First Course of Veggies May Appeal to Hungry Preschoolers

Increasing the amount of vegetables in the first course of preschool lunch could be a smart way to get children to eat more vegetables, according to Penn State nutrition researchers.

"We have shown that you can use portion size strategically to encourage children and adults to eat more of the foods that are high in nutrients but low in calories," said Barbara J. Rolls, Helen A. Guthrie Chair of Nutritional Sciences.

Rolls and her Penn State colleagues study how varying the portions of fruit and vegetable side dishes can be used to raise vegetable consumption in children and adults.

Researchers served lunch to 51 children at a daycare center on four occasions and measured their vegetable intake. Children were provided with no carrots or 30 grams (about 1 ounce), 60 grams (about 2 ounces), or 90 grams (about 3 ounces) of carrots as the first course of their lunch.

The children had 10 minutes to eat the carrots, after which researchers served them pasta, broccoli, unsweetened applesauce, and low-fat milk.

They found that when preschool children received no first course of carrots, they consumed about 23 grams (nearly 1 ounce) of broccoli from the main course.

When the children received 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of carrots at the start of the meal, their broccoli intake rose by nearly 50 percent compared to having no carrots as a first course. But when the first course was increased to 60 grams (about 2 ounces) of carrots, average broccoli consumption nearly tripled to about 63 grams -- or a third of the recommended vegetable intake for preschool children.

The extra carrots eaten at the start of lunch did not reduce the amount of broccoli eaten in the main course, but added to the total amount of vegetables consumed. The team's findings appear in the current issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"We gave the children carrots first without other competing foods," explained Rolls. "When they are hungry at the start of the meal, it presents us with an opportunity to get them to eat more vegetables."

According to Maureen Spill, graduate student in nutrition and study co-author, the findings challenge the conventional belief that children won't eat vegetables. It also provides parents a simple strategy to get their children eating a more healthy and nutritious diet, she added.

"The great thing about this study is the very clear and easy message for parents and care-givers that while you are preparing dinner, put some vegetables out for your children to snack on while they're hungry," said Spill. "Parents also need to set an example by eating vegetables while children are young and impressionable."

Other researchers in the two studies include Leann L. Birch, Distinguished Professor of human development; Liane S. Roe, research nutritionist, and Jennifer S. Meengs, lab manager, all at Penn State

The National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supported this work.

(Source: sciencedaily.com)

OTs! New jobs available in Manhattan and Bronx, NY.

New school based job opportunities for Occupational Therapists (OTs) in Manhattan and Bronx.  Don't wait, this won't last!

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An Occupational Therapist (OT) is needed full time for an elementary school on Jennings Street in the Bronx.

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An Occupational Therapist (OT) is needed full time for a District 75 Middle School on East 120th Street in Manhattan.

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A Lower Manhattan Middle School needs an Occupational Therapist (OT) for 6 students. The school is located on Hudson Street in Manhattan.

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A great elementary school on the lower east side seeks an Occupational Therapist (OT) for a full-time position in Manhattan.

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App Thursday: iPod Touch App Helps Workers With Autism

"Jeffrey" was barely two weeks into his first job, and already he was about to lose it.

The autistic 21-year-old was good at wiping down tables and cleaning bathrooms at a Virginia fast-food restaurant, but his boss grew alarmed whenever Jeffrey would spin around in the dining room, humming to himself and staring at the ceiling.

But the shy, $8-an-hour custodian managed to keep his job after he was equipped with a specially programmed iPod that used videos, clock alarms and written messages to remind him of work tasks. With his workday clearly delineated, Jeffrey no longer felt so nervous that he had to calm himself down by spinning and humming.

In a case study published Monday in the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, researchers said the use of an Apple iPod Touch greatly improved the workplace performance of employees diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder, or ASD, and greatly reduce episodes of disruptive behavior. The program uses a suite of applications that include lists, scheduled reminders, video prompts, navigation instructions and calming movies or music.

