On 14th December Jessica Kingsley was granted Freedom of the City of London at a short ceremony at the Guildhall. As a ‘freeman’, in earlier times, Jessica would now have the right to earn money and own land, along with the right to herd sheep over London Bridge and draw a sword in the City.…

by Charlotte E. Thompson, M.D., author of Grandparenting a Child with Special Needs With the hustle and bustle of the holidays, parents often turn to the grandparents for help with their children. Then if grandparents have part- or full-time care of their grandchildren, the holidays can make the days extra busy, so fatigue becomes a…

The Extreme Makeover Challenge: Room Re-Design! by Carol L. Spears and Dr. Vicki L. Turner As discussed in our book Rising to New Heights of Communication and Learning for Children with Autism, we have observed that disruptive behaviors displayed by children with autism or other PDDs may occur when they don’t know the answers to the following questions:…

“Imagery lets you know that a certain skill or learning with which you are already familiar can be usefully applied to an unfamiliar situation, similarly to the way in which computer developers ‘re-use’ code that is known to reliably perform a certain function. You can think of ‘imagery’ in this context as the software of the body – that which enables us to coordinate all our different muscles and bones without having to consciously ‘think’ about coordinating them, which is neither necessary nor possible.”

“The important thing for me is that every child is valued and that we look at the causes of their difficulties rather than just the presenting symptoms: Why are they struggling in school and what can we do about it that is simple and easily implemented as the first stage in supporting them?”

“The bottom-line, is that the programs, materials, and curricula that are sound-based do not match with the way the children think to learn. So, teachers work harder but don’t always receive the positive success they deserve. Older students work harder to produce the sound-based patterns for tests, homework, and so forth without the conceptual learning. Working harder but not smarter stresses everyone–students, families, and teachers.”

“Reader, you probably have yourself felt those precious moments of quiet in your life, no? …The genius of the Chinese sages was that they found a method, a technique akin to Indian Yoga, by which this experience could be cultivated, taught and developed. Of course, all this is now being verified by modern research, brain imaging and such like, and work on neuro-transmitters; the benefits of regular pratice of qigong are at last being recognised.”

“There is a group of people who have made what is known as the suicide decision in childhood. From a psychological point of view this person could be considered the ‘truly’ suicidal person. Their psychological make up is structured such that suicide is a viable option for them to solve difficult problems at some point in their life. These people can be treated such that they can make a change to that early suicide decision and thus the likelihood of suicide being used as a problem solving technique in the future is greatly reduced.”

The 2010 American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) Conference took place at the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, this year and JKP was, once again, pleased to attend as an exhibitor. The 2010 conference was active and very busy as usual. We enjoyed a steady traffic of attendees at our booth throughout the show.…

“Social enjoyment, as both an important life and employment skill, needs to be taught and practiced as early as possible. We need to provide our young people with safe, predictable situations to practice enjoying a social interaction. The successes I’ve seen in my own work demonstrate that social enjoyment is indeed a skill – and thus, can be learned.”