Conversing with friends and family, singing, reading, and reciting poems are effective among the many effective and natural techniques that children enjoy. Children learn best when they repeat content and keep up with speech practice sessions under an expert professional’s guidance.

As a supportive tool, online apps ensure that your child can continue online speech therapy lessons from the safe and comforting environment of their home. Check out some of the best tools available today.

Articulation Station from Little Bee Speech

Articulation Station is one of the most popular apps for kids with speech disabilities. The basic version is free and available for download on your iPad or iPhone. But, if you think your child really seems to engage with the offerings, you could invest in the Articulation Station Pro.

The program has six different kinds of activities. These include matching games that link sounds and objects as well as colorful flashcards. The exciting thing about this app is that it allows you to create customized flashcards, so you child can get excited about practicing with favorite animals, objects, and toys.

Talking Pierre the Parrot from Outfit7 Limited

Listening to the sound of their own voices provides feedback to kids as they practice difficult areas of speech. They gain insight on their own expression of words and pronunciation as their speech skills improve. Talking Pierre the Parrot is a free online app that repeats your child’s words in a funny voice—a surefire way to make many little ones giggle. The graphics are delightful for a child and motivates them to speak and repeat. There’s a lot of slapstick humor here, designed to keep a child’s attention. Pierre is just fine after getting squished with mock guitars or soaked in water. The app is compatible with your Apple products.

Fluency Tracker from Smarty Ears

The Fluency Tracker app has been specifically designed to help kids with stuttering. Stammering can make your child feel self-conscious and nervous in social situations. They may shy away from speaking. Practicing with this app helps kids develop positivity toward speech by identifying the situations when stuttering is more pronounced. For instance, in specific situations, when doing certain activities or interacting with particular people. Parents can enter data into the app for an anxiety analysis to help therapists devise the ideal speech programs and exercises for the child. Fluency Trackers costs $9.99 for use on the iPhone.

Speech Tutor

The Speech Tutor apps take speech therapy to the next level by providing images and simulations of the mouth, tongue, and throat. This one can appeal to older children who want to know how and why their body works. Children can watch the movement to develop an understanding of how sounds are produced. The app has a total of 132 animations showing the front and sideways section of the mouth.

Kids can watch and try to imitate the movements to figure out how to make the sounds and speak clearly. Speech Tutor is also available for your iPad or iPhone for a cost of $9.99. Parents can get the app to work with their kids at home. Many speech-language experts may also use the app when providing sessions in a professional capacity.

Let’s Be Social

This one’s for the grownups. The Let’s Be Social app has been designed to help adults help their children with common communication challenges of the autistic spectrum. The app provides a total of 40 lessons sectioned into five different skillsets that the child can develop. For instance, navigating their way through peer groups, coping with changing life situations, bonding with friends and family, interacting with other people, and understanding school behavior expectations. Let’s Be Social has an intuitive interface and helps caregivers identify the child’s reactions. You can purchase the app for your iPad for a cost of $9.99.

TallyTots

TallyTots is ideal for kids who are learning to pick up basic speech and language skills like stringing two or more words together to build sentences, understanding action words and verbs, and abstract concepts. The app is compatible with Apple products and you can expect to pay around $2.99 for the app that includes up to 20 mini-games and puzzles. These fun games are formulated to help kids learn numbers and counting up to 100. Songs are incorporated for kids to sing along, while images teach how to understand the concepts of quantity and sorting things according to size and shape.

With a bit of research, parents can find a wide selection of online apps to help their kids with their speech and language disabilities. Choose the app with features suitable for your child’s unique needs. Make learning fun by joining the games to turn it into a positive experience rather than a chore.

If someone you know with intellectual disabilities has behaviors, they’re normal. Everyone has behaviors.

When I’m in pain, I might squint my eyes, grimace and curl up in a ball, or I might scream and yell out causing alarm and anxiety to those around me. If my head hurts, I can get grumpy and want to cover my head to block out light and my ears to block out sound, or maybe just move to a quiet room. The list goes on and on…

Behaviors as a Language

When we hear the term “behaviors” relating to people with intellectual and development disabilities (IDD), what is usually being referred to are adverse actions that cause some sort of harm to or disrupt the lives of the person with disabilities or others around them. What’s often missed is that these behaviors are rarely “just because someone has a disability and that’s just what they do.” With careful investigation and an understanding of the “language” of behaviors, a cause can often be found. And, even better, many of these causes do not need treatment with antipsychotic medications.

The less able we are to communicate with words, the more likely we are to communicate with gestures and actions. Have you ever found yourself using hand gestures when trying to communicate with someone from another country that doesn’t speak your language? Actions do sometimes speak louder than words. When you walk by someone and they have their head down, they’re holding their right cheek and have a grimace on their face, you may be on the right track assuming that they may be experiencing some sort of dental pain. Learning patterns of particular behaviors can often help pinpoint the cause of them.

Let’s talk about a few categories of fixable causes for adverse behaviors.

Environment

What do you do when you are hot, or cold? Do you remove your clothing? Would you “steal” someone’s blanket from them? You might ask first for the blanket, but what if you were not a person who communicates with words? What if you are in a room that’s really noisy and your head hurts? You’d likely want to move to a quieter place. But, how about if you could not move yourself or communicate to someone else what you are feeling? Might you yell and become agitated?