Whereas the program reminded Jeffrey to move on to other cleanup tasks instead of wiping down the same table endlessly, it helped 60-year-old “Grace” cope with the stress of catching the bus to and from work. It also helped 20-year-old “Lily” negotiate her job as a hospital custodian even though she cold not read or write. (The names of the study participants are pseudonyms. Their true identities were withheld by the study authors to protect their privacy.)

Today, only 15% of U.S. adults diagnosed with autism hold paying jobs, according to study author Tony Gentry, an occupational therapy professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Difficulties involving cognition, behavior and poor communication make it hard for people with autism to be employed. However, occupational therapists say the autistic have valuable workplace skills, and efforts to keep them in jobs help businesses as well as the workers.

Some autistic adults excel at math and computer skills,  while others have photographic memory. Others exhibit high levels of honesty, reliability and perseverance, and their limited interest in personal relationships  makes them less likely to engage in workplace socializing, according to study authors.

The case study was part of a four-year trial that involved dozens of subjects and was funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The iPod Touch was chosen because at the time the study was designed, it was the only pocket-sized personal digital assistant, or PDA, available.

Each study subject was also paired with a work coach who helped train the worker to use the program and tapered off involvement as the subject became more proficient at work.

Grace, who also suffered from mild cerebral palsy and epilepsy, worked at a state employment commission sorting mail. Her greatest difficulty involved her commute.

When confronted with the busy street corner where she caught her bus, she would grow anxious, leave her purse on a park bench and stand in the road looking for the bus. Podcasts of her favorite radio shows and music helped relax her, while a reminder told her to phone the transit authority to ask about bus delays instead of standing in the road.

The third subject, Lily, who had Down Syndrome, could not read, tell time or understand a calendar. She did housekeeping work in a mother and infant unit of a hospital, and would often lose her focus on tasks such as folding and stocking blankets, cleaning the lactation room and sterilizing work stations.

When she became particularly confused, or was asked to leave the lactation room so a mother could use it, she would become angry and throw soft drinks, stomp her feet or call her mother.

Occupational therapists programmed Lily’s iPod with a color-coded calendar that outlined each day’s tasks in a slide show and provided audio prompts on when to take breaks and when to clock out. Lily’s favorite Disney movies and music were also downloaded to the iPod to keep her occupied during her long bus ride to and from work, a period that was usually filled with boredom and anxiety.

The iPod worked well,  authors said, until Lily lost it: Then she relapsed into poor behaviors. When she was given a new device a week later, her work improved. The device was also equipped with a lanyard case to help keep it from getting lost.

The study pointed out that not all adults with autism are candidates for PDA support. “Many people with ASD have cognitive, sensory and motor conditions that would make utilization of such a device problematic,” authors wrote.

"Strategies that provide enlightened workplace supports are clearly needed in order to help people with ASD find useful work and perform successfully on the job," Gentry said.

(Source: latimes.com)

Have no fear PTs......Therapeutic Resources has the JOB for you- New York, NY!!!

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An impressive and highly regarded non-profit mental health clinic in Manhattan that serves over 100,000 patients annually seeks aPhysical Therapist (PT) for a part time position (3 days a week from 8:15-3:15). Through a broad range of services that include day and outpatient services for pediatrics and adults they work to help both populations with emotional, psychiatric, and dependency deficiencies become successes in the communities they return to.
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A pre-school special education integrated program in Manhattan servicing children with mild to moderate delays seeks a Physical Therapist (PT) for a part time position (2 days a week from 8:00-1:30).
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Therapy, Diet Change Helps Toddler With Apraxia of Speech

If you talk to 3-year-old Maverick Reed, it's likely you won't notice anything out of the ordinary. He has some trouble pronouncing his L's, and K's and G's come out with difficulty. And maybe R's and V's.

But many 3-year-olds can't pronounce those letters, anyway.

For Maverick, though, the problem is not completely developmental.

Around age 2, Maverick was diagnosed with childhood apraxia of speech, a neurological disorder.

