Robot is Helping Autistic Children with their Social Skills

"This is nice, it tickles me," Kaspar the social robot tells four-year-old Finn as they play together at an autism school north of London.

Kaspar, developed by the University of Hertfordshire, also sings song, imitates eating, plays the tambourine and combs his hair during their sessions aimed at helping Finn with his social interaction and communication.

Finn is one of around 170 autistic children that Kaspar has helped in a handful of schools and hospitals over the last 10 years.

But with approximately 700,000 people in Britain on the autism spectrum, according to the National Autistic Society who will mark ‘World Autism Day’ on Sunday, the university wants Kaspar to help more people.

"Our vision is that every child in a school or a home or in a hospital could get a Kaspar if they wanted to," Kerstin Dautenhahn, professor of artificial
intelligence at the University of Hertfordshire, told Reuters.



Achieving that goal will largely depend on the results of a two-year clinical trial with the Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust, which, if successful, could see Kaspar working in hospitals nationwide.

TRACKS, an independent charity and specialist early years center for children with autism in Stevenage, have seen positive results from working with Kaspar, who sports a blue cap and plaid shirt for play sessions.

"We were trying to teach a little boy how to eat with his peers. He usually struggled with it because of his anxiety issues," said deputy principal Alice Lynch.

"We started doing it with Kaspar and he really, really enjoyed feeding Kaspar, making him eat when he was hungry, things like that. Now he's started to integrate into the classroom and eat alongside his peers. So things like that, are just a massive progression."



Many children with autism find it hard to decipher basic human communication and emotion so Kaspar's designers avoided making him too lifelike and instead opted for simplified, easy to process features.

Autism support groups have been impressed.

"Many autistic people are drawn to technology, particularly the predictability it provides, which means it can be a very useful means of engaging children, and adults too," Carol Povey, director of the National Autistic Society's Centre for Autism, told Reuters.

"This robot is one of a number of emerging technologies which have the potential to make a huge difference to people on the autism spectrum."

Source: Fox News, Health

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Autism diagnosis by brain scan? It’s time for a reality check

Recent reports that it might be possible to use MRI to identify at-risk children are exciting, but we are still a long way from autism diagnosis by brain scan

A brain scan for autism would be a major step forward. But is the hype justified?

What if I told you that we can now identify babies who are going to develop autism based on a simple brain scan? This, in essence, is the seductive pitch for a study published last week in the journal Nature, and making headlines around the world.

Early identification and diagnosis is one of the major goals of autism research. By definition, people with autism have difficulties with social interaction and communication. But these skills take many years to develop, even in typically developing (i.e., non-autistic) children. Potential early signs of autism are extremely difficult to pick out amidst the natural variation in behavior and temperament that exists between all babies.
A brain scan for autism would be a major step forward. But is the hype justified? Are we really on the brink of a new era in autism diagnostics? Without wishing to detract from the efforts of everyone involved in the study, it’s important to look at the results critically, both in terms of the scientific findings and their potential implications for clinical practice.



The study, led by Heather Cody Hazlett at the University of North Carolina, was part of a larger research program investigating the development of babies who have an older sibling with autism. Because autism runs in families, these babies are much more likely to develop autism than babies from the general population.

The babies were given MRI brain scans at 6, 12, and 24 months of age and were then assessed for autism. As expected for this “high risk” sample, around 1 in 5 met the diagnostic criteria. The researchers were then able to look back at the brain scans to see if there were any differences between the autistic and the non-autistic babies.

Hazlett and colleagues first looked at three measures of overall brain size: the total volume of the brain; its total surface area; and the average thickness of the cortex (the brain’s outer layer). Consistent with previous studies of older children, the autistic babies had slightly larger brain volume and greater surface area. However, these effects were only statistically significant for the last scan at 24 months.

Most autistic infants had brains that wouldn’t set them apart from non-autistic infants. In other words, overall brain size isn’t in itself a very good predictor of whether or not an individual baby will go on to an autism diagnosis.

So Hazlett and colleagues tried a different approach, calculating the volume and surface area for 78 different regions within each infant’s brain. They did this twice: once for the 6 month scan and again for the 12 month scan, giving them 312 data points, or “features”, for each baby.



Next, they fed that information (plus the sex and skull volume of each baby) into a computer that they trained to differentiate between the autistic and non-autistic babies.