We should think about environmental causes of distress. Many of these can quickly be remedied and can make a difference in a person’s overall state of distress.

Sensory Issues

Some people have aversions to various sensations. One of mine is something cold touching my skin. When a person with cold hands touches me, it literally feels something like a shock that makes me recoil and even sometimes give an angry look and a gruff vocalization.

Could the feel of a particular clothing item be causing distress? Is there a repetitive sound that is exceedingly irritating to some and not to others? Could certain food textures feel repulsive to someone causing them to spit the food out? The answer to these is “yes.”

Look at what a person is experiencing in sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell when a particular challenging behavior presents itself.  It’s possible that you might identify a pattern that points to something that is easily avoidable.

Social

There are people we like being around and people we don’t. There may not be anything particularly “wrong” with that person at all. It’s just a preference. If we have no real choice about who is around us for hours at a time, we may express our preferences through agitation, resistance, self-abusive behavior or aggression toward others.

Learned Behavior

We should also consider the possibility that a person is doing something adverse because they learned that stopping that behavior will get them something desirable. “If you quiet down, I’ll give you a soda.” What is being taught here? I get noisy, then I quiet down, I get a soda.

Medical

As a physician, this is the area that causes me the most concern. To know that there are people who are in pain and are suffering with underlying health conditions that are not being diagnosed, or worse, inaccurately diagnosed as a psychiatric condition, is disturbing.  Clinicians simply MUST learn the language of behaviors and to see them as valid presenting symptoms of illness rather than just “something that people with disabilities do.”  There are a number of behaviors that can point to specific underlying health conditions that are too numerous to share here, but I want to give you a few examples:

• Spitting out food may be caused by pain when someone chews due to a dental abscess
• Becoming agitated and aggressive when heading towards the dining table may be a sign that a person experiences something painful before, during, or after eating such as reflux or aspiration
• Constantly putting their hands in their pants could be a sign of a genitourinary issue like a urinary tract infection or a yeast infection
• Screaming or resisting taking a bath could be a sign that something ‘bad” happens when their clothes come off such as abuse
• Waking up in the middle of the night screaming could be a sign of gastroesophageal reflux
• Becoming withdrawn, less alert, and less interactive could be a sign of constipation
• Being “hard to reach” could be associated with seizures
• Scratching and hitting one’s chest along with anxiousness could be a sign of chest pain

Learn More About Easily Treatable Behaviors

I’ve seen many people in my clinical career on psychotropic medications in an attempt to reduce some of these behaviors only to find later that there was an underlying, treatable cause. Imagine if you were experiencing painful acid reflux that caused agitation, could tell no one, and were then sedated so that you would no longer “act out.” You’d still have the painful reflux, you just might be too sleepy to try to let someone know through your behavior. We can do better than this! Educating families, supporters, and clinicians in the language of behavior of people with IDD can go a long way to relieving unnecessary suffering.

Take time to learn more about behavioral manifestations of underlying medical, environmental, social, and sensory conditions. Then, share what you learn with supporters of people with IDD and clinicians who treat them. It just might make a big difference in the quality of life of someone close to you who can speak for themselves.

Dr. Escudé is a board-certified fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and one of the few Fellows of the American Academy of Developmental Medicine. He is the president of Health Risk Screening, Inc. which specializes in risk identification and mitigation in people with IDD and other vulnerabilities. HRSTonline.com. He is the author of Clinical Pearls in IDD Healthcare and the Curriculum in IDD Healthcare, an online course for physicians, nurses and other clinicians that teaches the fundamentals of IDD healthcare.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of those conditions that affects a person’s quality of life in many ways. This year, 2020, researchers estimate almost 1 million people will be living with this disease according to the Parkinson’s Foundation. Although approximately 60,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with this life-changing disease each year, it seems to affect men more than women. Studies show that men are 1.5 times more likely to have PD.

What is Parkinson’s Disease?

People with Parkinson’s disease face challenges with movement. It is a neurological disorder that happens when the brain produces less and less dopamine, a chemical in the brain referred to as the “feel-good neurotransmitter.” Dopamine is released in the brain during or after experiencing feelings of pleasure. For example, eating the forbidden bowl of ice cream or taking a cool shower after running a marathon. It is also responsible for improving mood, alertness and controls movement. People who believe they have this disease should seek medical advice, diagnosis or treatment immediately.

Most Common Symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease

Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease gradually develop. The symptoms may manifest differently from person to person. The most common symptoms include:

• shaky hands or tremors in the hands, arms, legs or jaws
• slow movements called bradykinesia
• muscle stiffness that affects your range of motion
• Problems with posture and balance that affects walking or standing

These are just a few PD symptoms that progressively get worse over time. Other problems that may develop as the disease progresses include the inability to perform routine tasks for daily living such as eating, bathing, dressing, talking and writing. Parkinson’s patients also often have symptoms around vision and bladder control. Although there is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, the good news is there are assistive devices to help patients perform daily activities.