"He can make the movements that are necessary for speech and make the sounds, but his brain has trouble communicating to his mouth how to coordinate those movements," said Casey Reed, Maverick's mother.

According to the Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to children with apraxia of speech and their families, research is lacking when it comes to the prevalence of the disorder. But according to the association, some sources indicate that the disorder affects 1-10 in 1,000 children, or about 3 percent to 5 percent of speech-impaired preschoolers.

Reed and her husband, Ben Reed, didn't immediately realize that something was wrong with their son. Up until age 1, Maverick was babbling, like most other children.

"Looking back, (it was) not as much as other babies," Casey said. But it was enough to keep them from worrying. Then, shortly after he turned 1, he stopped making any sounds.

When Maverick was almost 2 and still nonverbal, his parents took him to get evaluated through SoonerStart, Oklahoma's early intervention program designed to meet the needs of infants and toddlers with disabilities and developmental delays.

After three months of speech therapy that led to Maverick being able to say nothing except "uh oh," his therapist told Casey and Ben that their son might have apraxia of speech.

Up until that point, Casey said they weren't too worried because they knew that some children were late to speak.

"But apraxia is a really scary diagnosis," she said. In some severe cases of the disorder, individuals may never be able to speak correctly and have to resort to communicating through sign language or pictures.

Cause and treatment
 Casey calls the disorder "bizarre."

"They don't know what causes it," she said. "There's not a cure or a set treatment. It's just a lot of repetition."

Maverick started out attending speech therapy sessions four times a week. His therapists tried numerous methods of trying to make him pronounce different sounds. Techniques included everything from placing candy at the roof of his mouth to try to make his tongue reach certain spots, to recommending physical cues to remind him how to shape his lips for certain letters.

(Tulsa, OK) Maverick also practiced at home. His family would stand him in front of the mirror so he could watch himself form letters. Other techniques practiced at home included flashcards with "articulation trees" to help him gradually pronounce words correctly.

The intensive therapy and home practice has made a difference for Maverick, who is now on an individualized education plan at Patrick Henry Elementary's 3-year-old program.

His parents, who originally expected Maverick would have to attend speech therapy sessions till at least mid-elementary, think that now he may not need the sessions past kindergarten. Casey said she expects him to be on par with other students once he enters a mainstream preschool classroom next year.

But Maverick's parents say this does not mean the disorder won't continue to affect their son. He will likely never find it easy to be a public speaker, and as he moves through school, he may whisper answers to himself before saying them out loud in class.

"It is something he will have to work on his entire life," Ben said.

Research and awareness
 Doctors haven't been able to tell Casey and Ben if Maverick's apraxia is somehow connected to a condition he had earlier, called torticollis, characterized by stiff neck muscles. When Maverick was an infant, the torticollis kept him from repositioning his head while sleeping on his back. This led to plagiocephaly, meaning that the back of his head became flat. A special helmet corrected the condition.

"No one could really tell us if they're connected," Casey said of the torticollis and the apraxia.

But that's because there is still a lot that doctors don't know about childhood apraxia of speech, Ben said.

In trying to find ways to help their son, such as figuring out that removing gluten from his diet helped increase his vocabulary, Ben said a lot of the information came from other parents.

"There was no website that told us about it, there were no doctors' recommendations," he said of their realization that Maverick could be gluten-intolerant. "It was parents in forums that kind of discussed what worked for their children, what didn't work for their children.

"Casey has a notebook that's probably 4 1/2 inches thick of printouts from just parents about what worked for them, what didn't work. We kind of tried everything under the sun and kind of settled in to where we are now," Ben said.

Maverick is currently on a gluten-free, nearly dairy-free diet and takes multivitamins, fish oil and other nutrients.

(Source: tulsaworld.com)

Study of Spinal Injury Data May Help Surgeons Treat Soldiers and Civilians

Spinal injuries are among the most disabling conditions affecting wounded members of the U.S. military. Yet until recently, the nature of those injuries had not been adequately explored. 

