AMC Theatres are a great example to other corporates in providing an opportunity for families affected by autism to enjoy the kinds of entertainment others take for granted.

AMC is the second largest movie theater chain in North America with 5,325 screens and 21,000 employees.

Their Sensory Friendly Films provide families affected by autism with a special opportunity to enjoy their favorite films in a safe and accepting environment.

As families affected by autism well know, the simplest family entertainment is often out of reach.  Movie theatres can be a particular challenge due to autism often coming with sensory challenges such as hypersensitivity to light or sound.  Also children or adults affected by autism may not understand the social boundaries of movie theatre etiquette such as not talking during the film or sitting still through most of the show.

The auditoriums in the Sensory Friendly Films program have their lights up, the sound turned down – and the audience is invited to get up and dance, walk, shout or sing!  For these screenings, AMC’s usual “Silence is Golden” policy is not enforced unless the safety of the audience is questioned.

Families are able to bring in their own gluten-free, casein-free snacks – and neither previews nor advertisements are shown before the movie.

This program started two years ago now – and has 132 participating theatres throughout the USA.  Here >>> is a full list of participating theatres.

I’m sure the Sensory Friendly Films program makes very good business sense for AMC through the positive branding it must create – and by serving a large market that is not otherwise being well catered for in entertainment. 

But regardless of any business motive, I applaud AMC for setting a great example to other corporates through this program.  It would be great to see this rolled out to all of AMC’s locations worldwide!

Check this little guy out.  His name is Kaspar. 

Those of us from Generation X might immediately think of a friendly ghost, but in fact Kaspar is a playful child size humanoid robot with a face inspired by comics and Japanese Noh theatre, no less.

But more importantly, he is being used to help teach social skills to children on the autistic spectrum.  Nice!

Kaspar stands for “Kinesics and Synchronisation in Personal Assistant Robots” – and he has been developed by the United Kingdom’s University of Hertfordshire.  The Hertfordshire team have been busy developing Kaspar for a number of years, and he was demonstrated to the public yesterday >>> at the London Science Museum.

Kaspar has been designed with a minimally expressive face so he doesn’t overwhelm his playmates with complex social cues.  The idea is that children on the autistic spectrum will feel comfortable looking him in the eye and interacting with him.  Kaspar is designed to teach children skills like turn-taking, imitation and the general communication and interaction skills that are required in human contact.

Whilst humans may be the best models for the complex and unpredictable social behaviour, many children on the autistic spectrum shy away from the seemingly inexplicable behaviour of humans – and prefer to play with mechanical toys or computers.  Enter Kaspar.

The development team took a low cost approach to Kaspar with only enough robotics and motors to achieve what he needs to be able to do.  However he is sophisticated enough to include embedded tactile sensors that detect different kinds of touch, video cameras in each eye and a mouth that can open and smile in varying degrees.

The prototype was built for $2,500 – so presumably future production models will be able to be built much more cheaply.  It’s exciting to see such innovative approaches to teaching social skills to children on the autistic spectrum!

16 July 2010.  A great television interview with Dr Yvette Ahmad and Fraser Hurrell discussing MyFriendQuest – and the thinking behind it.  

Check out this 6:45 minute interview on the 411 Technology Show on Maori TV on demand here >>>.   

Not many people with a child on the autistic spectrum embark on a mission to change the world in the way that Thorkil Sonne did.  In 2004, Mr Sonne set up a company in his native Denmark staffed almost entirely by folk on the autistic spectrum.

That company – Specialisterne – has employed 155 people on the spectrum over the past six years.  It has an annual turnover of £2m – and has clients such as Microsoft and Cisco Systems.  Specialisterne specializes in IT areas such as programming and software testing.

At Specialisterne, it is “normal” to be on the autistic spectrum.

