Kilimanjaro. I’m not “finding” myself. I’m right here. Where I have always been.

I can stand far enough back to hear how whiny I sound. Which makes me feel ashamed. Especially when I know how much ease and comfort I still manage to enjoy. My marriage is strong. Jonathan is thriving. I get paid to blog. I’ve just finished writing a memoir. To complain about something I imagine I’m missing in my life is, as Jonathan would put it, a “first-world problem.”

This past spring I got an invitation from the high school to a workshop on “helping your child survive freshman year at college away from the safe nest of home.” I realized how little I have in common anymore with most of the parents in our community. I miss the easy connections I made with other mothers when all of us were knee-deep in raising children. In the months since Mickey “exited,” I’ve come to realize how much of our social life was based on shared school activities or milestones. Sports. Religious school. Sleep-away camp. Most of those situational friendships have drifted away. Maybe they were never true friendships, but I still miss them. Occasionally empty-nest friends call us last minute for dinner and a movie. They forget that for us, any activity first and foremost involves finding a sitter for our 21-year-old son.

Parents like me buck the baby boomer’s empty-nest trend. What will our “reinvention,” our second acts, look like? According to a 2013 study in the journal Autism, young adults with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder are more likely to live with their parents compared with those with other types of disabilities. They are the group least likely to live independently after high school. Lisa Goring, vice president of family services at Autism Speaks, confirms this, telling me, “Approximately 80 percent of adults with autism up to 30 years old live at home.”

Mickey isn’t ready to live somewhere else. Neither are we. Will we ever be? At some point I know that moving out will be in his best interest. I’ve heard too many horror stories about disabled adults who live with aging parents until a health crisis — often the death of the last parent — catapults the grieving, grown child into the state system. A state that must then scramble to place him anywhere it can find, whether the fit is good or not.

Marc and I know we will need to make hard choices. Just not yet. Mickey is going to live with us for a long, long time, until the day we can’t do this any longer. Then we will have to find a safe group home for him. A thought so painful I cannot breathe.

My friend Elaine calls. She has a developmentally disabled son too. We met in a speech therapist’s office nearly 20 years ago. We speak a special shorthand. I tell her I’ve been feeling blue. I confess my mean and ugly thoughts. “I get it,” she says, over and over. It feels like lancing a boil. Painful relief to let out the poison.

“No one who hasn’t lived this really knows what it’s like,” she says.
“That’s true about everything,” I say. “When you had cancer, I was sympathetic and scared for you. But did I really, truly know how you felt? Of course not.”

Of course not.

You can’t completely understand what you haven’t experienced firsthand. That, I suddenly realize, is the point. Everyone has something. A parent with dementia. A child with mental health problems. A sick spouse. In the end, grief finds us all.

“If you put everyone’s worries in a pile in the middle of the room and said, ‘Choose,’ each of us would probably take back our own bundle,” Elaine points out.

“True,” I concede. “Who was it who said, ‘Comparison is the thief of joy?’”
Probably someone with a special needs child.

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In the coming months, Major League Baseball (MLB) is hosting a number of events to support autism awareness.

For example, the New York Yankees are offering half-price tickets to members of the Autism Speaks community for their Saturday, August 9 home game against the Cleveland Indians. The offer is valid for select general, non-premium seating areas. Fans may purchase these tickets at a half-price savings from the regular advance ticket price. The discount is on a first-come, first-serve basis and is only available online at http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/ticketing, using the “autism” offer code. You may call (212) YANKEES with any questions. The offer expires August 8, 2014.

Autism Speaks is a leading autism advocacy and research organization. Its members are committed to funding research into causes, treatment and cures for autism, raising awareness about autism spectrum disorders, and advocating for people with autism. Learn more at www.autismspeaks.org.

Learn more about special needs planning by visiting http://www.specialneedsnewyork.com/

Major League Baseball is hosting a number of events in the coming months to support autism awareness.

The New York Yankees are offering half-price tickets to members of the Autism Speaks community for their Saturday, August 9 home game against the Cleveland Indians. The offer is valid for select general, non-premium seating areas. Fans may purchase these tickets at a half-price savings from the regular advance ticket price. The discount is on a first-come, first-serve basis and is only available online at http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/ticketing, using the “autism” offer code. You may call (212) YANKEES with any questions. The offer expires August 8, 2014.

You can find information about other teams that are supporting autism awareness by visiting http://mlb.mlb.com/mlv/tickets/autism_awareness.jsp.

Autism Speaks is a leading autism advocacy and research organization, committed to funding research into causes, treatment and a cure for autism, raising awareness about autism spectrum disorders, and advocating for people with autism.

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By: Giulia Frasca, Esq., Littman Krooks LLP

There are an estimated two million people with Autism Spectrum Disorders in the United States.  Over 500,000 of those diagnosed are children.  The incidence rate of Autism increased to one in 68 children.  There is a five-to-one prevalence of Autism in boys over girls so that the incidence rate of Autism for boys is one in every 54 boys.  E ach child diagnosed with Autism and each case of Autism is unique such that there is not one particular treatment, program, or methodology that will work for all children diagnosed with Autism.  Recently, an article published in the New York Times titled “Reaching My Autistic Son Through Disney” by Ron Suskind discussed how watching Disney movies and relating to the characters in those movies helped one child diagnosed with Autism break through and communicate verbally, in writing and through art with other members of his family.

Today, school districts use several different, innovative methodologies for teaching children with Autism.  Most schools teach children with Autism using Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA), which has been proven to work for children with the most severe cases of Autism.  ABA focuses on changing the environment around the child in order to help the child achieve a task rather than simply telling the child what to do.  ABA aims to build a direct relationship between desirable outcomes and the environment the child is in.

Another methodology called Naturalistic Teaching Strategies involves creating an environment in which children are motivated to communicate a specific need or want by, for example, placing a favorite toy on a shelf, out of reach so that the child will be motivated to ask for it.  Children with more advanced language skills will be prompted to ask a question or speak a full sentence.

Yet another, newer methodology, Social Communication, Emotional Regulation and Transactional Support (SCERTS) combines several different treatments and identifies and builds on a student’s strengths, then creates strategies to improve the student’s weaknesses.

Autism Spectrum Disorder teaching methodologies are constantly evolving in order to address the broad spectrum of needs and the different ways in which children develop.  Littman Krooks LLP’s special education attorneys strive to keep abreast of new developments in these areas in order to be the strongest advocates for families with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The seventh annual World Autism Awareness Day is Tuesday, April 2, 2014. Learn more about events in your area by visiting the Autism Speaks website or visit our blog at: http://www.littmankrooks.com/blog/ Was this article of interest to you? If so, please LIKE our Facebook Page by clicking here.