In a new study recently published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS), a team of orthopaedic surgeons reviewed more than eight years of data on back, spinal column, and spinal cord injuries sustained by American military personnel while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. The injuries were then categorized according to anatomic location, neurological involvement, the cause of the injury, and accompanying wounds. 

The resulting analysis is an important first step in helping orthopaedic surgeons develop treatment plans for these service members, as well as for severely injured civilians who sustain similar disabling injuries. 

Key Findings: 
Of 10,979 evacuated combat casualties, 598 (5.45 percent) sustained a total of 2,101 spinal injuries. 
Explosions accounted for 56 percent of spine injuries, motor vehicle collisions for 29 percent, and gunshots for 15 percent. 

• 92 percent of all injuries were fractures. 
• The average age at the time of injury was 26.5 years of age. 
• 90 percent of the injured were enlisted personnel. 
• 84 percent of patients sustained their wounds as a result of combat. 
• In 17 percent of injuries to the spine, the spinal cord also was injured. 
• 53 percent of all gunshot wounds to the spine resulted in a spinal cord injury. 
• Spinal injuries were frequently accompanied by injuries to the abdomen, chest, head, and face. 
• "In these current military conflicts, the latest technologies in body armor, helmets, and other protective devices have helped save many soldiers' lives," says James A. Blair, MD, an orthopaedic surgery chief resident in the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, TX. "We also have access to advanced life-saving techniques in the field and medical evacuation strategies that are keeping many more service members alive. 

"But when a person survives an explosion or vehicle collision, there has still been a great deal of force on the body," Blair adds. "Many of those survivors are coming to us with severe injuries to their spine and back. We needed to describe and characterize these injuries so recommendations can be made on how to provide the most effective treatment and rehabilitation for our wounded warriors." 

Although the survival rate is high for such injuries, the disability rate also is quite high. This affects not only the service members, but also their families and the U.S. healthcare system. Therefore, the study's authors note, further research is required to improve future outcomes for those with spinal injuries. 

(Source: medicalnewstoday.com)

Are We Really Getting Smarter?

IQ tests aren't perfect, but they can be useful. If a boy doing badly in class does really well on one, it is worth investigating whether he is being bullied at school or having problems at home. The tests also roughly predict who will succeed at college, though factors like motivation and self-control are at least as important.

Advanced nations like the U.S. have experienced massive IQ gains over time (a phenomenon that I first noted in a 1984 study and is now known as the "Flynn Effect"). From the early 1900s to today, Americans have gained three IQ points per decade on both the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales and the Wechsler Intelligence Scales. These tests have been around since the early 20th century in some form, though they have been updated over time. Another test, Raven's Progressive Matrices, was invented in 1938, but there are scores for people whose birth dates go back to 1872. It shows gains of five points per decade.

In 1910, scored against today's norms, our ancestors would have had an average IQ of 70 (or 50 if we tested with Raven's). By comparison, our mean IQ today is 130 to 150, depending on the test. Are we geniuses or were they just dense?

These alternatives sparked a wave of skepticism about IQ. How could we claim that the tests were valid when they implied such nonsense? Our ancestors weren't dumb compared with us, of course. They had the same practical intelligence and ability to deal with the everyday world that we do. Where we differ from them is more fundamental: Rising IQ scores show how the modern world, particularly education, has changed the human mind itself and set us apart from our ancestors. They lived in a much simpler world, and most had no formal schooling beyond the sixth grade.

The Raven's test uses images to convey logical relationships. The Wechsler has 10 subtests, some of which do much the same, while others measure traits that intelligent people are likely to pick up over time, such as a large vocabulary and the ability to classify objects.

Modern people do so well on these tests because we are new and peculiar. We are the first of our species to live in a world dominated by categories, hypotheticals, nonverbal symbols and visual images that paint alternative realities. We have evolved to deal with a world that would have been alien to previous generations.