Specially Designed Devices for Parkinson’s Patients

Patients with Parkinson’s disease may find performing certain everyday tasks challenging. Sitting down to eat, taking a bath or shower, getting dressed or going for a walk can be challenging for people with Parkinson’s, even dangerous. As we age, accidental falls become commonplace. However, people with Parkinson’s risk of falling is two times greater than the average older adult.

There is a simple solution to help people with Parkinson’s disease regain their sense of independence — to use specially designed adaptive devices made specifically for Parkinson’s patients. A few of those devices are listed below along with a brief description of what they do.

Eating and Drinking Aids for Parkinson’s Patients

There are several options for assistance with eating and drinking. A few of those options include eating with heavy weighted eating utensils or utensils with handles that swivel. Weighted eating utensils are designed to help steady the hand while utensils with swiveling handles help steady the eating utensil. Likewise with weighted drinking cups and cups with swiveling handles. The weight of the cup keeps the shaking hand steady and the swiveling handle keeps the cup steady when filled with liquid.

In addition to eating utensils and drinking adaptive devices, using inner-lip plates and bowls with non-skid bottoms are also options. For those having trouble getting food onto the eating utensil, adding plate guards will help. Another option is placing Dycem under plates and bowls. This special non-slip material keeps plates and bowls from sliding off the table.

Dressing and Grooming Aids for Parkinson’s Patients

Essential hand tremors associated with Parkinson’s disease make it challenging to button your shirt or brush your teeth. Just like the weighted eating utensils, there are weighted button aids and weighted universal holders. The weighted universal holder works with your toothbrush, razor, hair comb and hair brush. Just add any one of these personal grooming items to the weighted handle and it helps steady the hand for users to complete the task.

Bathing and Toileting Aids for Parkinson’s Patients

The best solution for bathing is to add grab bars or tub rails. Installation is usually easy and the devices are relatively inexpensive. Use the grab bars or tub rails to steady yourself while bathing. In addition, add toilet rails around the toilet or raised toilet seats to prevent accidental falls when using the toilet.

Mobility Aids and for Parkinson’s Patients

Parkinson’s patients who have problems with walking or standing, should consider investing in a mobility walker or rollator. They both are designed to help you steady yourself while walking or standing, and the rollator offers a convenient seat for resting.

These are just a few adaptive devices to aid Parkinson’s patients. The use of these enable users to maintain their independence to perform daily living activities for themselves. There may be times when assistance from a caregiver or family member is required. In those cases, don’t hesitate to ask for help.

A storyline I’ve heard recounted many times in my work as a physician in this field is that doctors just don’t understand the healthcare needs of my loved one who has a disability. “They were rude.” “The doctor just wanted to start him on a behavior medication.” “He didn’t listen to what I had to say.” “She told me that we should just put him on hospice because he didn’t have any quality of life.” These and other disheartening comments by clinicians make my profession look insensitive and incompetent in regards to providing healthcare for people with intellectual disabilities. And as much as I hate to say it, there’s some truth to it.

Person-centered Oath

The reason goes beyond that healthcare providers are just plain insensitive to the needs of people. I would even suggest the opposite. In fact, we take an oath at the beginning of our career, the Hippocratic Oath, that includes statements like these as excerpted from the modern version of the oath:

• “I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.”
• “I will not be ashamed to say ‘I know not,’ nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.”
• “I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability.”
• “I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.”

It’s not a lack of compassion, it’s a lack of understanding

Facts:

• There are numerous incorrect assumptions and stereotypes about people with dis­abilities made by healthcare providers.¹
• Physicians report a lack of experience with the IDD population and the training nec­essary to provide healthcare to individuals with IDD. ²
• Medical students who do not receive any training on or experience with the IDD population have been found to exhibit poorer performance caring for patients with IDD in tasks varying from taking a medical history, conducting physical exams and ordering laboratory tests. ³
• There is evidence that early and frequent experiences with people with disabilities can improve medical students’ knowledge and attitudes about disability, thereby increasing their comfort level in providing care to people with disabilities. ⁴

Humble beginnings

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have health disparities including reduced rates of cancer screenings and dental care. And unfortunately, many healthcare providers have received little training in how to meet the healthcare needs of people with IDD. I was one of them.

After I began working at a regional center for people with severe and profound levels of IDD, I quickly learned that my medical school and residency training did not provide me with the necessary skills and experience to provide adequate healthcare for people with disabilities. What I learned, I learned from the nurses and direct support professionals that had been working there for years. It wasn’t that the disease conditions were any different, it was that they presented in a different way, with different frequencies and that communication of symptoms was largely non-verbal. I had to learn to understand the language of behavior and how subtle changes in a person’s behavior were often the sign of a brewing health condition and not “just because they have a disability.” Unfortunately, these things aren’t taught in medical school or most other health professional schools, for that matter.

