GFCF Hummus!

Homemade Hummus Recipe

2 cups chickpeas, cooked or canned
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup tahini
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1/4 cup or more water
salt to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon paprika

1. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Place in a blender or food processor with the lemon juice, tahini, and minced garlic. Blend well, adding water as needed to form a smooth paste. (Add less water to make a thicker hummus for sandwich spread.) Add salt to taste.

2. Scrape hummus into a covered container and refrigerate overnight or at least three hours before serving.

3. Remove hummus from refrigerator 1/2 hour before serving. Spread onto a shallow plate, swirling top with the back of a spoon. Drizzle olive oil and paprika over top. Serve with pita chips or bread triangles and raw vegetable for dipping.

4. Makes about 3 cups, enough to serve at least eight as a party dip or to fill 6-8 sandwiches.

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Washington Post: Gaithersburg School Tailors Teaching To Help Students Cope With Disorder

By Daniel de Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
The first day of kindergarten found Alex Barth in the principal's office. The teacher had asked students to draw self-portraits. Alex had wanted to draw his in red crayon. There was no red crayon. Alex had melted down.

Alex was a capable child with superior intelligence -- and no end of eccentricities. He would flee noisy school assemblies. He couldn't bear the smell of the cafeteria. By the end of first grade, his mother was spending much of the day at Alex's side.

Robyne Barth soon learned her son had Asperger syndrome, a developmental disorder on the autism spectrum. Children with the disorder, known in shorthand as Asperger's, might have strong academic gifts but deficiencies in such social skills as carrying on a conversation and playing with others at recess.

On Thursday, Alex, 10, finished fourth grade at one of the nation's few public schools with a program tailored to children with Asperger's: Diamond Elementary School in Gaithersburg. He is popular and well-adjusted, and spends more and more of his school days in regular classes.

"I couldn't see my child as anything. I couldn't imagine him having a normal life," said Barth, of North Potomac. "And now, my child has a personality. He's funny. I can see him as an engineer. I can see him as an architect. I can see his life."

The program at Diamond Elementary is one of several in Montgomery County for children who have average to above-average intelligence but are coping with developmental disabilities. It addresses one of the most vexing problems in special education: What to do with a child who is disabled but capable of work at or above grade level? Such programs are unusual in public education. Because children with Asperger's often are bright and capable, albeit with some behavioral quirks, schools tend to assign them to regular classrooms, either missing or misdiagnosing their disability.

"Do you guys need a minute to draw a picture on your angry page?" teacher Cheryl Reed asked five Diamond Elementary students with Asperger's one afternoon last week. It was an exercise in personification, a concept each of the first- and second-graders seemed to understand perfectly, although they kept mispronouncing the word with the accent on the first syllable.

Second-grader Justin Daddona completed his picture, a sort of Maurice Sendak creation, and regarded it in triumph. "He's more than angry, he's furious," Justin said. "Look, his hair's coming off and smoke's coming out of his ears."

The program, with two teachers and four aides serving 15 children, focuses on two goals: teaching students to recognize and cope with manifestations of their disorder, such as a panic attack in the gymnasium or uncontrollable restlessness in math class; and easing them into regular classes to the greatest extent appropriate, a process called mainstreaming, which drives special education across the country.

The Asperger's program began seven years ago, part of an expanding suite of services for an autism population that tops 1,000 students in the 137,000-student system and is growing by 17 percent a year. It is housed at Diamond and Sligo Creek elementary schools and Tilden and Montgomery Village middle schools, serving students countywide.

Asperger's falls at the mild end of the autism spectrum, a range of disorders characterized by impairment in social interaction and communication. By varying estimates, Asperger's affects anywhere from one in 30,000 people to one in 200.

Hans Asperger, the Viennese physician who discovered the disorder, termed his subjects "little professors." In regular classes, such children might end up as misfits, prone to ill-timed outbursts, fidgety and frustrated, unable to read the body language of the agitated teacher hovering over them.

"The large, 25-kid classroom is too much for a lot of these kids," said Lucia Claster, an Arlington County parent who leads a support group of more than 120 families of children with Asperger's. "They're dealing with a general education teacher [who] may never have had a child with Asperger's before."

James Ball, a behavior analyst in Cranbury, N.J., who has consulted nationally on autism, said the Montgomery County effort "should be looked at as a model program" for teaching children with Asperger's, "because they are a unique breed of kids, and they do respond to a variety of unique teaching strategies."

An informal survey of local school systems found one other example, in Anne Arundel County, of a program designed for students with Asperger's or high-functioning autism, an umbrella term for children on the autism spectrum with average to above-average IQs. Anne Arundel schools team with a private special education school to help autism-spectrum children move into regular classes at two schools, Severn River Middle and Severna Park High.