Importantly, they only trained it on 90% of the babies at a time. They then fed in the brain features from the remaining 10% and asked the computer to predict the diagnosis of each baby. They did this 10 times, leaving out a different subgroup of babies each time.

The computer correctly diagnosed 30 of 34 autistic babies in the sample and incorrectly flagged just 7 of 145 non-autistic babies. So the excitement is understandable.

Of 34 babies with autism, 30 were correctly identified. False positives occurred for 7 out of 145 non-autistic babies.

However, as the researchers themselves note, the study really needs to be replicated. Because it was a first-of its-kind, the researchers would necessarily have been feeling their way, making decisions as they went along. This tweaking inevitably biases the outcome towards a more compelling result. But having learnt the lessons from this first study, researchers are now in a position to preregister any replication attempt, nailing down all the details before they begin. If the current results are robust, they should replicate even without the tweaking.



Assuming the results do hold up, the next big question is whether this approach actually translates to real life clinical applications. Will we really see the everyday use of MRI scans to predict whether or not babies have or will develop autism?

An important practical consideration is the requirement for brain scans to be acquired at both 6 and 12 months. MRI scanners are noisy and claustrophobic. Any movement and the scan is ruined. The researchers scanned the babies while they were asleep but, despite their best efforts, only around half of the babies had two useable scans. Once we add the babies with incomplete data to the picture, the results start to look less useful. In particular, only 30 of the 70 autistic babies in the study could be identified based on their brain scans.

Including babies with incomplete data, only 30 out of 70 babies with autism were correctly identified.

As a final point, the use of MRI scans for autism detection is unlikely to be of much practical benefit beyond high-risk populations. This is simply an issue of numbers. In the general population, it’s estimated that one person in 68 has autism. In the figure below, I’ve assumed that the computer maintains the same ability to differentiate between autistic and non-autistic brains but is now faced with 67 non-autistic babies for every one autistic baby.

Assuming an estimate of 1 in 68 people having autism, in order to identify the 30 babies with autism in the original sample, we would need to scan a total of 4760 babies.

We’d still miss the other 40 autistic babies. And because of the scaling up, 132 non-autistic babies would incorrectly test positive. In other words, 81% of babies who tested positive would not actually be autistic.

These are, of course, inexact back-of-the-envelope calculations. The computer algorithm may perform much better when it is trained to differentiate between autistic and low risk babies. And there are, no doubt, ways of improving the success rate of scanning. But it illustrates the profound challenges in translating the research finding into widespread clinical practice. For now at least, it’s time to dial back the hype. We are still a very long way from autism diagnosis by brain scan.

But from a scientific point of view, I remain excited by these findings. They’re part of a growing body of evidence for subtle differences in the brains of young infants who go on to be diagnosed with autism. Some of these findings are perhaps more robust than others, but each represents an important step towards a greater understanding of the developmental origins of autism in the
Source: Jon Brock, The Guardian

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Questions of Refugee Deservedness

As anthropologists of forced migration, we are used to being kept on our toes as the nature, causes, consequences, and policies that enshroud forced migration are constantly fluctuating. When I returned to Cameroon for ethnographic fieldwork after over a decade living in the region as a humanitarian professional, I came with the intention of working with a large and growing population of Central African refugees.

When I had last left Cameroon a year earlier in 2015, this population was growing rapidly, and garnering the attention of the world, or at least those of us who pay attention to forced migration in Africa. However, in the midst of my research over the summer of 2016, I found a Rwandan community silently struggling with the invocation of a Cessation Clause, built into the 1951 Geneva Convention, for all Rwandan refugees who arrived in asylum countries prior to 1998 and who had not been resettled. They feared this clause would cause the majority to lose their refugee status at the end of 2017. As many had hedged their bets on resettlement, they were at a loss of what to do next, after decades of waiting, and what now felt like rejection of the very foundation of their fears of returning home. Intrigued,

I shifted my focus.
When I first met Francois (pseudonym), a Rwandan refugee in his early 40s, he was dressed in a pressed, dark gray, suit. He stood out in the middle of the informal boutiques made out of plywood and vegetable stands set-up in the open air market. He told me that he was on his way to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) office. However, looking at the crushing traffic, he decided to delay his travel to the next day for fear of arriving late and wasting fuel along the way. He was going to follow-up on his request for resettlement in the United States. A dossier ten years in waiting still provided him with an inkling of hope. When I introduced myself as an anthropologist who wanted to better understand the Rwandan urban refugee community, he asked if I had time to visit his house, which was down the street.