On-the-job training

I’m proof that it’s possible to teach an old dog new tricks! Here are some bits of information called “Clinical Pearls” I’ve learned along the way…

• Just because someone has a disability doesn’t mean that their life is less worthy of good healthcare and life opportunities. A different quality of life does not equal a lower quality of life.
• Disruptive or aggressive behavior is less likely to be “just because a person has a disability” and more often because there is an underlying reason that can be improved upon. I might be that a person is experiencing pain from a dental abscess or an ingrown toenail, for instance. It could be that they are in a restrictive environment that does not foster independence and personal choice. Or it could be because they are experiencing side effects from a mediation, and it might even be a medication that they should not be taking in the first place. There are many reasons for untoward behavior. The last thing that should be done is to start someone on a medication “to reduce their behavior” without evaluating every other possible cause. Unfortunately, this is often first-line treatment.
• Never, never refer someone to hospice or make them a “Do Not Resuscitate” on the basis of their disability alone. This decision may be appropriate under certain circumstances, but never just because they have a disability.
• Constipation is a MAJOR problem in this field of healthcare. I would have never though that constipation could cause all of the things it does, or that I would be treating people for this condition to the degree that I did in clinical practice. I emphasize this issue so much in my lectures that I’ve been called “the Constipation Doctor” more than once. What an honor!
• There are physical, positioning and movement techniques that can aid in swallowing, digestion and bowel elimination. Feeding tubes and medications are not the only solutions.
• The overuse of medications, especially psychotropic medications, is rampant in this field of healthcare. Along with it comes increased potential for side effects and interactions. Sometimes taking people off medications actually leads to improvement.
• Pica behavior can be a sign of undiagnosed gastrointestinal issues including gastroesophageal reflux disease.

And the list goes on and on and on….. There are so many of these, that I’ve compiled them into a book.

Resources for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities

In the past, families and supporters who had frustrating healthcare experiences could do little more than grumble about the lack of availability of clinicians who understood their loved one’s needs. That’s no longer the case. Here are a few newly available resources.

• The Clinical Pearls in IDD Healthcare. Is a book that contains 55 “Pearls” learned “the hard way” so other clinicians, supporters and family members of people with IDD don’t have to. It’s written in a format that each “Pearl” is a separate page of cardstock arranged in a binder format so that you can take one out and share it with healthcare providers and others when they are in need of a bit more information about a particular topic.
• For more in-depth clinical education, a revolutionary online training program called the “Curriculum in IDD Healthcare” is now available. This six-module course teaches clinicians, especially physicians and nurses, the fundamentals of IDD Healthcare. It’s interactive and includes continuing education credits for both doctors and nurses.
• The Vanderbilt Kennedy University Center For Excellence in Developmental Disabilities has developed an IDD Toolkit to assist clinicians in providing better healthcare for people with IDD. There are several important and useful forms to aid clinicians in meeting the healthcare needs of people with disabilities.
• The American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry is an organization supporting healthcare professionals in learning how to improve the quality of healthcare for people with IDD. They are a tremendous resource for clinicians looking for ways to grow their skills in providing healthcare for people with disabilities.
• The Developmental Disabilities Nurses Association is an organization dedicated to educating, empowering, and advocating for nurses practicing in the specialty of developmental disability nursing. Nurses can connect with the organization to further their skills and knowledge in this field of medicine.

When we educate clinicians, we save lives

Families and supporters of people with disabilities now have important and effective resources that they can offer, recommend, or directly provide to healthcare professionals to improve their knowledge and understanding of this important facet of medical care. Tell your physicians, nurses, hospital emergency room staff dentists and others about these resources. You might even want to provide them access. For those that have loved ones that are supported by agencies and organizations, let them know about these materials. Advocate to your local nursing and medical schools to include these offerings to their students.  Better training equates to better healthcare and better outcomes.

Right, not privilege

Healthcare is a right. And, everyone has the right to receive basic healthcare that alleviates suffering and improves quality of life. People with disabilities should have access to the same quality of healthcare that everyone does. I firmly believe that everyone, with or without a disability, should be able to present to any clinicians’ office or hospital and receive a basic level of capable, compassionate, and appropriate healthcare. If you’re a clinician, you owe it to yourself and to your patients to become educated in this area of medicine. If you’re a family member or supporter, you now can do more than just lament about the need for better trained-clinicians.

Remember: When we Educate Clinicians, We Save Lives

About the author:

Dr. Craig Escudé is a board-certified Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Developmental Medicine, and is the President of Health Risk Screening, Inc. He served as medical director of Hudspeth Regional Center in Mississippi and is the founder of DETECT, the Developmental Evaluation, Training and Educational Consultative Team of Mississippi. He has more than 20 years of clinical experience providing medical care for people with IDD and complex medical conditions and is the author of Clinical Pearls in IDD Healthcare and the Curriculum in IDD Healthcare.

¹ (National Council on Disability. The Current State of Health Care for People with Disabilities 2009)

² (Reichard and Turnbull, 2004)

³ (Brown, Graham, Richeson, Wu, and McDermott, 2010)

⁴ (Brown, Graham, Richeson, Wu, and McDermott, 2010; Jackson, 2007; Larson McNeal, Carrothers and Premo, 2002; Long-Bellil et al., 2011; Rose, Kent and Rose, 2011; Thistlethwaite and Ewart, 2003; Tracy and Iacono, 2008)

Trevor, an emergency and critical care veterinarian, was suffering from “compassion fatigue” — which is rampant in caregiving professions. In order to function despite the stress and anxiety of seeing innocent animals suffer and die each day, he had become so detached and cold in his job that he eventually stopped enjoying anything and no longer felt sadness or joy.