Mr Sonne has said:  “This is not about offering cheap labour or some kind of occupational therapy.  We charge market rates, our consultants receive a market salary and that is because they simply do a better job.  If you have a piece of software that needs repeated testing, a student being paid to do in Britain or India is going to get bored and lose concentration at the fifth or sixth attempt.”

This is fantastic – and I’m sure it has changed the lives of the 155 ASD folk who have been employed by Specialisterne.  But what is really encouraging is that this model has now been replicated outside Denmark.

The second incarnation of Specialisterne opened this month in Glasgow, Scotland.  Over the next five years the company will take on 50 recruits on the autism spectrum.  The Specialisterne Scotland office was carefully chosen to be close to public transport and fitted out to separate it from the din of traffic and visual noise.

According to the UK National Autistic Society, 80 per cent of those with autism who receive the incapacity benefit in Britain would like to work – but just 15 per cent are in full-time employment.

With qualities like insight, precision and consistency, why wouldn’t people on the spectrum be in hot demand for employment?  All that’s needed to open the way is a change of attitude.  And the creation of working environments with predictability and systemisation – and minimal environmental stress.  This is exactly what Mr Sonne has done – and it works for him as well as giving the good people he employs independence and a sense of participation in society that likely seemed out fo reach.

Thorkil Sonne’s ultimate goal is to find work for a million people with autism worldwide.  Worthy goal indeed!

New Zealand Doctor.

The delegates at this week’s congress of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists were presented a paper which will give hope to parents of children with high functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome. Read more >>

Gary has Asperger’s syndrome – and he faces extradition to the US after admitting to hacking into the Pentagon and NASA computer systems from his laptop in his girlfriend’s flat.  Gary readily admits the allegations – but claims he was looking for evidence of an official cover-up of the existence of UFOs.  If convicted in the USA, Gary would face up to 70 years  in prison – and his doctors fear a very high risk of suicide should this happen.

Gary’s mother Janis Sharp is standing for Parliament as an independent candidate against Jack Straw in the UK’s upcoming general election on the basis that Straw was foreign secretary at the time the controversial Extradition Act was passed which paved the way for Gary’s extradition.

Straw holds an 8,000 majority in his Blackburn constituency, which Labour has held since the 1950s.  While there seems no chance Janis Sharp will win, she is standing because “it’s important to stand against erosion of civil liberties”.

Back in April 2007 in an interview with Stephen Emms of The Observer, Gary is quoted as saying “Be very scared of a mother protecting her child.  After my arrest my mum turned into Superwoman, lobbying MPs, writing letters. She’s disgusted by the fact that you can be handed over on a plate to a foreign government.”

Also, supporters of Gary’s legal struggle against extradition will be releasing 99 Red Balloons on Westminster Bridge outside the UK Houses of Parliament in London on 3 May – the May Day holiday.

This protest is inspired by the lyrics to the song 99 Luftballons / 99 red Ballons by Nena which portray Cold War trigger happy military over-reaction to a harmless event.

This research commenced in September 2009 – and has involved pre and post psychometric testing with scheduled use of MyFriendQuest for the duration of the research.  A big thank you to the families with a child diagnosed with either high functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome who have participated in this study.

Results of this pilot study will be available from the researchers within a month – and they will be presented as a paper at the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists 2010 Congress in early May.

If you are in a position to attend the RANZCP 2010 Congress, it will be held between 2 May and 6 May.  Full details are on the Congress website here >>>.

Instead, it is proposed that Asperger’s will be placed into a general category known as Autism Spectrum Disorders.  Clinicians will then rate the severity of clinical presentation of ASD as severe, moderate or mild – with the assumption that “the condition previously known as Asperger’s” will typically will typically present as “mild autism”. 

Asperger’s syndrome was first listed separately in DSM-IV in 1994.  It was then described as a mild form of autism involving social and physical awkwardness, sometimes but not always combined with verbal precocity and intense but limited learning interests.