As we pulled up to a dusty neighborhood store, he introduced me to his wife Antoinette (pseudonym), a nurse. Antoinette brought me to a back room attached to the store where they lived with their two young children. Francois immediately pulled out stacks of papers and handed them to me. They were piles of balances owed to different vendors, which demonstrated to me that all he owned had been purchased on credit.

This family was surviving month to month, but only by borrowing money. Business was slow as the shop was tucked inside of a semi-informal settlement where the population had limited purchasing power. He shook his head quietly, noting that with the Cessation Clause, he wasn’t really sure about their future. Antoinette added that she had tried supplementing their income by working at a local hospital. However, she stopped working because her wages did not cover costs of transportation to the hospital. Antoinette felt that her employer believed that because she was a refugee, who was “treated better” than Cameroon citizens who also needed support, she did not need a higher salary.



This narrative exemplifies that for outsiders, the combination of Rwanda’s current perceived stability and evidence of the Rwandan stores that had cropped up signaled that refugees had successfully integrated. This, coupled with the global migration crisis and increasing pressures on humanitarian agencies, may have culminated in the UNHCR and the Rwandan government’s agreement to instill the Cessation Clause. To many Rwandan refugees, this means that at the end of 2017, they may find themselves without the legal protection that the UNHCR offers them, losing the right to their status as refugees in exile. These individuals need and are actively seeking allies.

I draw attention to these Rwandan refugees because they represent several issues which we are still grappling to understand in the area of forced migration. In today’s climate of xenophobia towards refugees, the refugee label has become increasingly politically and emotionally charged. In some rhetoric refugees are imagined as moochers, taking resources away from others in society who need it more. The false binary between services for refugees and Veterans, for example, often comes up without much justifiable reason as the two budgets are not and never have been in opposition to each other, or even under the same agency. Other times refugees are feared. The fear and the violence that they are fleeing is somehow thrust back onto them in an attempt to make them look like perpetrators, rather than survivors, of human rights abuses. Even as scholars and advocates write articles, op-ed pieces, and conduct interviews, it seems that too often our words and well-researched pieces either preach to the choir or fall on deaf ears of those who have already made up their minds about how dangerous refugees are. Sadly, the latter often occurs without them having ever met a refugee.



As anthropologists, we want our efforts to reach a broader audience. This raises the question: How we can better unite to make sure that our research is disseminated in ways that can influence policies, and public opinion on refugees? Over my humanitarian and research career, I have seen refugees, countless times, feel the need to repeat their stories, to package them in a way that make them “deserving” of the refugee papers and the protection and hope they provide. They need allies to help in their push against these enormous bureaucratic obstacles both in the United States and the many other countries of the world where refugees we are working with are facing similar, often chronic, issues related to rejection of their asylum or refugee status. We should figure out how to be among these allies.
Sources: Kelly Yotebieng is a doctoral student in anthropology at Ohio State University.
Newman is assistant professor of anthropology at Wayne State University and secretary of SUNTA.

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IS THE ADHD AN ILUSION? ALMOST NO CHILDREN IN FRANCE ARE MEDICATED FOR ADHD: HERE’S HOW THEY DEFINE & TREAT IT

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 11% of American children between the ages of 4 and 17 have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as of 2011. However, if you ask the American Psychiatric Association (APA), they maintain that even though only 5% of American children suffer from the disorder, the diagnosis is actually given to around 15% of American children. This number has been steadily rising, jumping from 7.8% in 2003 to 9.5% in 2007.

Big Pharma has played a significant role in manufacturing the ADHD epidemic in the U.S., convincing parents and doctors that ADHD is a common problem amongst children and one that should be medicated. However, many countries disagree with the American stance on ADHD, so much so that they have entirely different structures for defining, diagnosing, and treating it. For example, the percentage of children in France that have been diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is less than 0.5%. This is largely because French doctors don’t consider ADHD a biological disorder with biological causes, but rather a medical condition caused by psycho-social and situational factors.