A century ago, people mostly used their minds to manipulate the concrete world for advantage. They wore what I call "utilitarian spectacles." Our minds now tend toward logical analysis of abstract symbols—what I call "scientific spectacles." Today we tend to classify things rather than to be obsessed with their differences. We take the hypothetical seriously and easily discern symbolic relationships.

The mind-set of the past can be seen in interviews between the great psychologist Alexander Luria and residents of rural Russia during the 1920s—people who, like ourselves in 1910, had little formal education.

Luria: What do a fish and crow have in common?

Reply: A fish it lives in water, a crow flies.

Luria: Could you use one word for them both?

Reply: If you called them "animals" that wouldn't be right. A fish isn't an animal, and a crow isn't either. A person can eat a fish but not a crow.

The prescientific person is fixated on differences between things that give them different uses. My father was born in 1885. If you asked him what dogs and rabbits had in common, he would have said, "You use dogs to hunt rabbits." Today a schoolboy would say, "They are both mammals." The latter is the right answer on an IQ test. Today we find it quite natural to classify the world as a prerequisite to understanding it.

Here is another example.

Luria: There are no camels in Germany; the city of B is in Germany; are there camels there or not?

Reply: I don't know, I have never seen German villages. If B is a large city, there should be camels there.

Luria: But what if there aren't any in all of Germany?

Reply: If B is a village, there is probably no room for camels.

The prescientific Russian wasn't about to treat something as important as the existence of camels hypothetically. Resistance to the hypothetical isn't just a state of mind unfriendly to IQ tests. Moral argument is more mature today than a century ago because we take the hypothetical seriously: We can imagine alternate scenarios and put ourselves in the shoes of others.

The following invented examples (not from an IQ test) show how our minds have evolved. All three present a series that implies a relationship; you must discern that relationship and complete the series based on multiple-choice answers:

1. [gun] / [gun] / [bullet] 2. [bow] / [bow] / [blank].

Pictures that represent concrete objects convey the relationship. In 1910, the average person could choose "arrow" as the answer.

1. [square] / [square] / [triangle]. 2. [circle] / [circle] / [blank].

In this question, the relationship is conveyed by shapes, not concrete objects. By 1960, many could choose semicircle as the answer: Just as the square is halved into a triangle, so the circle should be halved.

1. * / & / ? 2. M / B / [blank].

In this question, the relationship is simply that the symbols have nothing in common except that they are the same kind of symbol. That "relationship" transcends the literal appearance of the symbols themselves. By 2010, many could choose "any letter other than M or B" from the list as the answer.

This progression signals a growing ability to cope with formal education, not just in algebra but also in the humanities. Consider the exam questions that schools posed to 14-year-olds in 1910 and 1990. The earlier exams were all about socially valuable information: What were the capitals of the 45 states? Later tests were all about relationships: Why is the capital of many states not the largest city? Rural-dominated state legislatures hated big cities and chose Albany over New York, Harrisburg over Philadelphia, and so forth.

Our lives are utterly different from those led by most Americans before 1910. The average American went to school for less than six years and then worked long hours in factories, shops or agriculture. The only artificial images they saw were drawings or photographs. Aside from basic arithmetic, nonverbal symbols were restricted to musical notation (for an elite) and playing cards. Their minds were focused on ownership, the useful, the beneficial and the harmful.

Widespread secondary education has created a mass clientele for books, plays and the arts. Since 1950, there have been large gains on vocabulary and information subtests, at least for adults. More words mean that more concepts are conveyed. More information means that more connections are perceived. Better analysis of hypothetical situations means more innovation. As the modern mind developed, people performed better not only as technicians and scientists but also as administrators and executives.

A greater pool of those capable of understanding abstractions, more contact with people who enjoy playing with ideas, the enhancement of leisure—all of these developments have benefited society. And they have come about without upgrading the human brain genetically or physiologically. Our mental abilities have grown, simply enough, through a wider acquaintance with the world's possibilities.

(Source: online.wsj.com)