His cat, GG, seemed to understand he needed comfort. Already companionable, GG began paying Trevor even more attention, waiting for him to get home, greeting him, snuggling and wanting to go everywhere with him. GG’s presence calmed Trevor and allowed him to remove the armor around his heart, leading him to take some time off from work and seek counseling. Ultimately, he was able to let go of all the pain he’d been holding.

Given that cats have been stereotyped as cold, aloof and self-absorbed — “Dogs have masters and cats have staff,” the saying goes — this seems surprising. But stories like Trevor and GG’s abound. I’ve personally experienced many relationships and encounters with cats that have shown how much comfort they can proactively bring.

Once, walking along Michigan Avenue in Chicago, I stopped to chat with a homeless man sitting on the street with a pet cat. He told me that he struggles with mental illness and that when he has panic attacks, the cat senses his need for help and comes to sit next to him.

In these times in particular, with stress and anxiety running high and so many of us feeling isolated both emotionally and physically, a cat might, in fact, be just the right companion to help us through. And the suggestion is not based just on anecdotes. There are many reasons you should get a cat.

To help me better understand what I’ve observed about cats, my firm surveyed over 1,500 Americans with cats in their lives. We asked them to tell us about their experiences with and perceptions of up to three cats, either currently living with them or from the past. Because each person talked about two to three different cats, we learned how a total of 3,169 cats make or have made people feel. I write about the findings in my new book Heroic, Helpful and Caring Cats: Felines Who Make a Difference.

Here are the four major reasons we uncovered why cats might be the perfect companion if you’re feeling stressed or isolated in these — or any — times:

How cats help with feelings of stress and isolation

Cats love unconditionally

The attention GG gave Trevor showed how much she loved him. But more importantly, GG gave this love and provided Trevor time to heal without any pressure. Likewise, Tommy, an 8-year-old Tabby cat I write about, follows Christy, whom he lives with, everywhere and sleeps next to her at night, constantly providing unconditional positive vibes. This sentiment is one that was echoed throughout the survey responses we received, in which caretakers said that they strongly believe the majority of their cats (65%) love them unconditionally.

Cats help people feel better about themselves and the world

As GG’s story and the story of the homeless man I spoke with demonstrate, cats’ comfort is far more than their soft, fuzzy physical presence: their behavior suggests they are proactively offering help to the people they love.  Indeed, among those we surveyed, over half (56%) of their cats had provided comfort to their caretaker when they needed it and 41% of cats helped them when they were having a difficult time emotionally. Other ways we found cats have helped include: helping their caretakers through an illness (19%), or helping them through a death or divorce (16%). More surprisingly, we found that one-third (36%) of these felines made their caretaker feel better about themselves. But the most interesting finding from our perspective was that over half of these cats (54%) made their caretakers feel better about the world just by being in their lives. 

Cats provide companionship

In exploring the relationships people have with cats, we discovered that more than three-quarters (77%) of these cat-human relationships are described as “very close.” The degree of closeness appears to be due to the amount of communication that occurs between cats and people. We learned that almost two-thirds (59%) of these relationships contained a great deal of communication between caretaker and cat, and that most cats read the caretaker extremely well and vice versa. This finding mirrors other research that has shown that cats’ attachment styles mirror those of humans (Attachment Research). We also found that cats are far from aloof: cats and people spend a fair amount of time together. Data collected before the pandemic showed that in 38% of cases, cats and caretakers were together 12 or more hours per day, and in 48% of cases they were together for three to eleven hours a day. Perhaps this amount of time and the closeness of the relationship explains why two-thirds (64%) of these cats are regarded as family members.

Cats make people feel happy

We also learned that the majority (72%) of these cats make their caretakers happy. Part of this feeling is certainly due to the degree to which cats love their caretakers and provide companionship, but we found that it’s even more than that. Caretakers enjoy their cat’s personality and regard them as highly intelligent. In fact, two-thirds (65%) of these felines are described as highly intelligent compared to other animals, and one-third (34%) are perceived to be highly intelligent compared to people! Given that this is a highly intelligent, appealing family member who loves them unconditionally, it’s not surprising that cats make people feel happy and add a great deal to their lives.

The bottom line

In a time when people are feeling stressed and lonely, millions of Americans have a cat in their home and know how much of a difference these creatures can make in one’s life. Is now the time for you to join their ranks?

Anne E. Beall, PhD is the CEO and Founder of Beall Research, Inc, a consulting firm that uses data and research to discover trends and create solutions for Fortune 500 companies. Author of Heroic, Helpful & Caring Cats: Felines Who Make a Difference and seven other books on human-animal relations, fairy tales, gender dynamics and market research, Anne previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). She received her MS, MPhil, and PhD from Yale University. A lover of cats, storytelling and walking, Anne lives in Chicago.

Photo by Krysten Merriman from Pexels

Many parents of children, with or without disabilities, are wondering about whether or not their kids should go back to group school settings in the fall. With the numbers of cases of COVID-19 on the rise, that’s a valid concern. One of the biggest problems with making this decision is the lack of hard evidence as to the risks and benefits of either choice. Uncertainty creates fear, and fear creates anxiety. If only we had a crystal ball and could predict the future!

What do we know about COVID-19?

