AutismOregon.org

Lots of goings ons and information are listed in the Bee News online:

Another story in the Mail Tribune on autism special education programs in the Mail Tribune. Here, the parents want to centralize elementary autism programs to one school:

To give special education students more stability, Dillard and four other parents recently teamed up to propose to the Southern Oregon Education Service District and Medford School District to keep kindergarten through sixth grade at the same school.

It seems our favorite autism people are in the news: Kelli Schlapfer and Jennifer McBride. The story, titled Autism and the Schools: Teaching even the basics can be challenging, is available online through the Mail Tribune. It well worth the read.

Throughout the article, we see that Medford has several programs available to children with autism:

Easter Seals has a new autism website:
http://autism.easterseals.com/

If you'll notice, they support Applied Behavior Analysis under their Easter Seals Services webpage:

Easter Seals partners with families and school systems to offer a wide variety of services for school aged children and youth. Services include Applied Behavior Analysis, social integration, outpatient therapy and school to work transition program.

Here is a message from Easter Seals:

Autism expertise

The lack of a specialized state program for licensing teachers to instruct autistic children worries some local parents and educators
By Paris Achen
Mail Tribune

Autism — the fastest-growing disability among the state's schoolchildren — demands specialized instruction with intervention specifically tailored for the disorder's complex variety of manifestations, experts say.

Yet, Oregon, like most other states, neither requires nor offers an autism credential to special education teachers and autism specialists.

How is Oregon going to move toward better services for folks with autism?
How is the Oregon medical community going to offer actual medical treatments that have show efficacy in the autism population?
How are parents of children with autism and adults with autism going to get treatments covered by insurance?
How are students with autism NOT going to get Left Behind in the Oregon education system?

According to the Vaccine Autoimmune Project for Research and Education (VAP) website, the autism epidemic continues in Oregon:

The latest figures ending December 1, 2006 (2006/2007) show that the autism epidemic is still on the upsurge in NJ, MN, and OR.

Oregon
----------------------------
2005/2006 (1)
OR , ages 6-21 4,810
OR , ages 3-5 782

2006/2007 (4)
OR , ages 6-21 5,459 (increase of 649 children)
OR , ages 3-5 848 (increase of 66 children)

Sources

Parents may be wondering if their children can be exempted from receiving certain immunizations for medical conditions or religious reasons.

In Oregon, yes.

There is a vaccine waiver to decline to note and receive vaccines that is part of public school registration. For instance, a waiver with the Salem-Keizer public school system you simply signs box C under exemption, no questions asked:
http://www.salkeiz.k12.or.us/ParentCenter/Immunizations/Immunizations.ht...

Some yahoogroup discussion lists that may help answer additional questions are:

The devastating derangements of autism also show up in the gut and in the immune system. That unexpected discovery is sparking new treatments that target the body in addition to the brain.

Read more: http://discovermagazine.com/2007/apr/autism-it2019s-not-just-in-the-head

Organization for Autism Research has several free autism guides online:

A Parent’s Guide to Research