Why France Defines ADHD Differently
French child psychiatrists use a different system than American psychiatrists to classify emotional problems in childhood. Instead of using the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the French use an alternative classification system produced by the French Federation of Psychiatry called Classification Française des Troubles Mentaux de L’Enfant et de L’Adolescent (CFTMEA). Not only does this significantly differ from the APA’s system, but it was actually created with the intention to “offer French child psychiatrists an alternative to DSM-III’ because it didn’t compliment French psychiatric practices. The CFTMEA encourages psychiatrists to identify the underlying issues that cause a child’s symptoms and to address them using a psychopathological approach.

France defines ADHD as a sociological disorder that’s caused by a set of social situations, whereas the U.S. sees ADHD as a neurological disorder whose symptoms are the result of biological dysfunction or a chemical imbalance in the brain. France’s definition of ADHD drastically differs from that of the U.S., which is in part because the pharmaceutical industry helped define ADHD in the U.S. France’s treatment methods, therefore, also greatly differ from those practiced in the U.S.



Treatment Methods for ADHD Used in France
Once a French psychiatrist diagnoses their patient with ADHD, they hone in on the behavioural problems by searching for the underlying causes. Psychiatrists will study the child’s distress and compare it to their social situations. France views ADHD as a social context problem; therefore, ADHD is often treated with psychotherapy or even family counselling. Very rarely do French psychiatrists prescribe medications to treat ADHD, as it’s usually rendered unnecessary after taking a more holistic approach.

It’s important to note that French psychiatrists also consider a patient’s diet when searching for the causes of behavioural symptoms associated with ADHD. Poor eating habits such as consuming foods with artificial colours or flavourings, preservatives, sugars, and/or allergens may worsen a child’s behaviour. This isn’t difficult to imagine; even as adults we can feel the effects certain foods have on our mood, energy levels, and thought processes.

Why There Are Fewer ADHD Cases in France Than the U.S.
A study conducted in 2011 stated that the amount of youth in France with ADHD may be as low as 3.5% — a far cry from the 11 to 15% estimate in the United States. Family therapist and author of A Disease Called Childhood Why ADHD Became an American epidemic Dr. Marilyn Wedge suggests that this may be as a result of the cultural differences between the U.S. and France in regards to raising children. According to Wedge, French parents will often impose more structured lifestyles onto their children, such as enforcing strict meal times and using the “cry it out” method with babies and toddlers. Children are taught self-discipline at a young age, which is why Wedge feels they don’t need to be medicated for behavioural issues.



Unfortunately, spanking is not considered child abuse in France, so this practice is used fairly often to encourage discipline. In March 2015 the Council of Europe, an international human rights organization, faulted France over the country’s lack of legislation regarding corporal punishment of children. As The New York Times explained, “Child abuse is illegal in France and is punished with long prison sentences, but it is not uncommon for French parents to slap or spank children, or for the French courts to view such actions as acceptable under a customary ‘right to discipline.’

As Dr. Wedge points out (although neither she nor Collective Evolution support spanking or any other form of child abuse), this simply adds to the discipline they’re encouraged to practice throughout their childhood. While Wedge makes some interesting points regarding discipline, I don’t think that’s the underlying reason why most French children don’t need to be medicated for ADHD. Rather, because ADHD is largely a behavioural issue, it rarely requires pharmacological intervention. I believe that these treatment methods are successful in France not because of their parenting culture, but rather as a result of their holistic approach in considering diet and behavioural and social context.



I believe France does not have an issue with over-diagnosing ADHD in the same way the U.S. does because pharmaceutical companies have not targeted them as heavily. Pharmaceutical companies play a substantial role in defining ADHD and deciding treatment methods in the U.S. For example, doctors and researchers in the U.S. have been paid to overstate the dangers of ADHD and the benefits of taking their drugs and understate the negative side effects.

It’s easy for people to believe this misguided information when it’s affiliated with well-known universities like Harvard and Johns Hopkins. Many people don’t even realize that these studies are funded by the very companies that profit from the drugs’ sale because that relationship is hidden in small print. These drugs can have significant side effects and are actually considered to be within the same class as morphine and oxycodone due to their high risk of abuse and addiction. You can’t just blame all doctors, either; many of them genuinely believe they’re helping these children because of the information they’ve been given in these studies and by Big Pharma.