• COVID-19 is easily spread to others.
• At the time of the writing of this article, while the number of total cases has been on the rise, the number of deaths has been declining.
• People with disabilities (such as kids with cognitive disabilities) are potentially at greater risk of serious illness and death should they get a COVID-19 infection.
• The risk of death varies greatly depending on the presence of co-occurring health conditions like lung disease, diabetes, immune deficiencies and others.
• It’s uncertain when a vaccine will be available.
• When a vaccine is available, it’s unclear how effective it will be at preventing illness or how long the immunity will last.
• There are negative effects associated with social distancing and isolation, as well.

How to decide if it’s safe to return to school?

Carefully weighing the risks and benefits to any choice is the best way to make a decision on what path to take. The weight of different factors will be different for each child and parent. Here are a few things to consider when deciding what to do:

1. List the reasons why you think your child should return to school (or other activity). Reasons may include furthering educational goals, socializing with others, lack of daytime supervision, etc. This may seem like a silly question, but it’s important that we have good reasons WHY we do something, not just because it’s what everybody’s always done.
2. Is the activity available in a virtual environment? Can your child attend school through an online platform?
3. Evaluate the current level of infection in your local community.
4. Evaluate whether or not your child can comply with currently recommended protective measures. (Can they wear a mask, keep social distancing guidelines and wash or sanitize their hands when necessary? Do they have difficulty managing oral secretions?)
5. List other risks. (Will others at school comply with distancing, face covering and hand-washing? What’s the school’s policy on sanitation? Do they have a behavior where they put objects or their hands in their mouth that can increase risk?)
6. What medical conditions does your child have? (Lung problems, a heart condition, obesity, diabetes, kidney problems, etc.)
7. What are the negative effects of not returning to school in a live, group setting? (Loss of social skills, missing out on services that they usually receive at school besides education, etc.)
8. What does your child’s primary health care provider think about them returning to school?

Attending school safely amid COVID-19

Once you’ve taken a look at all of these things, make the best decision you can with the latest information available as to whether or not to return to a group setting for school or other activity.

If the answer is: “I’ve weighed the risks and benefits for my child and it’s a YES,” here are some things to consider to keep everyone as safe as possible:

• Follow the standard guidelines to reduce risk of contracting and spreading the disease. These include:
  • Hand washing
  • Social distancing
  • Face coverings when social distancing cannot be achieved
  • Sanitizing of objects and surfaces regularly, including desks, writing utensils, computers, etc.
• Stay home if you have fever greater than 100.0 or any symptoms of illness.
• Stay home if you’ve recently been exposed to someone with COVID-19.
• Learn more from the CDC by visiting FAQs on COVID.

Other COVID-19 considerations

• Make sure anyone who might need to contact you has at least two ways to contact you, such as by phone, text or email, and also add another friend or family member’s contact information.
• Keep a list of people you can call to help you in the event you need to pick your child up from school or need help with longer-term support in case you become ill.
• Ensure an adequate supply of medications, necessary cleaning supplies and basic food items at all times.
• Practice hand washing, not touching their face and wearing a mask. Teach these skills before sending them back to school.
• Use a HEALTH PASSPORT to provide detailed information to others about your child’s health AND social supports that may be needed. A health passport is a great way to let others know about medical, environmental, behavioral, communication and other support needs a person has at a glance. You can download a free one here (at the bottom of the webpage). I designed this one personally for this purpose, and it’s available in English and Spanish. Physicians, nurses, support staff, teachers and others can benefit from having this information available in a concise document.

Whatever decision you make, go forward with confidence that you thought it out well, are taking the necessary precautions and that you made the best decision for you and your child.

Dr. Escude is a board-certified fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and one of the few Fellows of the American Academy of Developmental Medicine. He is the president of Health Risk Screening, Inc. which specializes in risk identification and mitigation in people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) and other vulnerabilities. HRSTonline.com. He is the author of Clinical Pearls in IDD Healthcare and the Curriculum in IDD Healthcare, an online course for physicians, nurses and other clinicians that teaches the fundamentals of IDD healthcare.

Four television shows and one feature film have been honored with the “Seal of Authentic Representation” from the Ruderman Family Foundation. Established in Boston in 2002, the Ruderman Family Foundation works toward the inclusion of people with disabilities in society. The Foundation’s Seal of Authentic Representation recognizes films and television shows that have demonstrated a commitment to the full inclusion of people with disabilities in popular culture. This is particularly important as so many productions have cast actors without disabilities in roles that portray disability.

Disability in Film: The Honorees

This marks the fourth time the Ruderman Family Foundation has bestowed the Seal. The current group of honorees are:

See, a science fiction drama produced by Apple TV+. The series is set in the distant future at a time when the human race has lost the sense of sight and society must find new ways to interact and survive. See has cast Marilee Talkington and Bree Klauser, both of whom are legally blind.

This Is Us, NBC’s comedy/drama about a set of triplets, their parents and the family’s struggles, has cast Blake Stadnik, an actor who lives with Stargardt Disease, a form of macular degeneration. Stadnik plays Jack Damon, a character who lives with retinopathy of prematurity, a disease of the eyes which can cause blindness.

Atypical, a coming-of-age series produced for Netflix, tells the story of 18-year-old Sam Gardner, who has autism spectrum disorder. The show has cast three actors with autism: Dominique Brown, Layla Weiner and Spencer Harte.

