Pinoy Blog Machine (Beta)

When & Where
April 18 & 19, 2008
The Summit Conference & Event Center
411 Sable Boulevard Aurora, Colorado 80011

Presenting practical training in DIR® Floortime: treatment of children with autistic spectrum disorders, regulatory disorders, sensory processing disorder, or with other challenges in relating and communicating.

SYMPOSIUM FEATURES
Goals: Extensive videotape illustrations will teach assessment and treatment

• Demonstrating effective parent coaching methods in individual and group contexts
• Using longitudinal videos to track progress
• Attending to objects, people and play
• Engaging in meaningful communication
• Participating in appropriate social interactions
• Developing concepts and ideas
• Building play that has a logical flow
• Enhancing reasoning and abstract thinking

Learning Objectives:

• How to place the child/family relationship in the forefront when providing intervention
• How individual differences on the sensory processing continuum can influence behavior, attention, impulse control and motor planning, auditory/verbal processing and visual processing
• How to use strategies that increase attention and interaction to enhance social participation
• How to support communication through gesture, affect and language
• How to support the parent, or other adults, to follow the child’s cues, creating a continuous flow of interaction, increasing attention and affect
• How to coach caretakers to support peer play and interaction

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Lucy Jane Miller, PhD, OTR, Author of Sensational Kids and Founder and Executive Director of the SPD Foundation - presenting the latest research conducted by the SPD Foundation and action steps to officially recognize Sensory Processing Disorder as a valid diagnosis.

Including presentations and updates by:

• Barb Brett-Green PhD and Sarah A Schoen PhD, OTR
• Dr. William Gavin PhD: Sensory Registration in Children with SPD vs. Typically Developing Children
• Dr. Patricia Davies PhD, OTR: Neurophysiological Measures of Sensory Gating as Diagnostic Markers of SPD
• Dr. Michael Kisley PhD: Relationship of Sensory Gating to Sensory Sensitivity in Adults

FEATURING:
Rosemary White, OTR, Senior DIR®/Floortime Faculty - Presenting Greenspan & Wieder’s treatment model for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder or challenges in relating and communicating. Ms. White is certified in DIR®|Floortime, is a senior faculty member of the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders and is clinical faculty, University of Washington. An OT since 1972, she trained with the Bobaths in NDT and with Dr. A. Jean Ayres in OT/SI. She has lectured extensively in the United States. Ms. White founded and directs Pediatric Physical and Occupational Therapy Services in Seattle, WA.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
Ideal for caretakers of children with autistic spectrum disorders, sensory processing disorder or other developmental and behavioral disorders. For OT’s, PT’s, SLP’s, MD’s, OD’s, nurses, educators, behavior specialists, and others interested in SPD.

CEU:
10 hours of AOTA Continuing Education credit will be awarded to participants completing the two-day workshop

For more information, visit the SPD Foundation website.

Thanks to Tonyo and Tita Ellen, I just learned that Vera Files is now online.

"Vera Files is published by veteran Filipino journalists taking a deeper look into current Philippine issues," according to the group's website. Vera is Latin for "true".

Journalists comprising the board of trustees and main writers of Vera Files are some of the country's best journalists, whose investigative and in-depth stories exposed various wrongdoings in the various spheres of politics, governance, business, environment and society--and even helped in the ouster of a corrupt president.

Vera Files happened at the right time: It came at a time when the country is hopping from one controversy to another. Vera Files seeks to provide deeper and relevant information to help Filipinos make sense and understand the issues and make informed decisions about them, hold officials accountable to the people, protect and promote integrity of the country's institutions, and promote democratic governance.

Most of them have won awards at the Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism (JVOAEJ), with two of them (Yvonne Chua and Luz Rimban--two of my brightest teachers in college) elevated to the JVOAEJ Hall of Fame. (Since it was established in 1990, the JVOAEJ, organized by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility where I work and one of the country's most prestigious awards for journalists, has only three Hall of Famers: Ma'am Yvonne, Ma'am Luz, and Sheila Coronel, the former executive director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism who is now the director of The Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at the Columbia University in the United States.)

Other members of the Vera Files are Chit Estella and Booma Cruz, my former bosses in PJR Reports, both of whom I also deeply admire; Jennifer Santiago; and Ellen Tordesillas who was a reactor to our last forum on media coverage of political crises.

Visit the website of Vera Files here.