The Hannah More program in Anne Arundel and the Asperger's program in Montgomery have similar structures. Students work their way from small, self-contained classes into regular classes over time, with support ranging from one-on-one help in the classroom to an occasional check-in with special educators.

The Asperger's classroom at Diamond Elementary is a home base for students, with an oasis of books, board games, yoga balls and Hot Wheels cars, to which any child can retreat from the regular classroom if things go awry. Students are trained to raise their hands if they need a break, and the entire school staff knows to respond.

That afternoon, Reed prepared her first- and second-graders for a schoolwide assembly, one of the most challenging scenarios for children with heightened sensitivity to stimuli. "Are we going to be screaming with our mouths?" Reed asked. No, the class responded in unison. "The only sound we're going to hear is what? Our hands," she said.

Each child in the program signs a behavior contract, agreeing to work on social skills: I will listen to instructions the first time. I will complete an assignment with one or fewer reminders. Good behavior is rewarded with Diamond Dolphin Dollars, which are redeemable for prizes.

Parent Staci Daddona of Gaithersburg said she is amazed at how well Reed's methods have worked with Justin, 7.

Justin's preschool experience was a nightmare: He would take one toy, a top, and play with it day after day, ignoring the teacher and the rest of class. At home, he took to opening and closing things -- the blinds, the garage door -- and flushed the toilet with such regularity that the family's water bill spiked.

Every attempt at public education failed until this year, Daddona said. Reed not only taught Justin to focus on his studies but also worked him into regular classes for part of the day. She has taught him to recognize when he is becoming anxious or upset, if she doesn't spot it first.

"When he starts to stand up, he'll press on the desk, because he's trying to calm himself that way," she said. "And she'll say, 'It looks like you need a break.' And that happens before he throws a pencil, and all the things that happened last year."

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Controversial New Movement

Controversial New Movement: Autistic and Proud
Activists Say Stop Looking for a Cure and Accept Autistic People as
They Are
By DEBORAH ROBERTS, MICHELLE MAJOR and JONANN BRADY

June 10, 2008

Ari Ne'eman and Kristina Chew say they are the faces and voices of
autism's future.

They're part of a controversial group hoping to radically change the
way others look at autism. Their message: Stop the search for a cure
and begin celebrating autistic people for their differences. It's a
message that has some parents of autistic children bewildered and angry.

Ne'eman, 20, is the founder of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a
non-profit group aimed at advancing autism culture and advocating for
"neurodiverse" individuals.

"We believe that the autism spectrum and those on it, are important
and necessary parts of the wide diversity present in human genetics,"
Ne-eman says on the ASAN Web site.

Ne'eman was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a less severe form of
autism, as a child.

"I think the others around me knew I was different from as early as I
can remember," he told "Good Morning America."

When Ne'eman says that looking for a cure for autism is the wrong
approach to take, he understands why some parents are upset --
especially those with very low-functioning, non-communicative
autistic children.

"I think that one of the key issues to remember is that anti-cure
doesn't mean anti-progress," he said.

'Ransom' Ad Sparks Action

Kristina Chew, a professor at St. Peter's College in New Jersey, is
one of the growing number of parents involved the movement.

When her son, Charlie, was diagnosed with severe autism, Chew said,
"I was completely in a gulf. I didn't believe it for months."

Chew now believes that autism treatments and so-called cures are a
waste of time. She said she'd rather see Charlie, now 11, benefit
from better support services and education.

"My son is who he is. He's not going to change; he's always going to
be Charlie. And at the same time, I loved him just for what he was,"
Chew said.

Parents like Chew and autistic adults like Ne'eman joined forces
several months ago, after seeing an edgy new campaign to fight autism
from the New York University Child Study Center that implied children
with autism are held hostage by the disorder.

The NYU Child Study Center says the ads were about creating
awareness, but Ne'eman says that instead, the ads reinforce
prejudices about people with autism.

"Where does disability come from? It comes, in many respects, from a
society that doesn't provide for an education system that meets our
needs. From people who often discriminate or bully or even injure us,
and from a society that is largely intolerant," Ne'eman said.

Ne'eman and his supporters protested so loudly, that the ads were
cancelled three weeks after they were released.

Wouldn't Change Diagnosis

Many parents of autistic children say that Ne'eman and his group's
views don't reflect their reality and should essentially be ignored.

Lenny Shaffer, a writer with an autistic son, says of the movement,
"You're a handful of noisy people who get a lot of media attention,
but you don't represent a broad swath of the autism community."

Ne'eman believes history is on his side.

"I can't think of the civil rights movement throughout history that
hasn't been faced with resistance and misunderstanding on the part of
its detractors," he said.