Also produced for Netflix, The Politician earns kudos for casting Ryan J. Haddad, an actor who lives with cerebral palsy, as Andrew Cashman, a character with cerebral palsy.

And finally, the feature film Spare Room, a romantic drama, co-stars Cole Sibus, an actor with Down Syndrome who plays a character with the same disability.

Advocating for Actors with Disabilities

The actors couldn’t be more pleased with their jobs.

“I am grateful to the Ruderman Family Foundation for its steadfast commitment to disability inclusion in entertainment, and I thank the Foundation for recognizing The Politician with its Seal of Authentic Representation,” said Ryan J. Haddad in a statement. “Series creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan set out to populate the world of their satirical high school with a variety of voices without calling attention to it in the scripts. It’s been a privilege for me to inhabit their story and their words. This kind of disability inclusion is refreshing, truthful and necessary. We exist in the world, we can be part of any story, and those stories need not be laser focused on our disabilities in order for us to play meaningful roles.”

“It is incredibly important for the entertainment industry to authentically cast characters with disabilities,” added Blake Stadnik. “Not only does it deservingly give work to some of the most talented actors I know, but it also influences the audience’s perception of disability as a whole. Personally, it would have been beyond meaningful to me to see a person with low vision play a character like Jack when I was growing up. I am honored to possibly be that for someone now, and I am so proud to be part of a show that wants to authentically represent everyone’s story.”

Disability Advocate: The Ruderman Family Foundation

The Ruderman Family Foundation conducted a study in 2016 that found that only 5% of characters with disabilities on television were played by actors with disabilities. In February 2020, the Foundation released a new study that showed that the number of disabled characters played by actors with disabilities has risen to 22%.

For more information on the Ruderman Family Foundation, please visit https://rudermanfoundation.org.

Photo: Jason Momoa and Hera Hilmar in See. Photo courtesy of Apple TV+.

Dr. Tony Greco is a disability rights advocate for mental health and addiction support and the founder of GET HELP.

In 1977, my parents met in an AA meeting. My mom was still a teenager and my dad had a couple of years sober in the program. She was a troubled youth; in addition to alcoholism, he could not read or write, and suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness. They found comfort in one another, as new people in recovery often do. If the stories can be believed, they married shortly after she got pregnant. And again, as new people in recovery often do, my mom relapsed and would not get sober for another 23 years. In 2001, that unexpected baby she had as a teenager, now a young man, picked her up from a psych hospital to drive her to American Hospital in downtown Los Angeles for, what would hopefully be, her last detox.

I have been trying to get my mom clean, sober or, at the very least, functional since I was 7 years old. Truth be told, my childhood was a battle ground of both my parents’ dysfunction. I can remember coming home from school one day at 15 years old to a completely barren house, for the exception of my things in my bedroom. I was alone, homeless and turning to the same familiar haunts and vices as my own parents did, in spite of all my attempts to be anything other than like them.

Addiction is a Symptom

I found myself looking to the same strangers in 12 steps meetings at 17 years old, and have been there ever since. Unlike my parents, those meetings worked for me, but it required coming to terms with things much greater than just addiction. Like many of us who turn to addiction, the problem is deeper than addiction. Addiction is a symptom. If we don’t stay clean or sober long enough to get to those underlying problems, we will surely return to the quick fixes and damage of addiction. But we need to get clean or sober before we can even begin to address the underlying things like trauma, depression, anxiety, bi-polar disorder or any number of the personality disorders that develop from the difficulties we face in our lives.

We give what we are given, and the pain and dysfunction is often systemic, often generational. We are living with the sins of the past, the sins of our fathers, mothers and those before them.

Since I started recovery at 17 to heal from those proverbial sins, I have always focused on trying to help others. It gave me a purpose. An anchor. I have spent the better part of my life always trying to find the ways and means to do that. That desire to help, and the series of events that has put me on every side of the problem, was the birth of what would become a company I started called GET HELP — which puts me on every side of the solution.

The Disabilities of Addiction and Mental Health

It was always difficult for me to understand that my parents had a mental illness, that they were disabled; initially by their respective diseases of addiction, but deeper still by their debilitating depression, anxiety, bi-polar or schizoaffective behaviors. Deeper still was the unresolved trauma of their own childhoods, their own histories. In recovery, I saw hundreds, if not thousands of people who were just like them. I began to understand. What I understood most clearly was the only way to help them was to first help myself. Second, help others. Hopefully one day soon they would be amongst the others.

Many people want to get clean. There’s a moment in their life when they have that “ah ha, maybe, just maybe…” moment, and if there is not an easy path forward in that moment then they are too often damned to repeat the same cycle, over and over again. I was fortunate in my “ah ha” moment to have a mom and dad who could direct me to a meeting. The meeting directed me to a psych hospital. A psych hospital that had “Hospitals & Institutions” panels with volunteers who came in and shared their personal stories with us. In between the hospital food, padded rooms, bed straps and white coats… I heard a message of hope. Again, those people directed me back to meetings.

It would take years of attending before I built up the resources and strength to face my deeper demons in therapy. I am among the fortunate few. Many, many people do not get that far. They don’t get to build up the psychological strength to support them to face those demons. Why? They don’t have the resources, structure or access.