Another reason the U.S. has substantially higher rates of ADHD amongst children than France is because of the ADHD drug advertisements that run in the U.S. Big Pharma creates ads for ADHD drugs sold in the U.S. that are specifically targeted at parents, describing how these drugs can improve test scores and behaviour at home, among other false claims.
One of the most controversial ones was a 2009 ad for Intuniv, Shire’s A.D.H.D. treatment, which included a child in a monster costume taking off his terrifying mask to reveal his calm, smiling self with a text reading, “There’s a great kid in there.” The FDA has stepped in multiple times, sending pharmaceutical companies warning letters or even forcing them to take down their ads because they are false, misleading, and/or exaggerate the effects of their drugs. This type of propaganda doesn’t take place in France, at least not on the same scale as the in U.S., largely because it doesn’t coincide with their ADHD diagnosis framework. You can read more about this topic in another article I wrote.



How to Use This Information to More Effectively Treat ADHD
France’s CFTMEA, definition for ADHD, and holistic approach to treating this disorder provide an excellent example of how we should be addressing ADHD patients, especially children. Instead of getting to the root of these children’s “attention deficits” like French psychiatrists do, American health practitioners typically assume ADHD is a medical condition that can only be fixed with medication. This is not only unethical, but also clearly damaging to a child’s self-esteem. Many of these kids could simply be uninterested in the subject matter, suffering from some sort of emotional trauma, or even have heightened creativity and energy! You can’t just blame all doctors in the U.S., either; many of them genuinely believe they’re helping these children because of the information they’ve been given in these studies and by Big Pharma.

However, many scientists in the U.S. have suggested alternatives to medicine to treat ADHD and many of them don’t even recognize ADHD as a disorder Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and Editor-in-Chief of The Carlat Psychiatry Report Daniel J. Carlat MD, criticized the DSM, stating, “In psychiatry, many diseases are treated equally well with medication or therapy, but the guidelines tend to be biased toward medication.”

Holistic Mental Health Practitioner Dr. Tyler Woods further explains:

The DSM tends to pathologized normal behaviors. For instance, the label “Anxiety Disorder” can be given as a result of some kinds of normal and rather healthy anxieties but the DSM will have experts view it and treat it as mental illness. In addition simple shyness can be seen and treated as “Social Phobia”, while spirited and strong willed children as “Oppositional Disorder”. Consequently, many psychotherapists, regardless of their theoretical orientations, tend to follow the DSM as instructed.



Neurologist Richard Saul spent his career examining patients who struggle with short attention spans and difficulty focusing. His extensive experience has led him to believe that ADHD isn’t actually a disorder, but rather an umbrella of symptoms that shouldn’t be considered a disease. Thus, Saul believes it shouldn’t be listed as a separate disorder in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic & Statistical Manual.

Leading integrative pediatrician and author of ADHD without Drugs: A Guide to the Natural Care of Children with ADHD Dr. Sanford Newmark MD has spent more than 15 years studying and successfully treating ADHD naturally. Some of his recommendations include improved nutrition, increased sleep, iron, zinc, and Omega-3 supplementation, family counselling, making positive social and behavioural changes, and pursing alternative modalities such as Traditional Chinese Medicine and Homeopathy. Dr. Newmark considers conventional medication a “last resort,” given the fact that ADHD drugs only work about 70% of the time and have potential negative side effects.



It is clear that many doctors are starting to recognize the importance of treating ADHD outside conventional methods. Misdiagnosis and over-diagnosis of ADHD is a serious issue in the U.S., one that is heavily fueled by the pharmaceutical industry. If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with ADHD, I strongly suggest you research this subject more and explore alternatives to medication with the help of a healthcare practitioner!

“The very vocabulary of psychiatry is now defined at all levels by the pharmaceutical industry.”

– Dr. Irwin Savodnik, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California in Los Angeles.

"If “Survivor” was actually real and had stakes worth caring about, it would be what happens here, and “The Sacred Science” hopefully is merely one in a long line of exciting endeavors from this group." - Billy Okeefe, McClatchy Tribune.
SOURCE: KALEE BROWN

The Neurotoxicity Of Vaccines

By: Alexandria Addesso

Illness is something no one wants to suffer from. Over-the-counter, prescription drugs, and holistic treatments are vigorously sought after to alleviate the slightest form of suffering. In the past hundred years vaccinations have become commonplace when trying to combat both deadly diseases and common ailments. Yet there has been a movement against vaccinations springing up in the last two decades.