And the young activist says if he could go back and change his
Asperger's diagnosis, he wouldn't.

"If there was a magic pill that would make me neurologically typical,
normal, I wouldn't take it," Ne'eman said.

But a number of experts say his path might not be the answer for many
others dealing with autism.

"You have to remember that this is a spectrum and you've got people
who are quite high functioning and then you've got people who can't
even begin to function and for whom we would love to have a cure to
at least get them to a point where they would be able to function as
well as the people in this movement," said Dr. Thomas Insel, from the
National Institute of Mental Health.

But Kristina Chew also said she wouldn't change her severely autistic
son Charlie if she could.

"We really try and understand him on his own terms," she said.

That is her advice for parents dealing with a child's autism
diagnosis and feeling hopeless.

"Acceptance, to me, is the beginning of hope," Chew said. "I look at
my son, even on the days, the most terrible, terrible days. I still
knew that I love my son. That he was with us, and that he would be
with us, and that the hope was really in him."

Copyright ) 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

We learned how to share in Kindergarten

Introducing: Soft: Made By You. When we launch in December 2008, we will also be offering pattern packs, with basic patterns for some of our most popular looks. Included in the pattern packs will be instructions on flat seaming, how to adjust your sewing techniques to create non-irritating collars, seams, and enclosures, as well as a resource directory of the soft fabrics we have sourced here at Soft.

Parent Center: Bad behavior, bullying or Sensory Integration Disorder?

Original post by Andrea Frazer

Everyone knows that obnoxious kid from the play group or the park. The one that hits, pushes, screams and throws tantrums when it’s time to leave. Sometimes the child will have meltdowns over something less innocuous, like not wanting to share toys. It seems super strange, because out of nowhere, a seemingly sweet and friendly child morphs into raging lunatic quicker than Britney Spears on a bender. Bad behavior, Jeckyll and Hyde syndrome, or Sensory Integration Disorder? You’d be surprised how often it’s the last one.

According to L.A. based child psychologist Lara Cochran, who has been treating children for 15 years, sensory processing disorder is often misunderstood. She says, “Sensory Dysfunction arises when there is something wrong with how sensory information is taken in and processed - very much like the saying about a child who is quite literally ‘over stimulated’. I have heard it described as akin to a person who normally drinks a cup of coffee in the morning to organize himself. All of a sudden, not having that cup of coffee, he feels perpetually out of sync and strikes out.”

When these kids behave aggressively, they are often perceived by other parents, and their own parents, as being horribly misbehaved. They are punished, shunned, and yelled at. Until they are correctly diagnosed and properly treated through various therapies, however, they will continue their pattern of behavior. This can result in poor self-esteem for the child who is being told over and over to correct the things their bodies can’t control.

The theory of sensory integration dysfunction was developed by J. Ayres who wrote the book Sensory Integration and the Child. In this book, she talks about how it begins in infancy. Children with SSD often have particular difficulties with specific sensations such as immersing oneself in a room temperature pool or even on a swing. Somtimes loud noises and crowds are enough to set one off. The sensation is discomforting, distressing and unregulated. The child does not know how to handle the stimulation and will regulate themselves, even if if this appears to be done negatively to the non-SSD population. For some children, this means bumping up against doorways, furniture or people. Such children are sometimes described by others as aggressive, when really they are trying to balance their bodies out.

SSD usually shows up when a child is having difficulties functioning in a particular environment such as school, sports or social situations. It is a learning disorder and can gravely disrupt the way a child learns if not treated appropriately.

The best resoures for a parent who thinks their child might have this disorder is to first talk to a developmental pediatrician. Once it is diagnosed, there is a wealth of resources for help, including I.E.P.’s (individualied education plans) and physical therapy. Ask your doctor or local school district to refer you to the correct source of help/diagnosis.

For those of you in the L.A. area, Dr. Cochran can be reached at 310-849-7748. She practices in Encino, California and conducts therapy, assessment and consultation. You can also reach her by email at CochranLara@Yahoo.com

Autism Today Blog

CDC: Low Birth Weight Tied to Autism Risk

Premature babies born at a low-birth weight appear to have an increased risk for autism, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study found that premature female babies had an even greater risk for autism than male babies.

Scientists with the CDC examined 565 children in Atlanta born from 1986 to 1993 with autism and compared them with children from a control group.

The study found that boy's born at a birth weight of lower than 5.5 pounds had a 2.3-fold increased risk for autism. Girls had a three times or even a higher risk for developing autism.

The scientists also found that low-birth weight and early preterm birth affected groups of children differently, depending on whether they had autism alone or autism and other developmental disabilities.

CDC researchers say this is the first study to look at how gender affects the risk for autism. The findings are published in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Click here to see the study.