On the face of it, this change could be dismissed as mere semantics – but of course the implications are far greater than a simple tweak in an academic categorization.  It has not been surprising to see the avalanche of opinion on this proposed change in the few days since the release of the proposed revisions. 

The comments seem to fall into five broad camps:

Many in the Asperger’s community who are advocating for preservation of the Asperger’s identity.  There is a large degree of pride amongst adults with Asperger’s syndrome.  And why not, as their company is rather esteemed - sharing traits with the likes of Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, Beethoven – and perhaps Bill Gates and Henry Ford.  The opinion from these groups over the past few days seems rather vocal against an absorbtion of their Asperger’s identity into the wider autism group.

Those  parents who recognise that a diagnosis of autism is more likely to result in funding and resources for their child.   While some folk are advocating against the proposed changes, many parents recognize that formal inclusion of Asperger’s as an Autism Spectrum Disorder could lead to increased assistance for children with Asperger’s syndrome.  Asperger’s syndrome is not recognized in the current DSM-IV-R as a form of autism.

Those professionals who agree that Asperger’s is indeed a subset of Autism Spectrum Disorders and that it logically belongs as part of that continuum.  Presumably the majority of the 600 or so reviewers from around the world who have been working on revising the current DSM-IV-R fall into this camp.

Those who argue that the weight of existing convention shouldn’t be swept aside lightly.  After all, there are mountains of books, literature and resources targeted to Asperger’s syndrome which serve parents, professionals, teachers and adults with Asperger’s very well indeed.  Much of this may be made obsolete or less accessible by abolishing a separate DSM diagnosis for Asperger’s.  Any shift in status could cause distress and confusion for those who have received an Asperger’s diagnosis – and negatively impact on their ability to obtain services.

Those who argue that Asperger’s syndrome and autism may well be biologically different conditions.  This camp would argue that the scientific world has not had enough time to test for these differences and that a removal of Asperger’s syndrome as a separate diagnosable condition would discourage research which would help gain a clear understanding of the potential differences and similarities.  Professor Simon Baron-Cohen (Director of the Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom) has made comments which appear to include him in this camp.

The closing date for comments on the proposed changes is 20 May 2010.  It will be interesting to see which of the above bodies of thought prevail, and whether these proposed changes to the Asperger’s diagnosis survive to the final version of the DSM-V due for release in May 2013.  If you would like to submit a formal comment to the DSM-V Workgroups, the official DSM-V development site is at http://www.dsm5.org 

Here’s hoping that the final decision is rational and evidence-based rather than a response to lobbying or political pressure.  Feel free to leave your own comments right here.

Gary McKinnon would face a prison sentence of up to sixty years if extradited to the USA for hacking into US military and NASA computers from a laptop computer in his then-girlfriend’s London flat.  Gary admits breaching the systems but claims that he was looking for evidence of UFOs.  Gary has said he is willing to stand trial in the UK where given his Asperger’s syndrome, the offence may not even involve a custodial sentence.

The judge stated that evidence suggesting Gary would be at high risk of suicide in a US supermax jail was “as yet unchallenged”.  This is a major change from the position taken by the UK High Court in previous hearings – and may yet require the UK Home Secretary to refuse to surrender Gary to the US government.

Mark Lever, chief executive of the UK National Autistic Society, is on record as saying: “We are delighted that Gary has been granted the right to a Judicial Review of the Home Secretary’s decision.

The UK government has a long history of refusing to extradite those on its soil to third world countries where they may face harsh, oppressive or disproportionate penalties for past misdemeanors.  It seems to me the only difference here is the relative power of the country seeking the extradition.

When Gary’s Judicial Review happens later in the year, I hope that Gary’s own human rights and vulnerability arising from his Asperger’s syndrome will be given proper consideration against the political pressure being brought to bear on the UK authorities by their more powerful cousins across the Atlantic in Washington.

]]> http://www.brightmindlabs.com/2010/hope-for-gary-mckinnon/feed/ 2