Of all vaccinations the flu shot has become the most common and the most frequently administered vaccine being that people usually get one annually at the onset of the flu season. It is well known that if a person already has a compromised immune system at the time of receiving the shot they are highly likely to become very ill. Another controversial and alarming aspect about the flu shot is the high amounts of mercury it contains. Recent lab tests conducted by the Natural News Forensic Food Lab found that seasonal flu vaccines contain 25 thousand times more mercury than is legally allowed in drinking water. Mercury is one of the most toxic metals, it is also particularly neurotoxic. Mercury is known to penetrate and damage the blood-brain barrier very rapidly, leading to a dysfunction of the blood-brain barrier system. Women who are pregnant are usually told to abstain from seafood due to it containing mercury, yet they are encouraged to receive a flu shot as well as other high-risk groups such as children and the elderly.



The flu shot is not the only vaccination known to be neurotoxic, nearly all the vaccines we often push on newborns and infants are. For quite some time autism has been seen to be directly linked to newborn and infantile vaccinations, yet many try to argue the opposite despite autism being almost completely unheard of before mass vaccination programs were initiated in Western nations.

"Dyslexia, minimal brain damage, ADD, autism, allergies, visual and many other neurologic diseases grouped together as ‘developmental disabilities, ’barely existed before mass vaccination programs,” said Dr. Ted Koren. “Probably twenty percent of American children, one youngster in five-suffers from, a 'developmental disability.' This is a stupefying figure developmental disabilities are nearly always generated by encephalitis. And the primary cause of encephalitis in the United States and other industrialized countries is the childhood vaccination program.”

What is most alarming about the childhood vaccination program is that it is a major requirement for public schooling, only sometimes avoided by citing religious belief. A quick Google search can uncover a stories of parents telling stories of how their babies had febrile seizure right after inoculations, some numerous times. Yet their first-hand accounts, either go unheard or purposely silenced. Their previously healthy babies having life-long neurological disorders afterwards.



As people we cannot submit to the state’s demands simply because we are threatened. The youth or other high-risk groups can no longer be a sacrificial offering. Stay curious
and keep questioning everything.

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Psychological Therapy or Medication: ADHD and our Children

Children need less medication and more Therapy. Three-quarters of young children with ADHD are receiving medication, but only half are getting therapy

Government health officials are using medical providers to refer parents of preschoolers who have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, to therapy sessions rather that turning first to medication.
What is ADHD?

"The attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a behavioral syndrome, is a disorder characterized by moderate behavior, distraction to severe, periods of brief attention, restlessness, emotional instability and impulsive behaviors. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder most often diagnosed in children, 4 always start in childhood, persists into adulthood in a high percentage of cases and usually causes a very negative impact on multiple areas of operation. Has a very high response to treatment, but is associated with high rates of psychiatry comorbidity.



According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV): "Usually, symptoms worsen in situations that require attention or effort sustained mental or who lack intrinsic appeal or novelty (p. eg., listening to the teacher in class, do homework, listen to or read long texts that are not on your tastes, or work in monotonous or repetitive tasks) ". Historically, this disorder has received different characterizations and innumerable denominations, which makes difficult the consultations of the especializada5 literature (see deficit hyperactivity disorder') is widely used to refer to this syndrome".

The recommendation, issued recently by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, comes alongside a dispatch in the agency's monthly report, called Vital Signs, that shows 75 percent of children ages 2 to 5 with ADHD are already taking medication. Among the concerns is that drugs that treat the condition can cause side effects like irritability and difficulty sleeping and can curb hunger, stunting growth. Further, researchers don't know what the long-term effects of these medicines are for children in this group.

The American Academy of Pediatrics offered similar guidance in 2011, saying medical providers should refer parents to training in behavior therapy before turning to medication. About a third of the 6.4 million children who have the condition, which causes children to be overly active and impulsive and to have difficulty concentrating, are diagnosed before age 6. At that point, symptoms can be very severe, and only half of the children who are diagnosed are receiving recommended behavioral therapy.



But Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director for the CDC, said in a call with reporters that this type of therapy could be as effective as medication.

“We recognize that these are not easy treatment decisions for parents to make,” she said, alluding to the fact that this type of treatment takes more time that medication.

Behavior therapy programs can occur over the course of eight or more sessions, and therapists teach parents how to give their children their full attention and reflect words back to them so their children know they are listening and care about what they have to say. They learn how to praise their children when they do something right and how to set up and follow routines.

"It's like having your own personal coach for dealing with challenging conditions," Dr. Georgina Peacock, director of the CDC’s division of human development and disability, said during the call.

The Vital Signs report analyzed health care claims data from at least 5 million young children between the ages of 2 and 5 who are insured by Medicaid, which is funded by the government, from 2008 to 2011. It also looks at an additional 1 million who were covered by health insurance that employers pay for, from 2008 to 2014. Though it found the same rates of medication prescriptions among both groups, it found that 54 percent of children on Medicaid received psychological services each year, while 45 percent of children with private plans did.



These numbers did not increase over time, and the different rates, between the two groups likely occurs, because not all private health insurance companies will cover behavioral therapy as Medicaid typically does.

The CDC stopped short of saying that young children should never be medicated for ADHD, adding that decision was for parents and doctors and that medication may sometimes be appropriate. With behavioral therapy, however, it's possible that some children may never need medication for ADHD, Peacock said.

Source: Kimberly Leonard

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Does Gender Ideology Harm Children?

By: Alexandria Addesso

The American College of Pediatrics released an eight-point statement entitled Gender Ideology Harms Children. The very timely statement was published on the ACP’s website just before the Federal directive to allow public school children to use the bathrooms associated with their gender identity.

At the top of the statement the ACP “urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.”

The eight points stated as to how and why gender ideology harms children include: the objectivity of genetic markers “XY” and “XX”, the dangers of puberty-blocking hormones, the need to continually use cross-sex hormones into adolescence and later life, and a higher rate of suicide. The eighth and most radical point states “Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.”



This final point initially may come across as opinionated and harsh as well as less based in science than the others. But the ACP goes on to elaborate that endorsing such policies will lead more parents to bring their children to “gender clinics” for puberty blocking drugs thus leading them to be more apt to continuing formal lifetime on artificial hormones which contain known carcinogens. As well as mutilation of otherwise healthy body parts.

But if a person truly believes they are transgender won’t they pursue these means for the rest of their lives anyway? This leads to the discussion of two of the ACP’s points yet to be mentioned in this article. The fifth point states “According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.”



The DSM-V is an abbreviated form of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, which was published in 2013. The fifth point is used to back up the notion that such childhood gender disorders would be resolved after puberty. Whether we’d like to admit it or not, much of the general populous can identify with such a feeling from their childhood, either in the form of being labeled a tomboy for preferring roughhousing or labeled a sissy for being more of a mild-mannered boy. Will any child that deviates from the “gender norm” now be labelled as transgender and encouraged to take hormones? This takes us to point number two.



The ACP’s second point states “No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a
biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one.”

This harkens back to the last point discussed. In society “gender norms” are so deeply ingrained into the psyche that any deviation is seen as a problem, and problems must be solved. When gender itself is completely a social construct. A person’s XX or XY chromosomes can never change, but how they perceive themselves can. The problem is in the thinking that there is something wrong with Billy liking to play with baby dolls, when wouldn’t we want him to care for babies if he becomes a father? Or that thinking there is something wrong with Suzie wanting short hair and not liking uncomfortable, dressy clothing when, isn’t vanity a major downfall of many women? What is baffling is the immense push to conform by parents that praise their child as being an “individual” while allowing them to take drugs to enable them to conform with a perceived gender ideal.



To be completely fair, many have opposed these statements since they were published. Many counter-articles have been written on how the ACP is full of bigots, and is backed by the Conservative Right. But, ACP did cite 11 independent scientific studies to back its claims. In the “free” world the rights of adults have always been more numerous than those of children. An adult may live their life in any way they chose as long as it is within the bounds of the law. But should a child, whose brain is not yet fully developed until the age of 25 according to modern science, be allowed to the rights to such life-changing decisions? And if not the child, should the guardian be entitled to such rights?

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