It took many years of recovery to build the strength, both psychological and emotional, to return to school, to start therapy, to do things that “regular” people did in their lives. Through that work, and the kindness of strangers, I learned how to go to school and to get the education that helped make me a more effective healer. The child of high school drop outs, the son of a father who could not read and write, found himself putting one foot in front of another, graduating from college and going on to get a doctorate in clinical psychology. In grad school, I found many people who were just as stumped about how to help other addicts; within the first semesters of school I found myself being viewed as the resident expert on addiction — by fellow students and by the professors as well. Before my Masters even posted, I found myself lecturing for other professors to my peers, teaching them what I knew about addiction and recovery.

My experiences taught me the hard way how difficult it was for people to find help when they actually wanted it. I tried to do this as a clinical psychologist and realized the tools for finding help for people, especially people with little to no resources, were ineffective, insufficient and, in many cases, outright harmful: directing people to places that were not the right fit, brokering patients, sometimes even paying them to be in their facility.

Download the GET HELP App

I mention all of this because, ultimately, it drives one of the root causes of inadequate care for individuals with mental health and addiction challenges — the lack of coordination in the continuum of care and the rat-race runaround to accessing resources. When individuals are already struggling to find and address the root of a mental health problem, the constant barriers to getting the help they need when they need it can easily discourage people and knock them off their path to wellness. This is one of the founding principles behind GET HELP. Having walked that road as a youth in recovery and again as a Psychologist guiding people in recovery, it was clear that we needed a better way to coordinate resources and aide people on their journeys. The knowledge is there. The experience and tools to help people are there. But navigating that labyrinth can be a journey in of itself — one most are not lucky enough to find their way in like I was.  Someone struggling shouldn’t have to be strong enough to figure it out on their own and jump through the hoops of siloed systems of care to arrive at a destination of well-being.

Something needed to be done. I knew enough about technology to get me into trouble, but not enough to get me out. I decided to create a tool for people to find available beds, and that became (or I should say consumed) my life’s work. GET HELP solves this by putting ALL the resources someone, or their caretaker, would need in one place. It interconnects agencies, shelters, health care professionals and other resources in a way I wish I had to help my parents when I was a kid — and in a way I continued to need as a professional adult. Technology can deliver all of this to people when they need it — and I’m proud that we’ve built it.

Today, using the knowledge I’ve gained over the last 25 years of trying to find help for people, I created GET HELP to connect treatment providers with the professionals trying to help, and with the public trying to find help for themselves or someone they love. It isn’t easy — nothing worth having ever is — but I’ve been fortunate to align with some amazing individuals who are also dedicated to creating a world where anyone, anywhere, can get the help they need, when they need and in the way they deserve.

Tomorrow, we will live in a world where information is democratized and where everyone, not only the most fortunate or privileged, can get effective treatment when they need it. Until that time, we will continue to work toward a world where luck has nothing to do with a person achieving recovery. This COVID-19 crisis taught us that the sharing and democratization of key health care and mental health elements needs to come sooner, not later. My team and I at GET HELP are proud to be at the forefront of pioneering that change.  Managing this crisis, and everyone’s round the clock need not only for resources, but for data, beds, capacity and more, has shown us that not only is our platform timely, it works exactly as we intended, helping coordinate resources on both sides of the equation.

If you are interested in supporting the work we are doing, you can visit our website at www.gethelp.com; tell your treatment providers and other professionals about GET HELP® and find out how they can make their resources available on our platform so that the next 7 year old looking for treatment for his mother doesn’t need to wait 23 years to get his mother back. Let’s get and stay connected now. Together, we can.

You know drinking water is good for you, but there often comes a point where you want something more. You want color and additional flavors, as well as the possibility of making the water even healthier.

Infused water is the solution. Infused water is where you immerse vegetables, fruits and herbs in cold water for a period of time, infusing the goodness and flavors of the ingredients with the water itself.

Benefits of Infused Water

Infused water enhances the benefits of drinking water, and it makes water more interesting and enjoyable to drink. These health benefits include:

1. Improves digestive health – staying well hydrated is essential for good digestive health, particularly in relation to preventing constipation
2. Boost your immune system – the nutrients from the ingredients you include in your infused water can have a positive impact on your immune system
3. Help you lose weight – drinking water increases your metabolic rate and reduces your appetite, both of which can help you lose weight
4. Improves your energy and concentration – dehydration can have a significant impact on your levels of energy and your ability to concentrate, so drinking infused water will help you stay alert and focused

Tips When Making Infused Water

• It is usually best to make your infused water recipe in a jug that you can then enjoy throughout the day, although you can use a bottle or a large glass too
• Choose a clear container, as the ingredients look great inside the water when sitting on your table or countertop
• Add the ingredients to the jug or bottle before filling with cold water
• Cut up the ingredients into cubes or thin slices to infuse the flavors and nutrients faster
• Be patient – the longer you leave it before drinking, the better it will taste and the healthier it will be
• Some fruits, particularly citrus fruits, infuse quickly, while herbs and berries take longer
• Keep the jug or bottle in the fridge
• Once you have finished the water in the jug or bottle, refill it again to reuse the ingredients
• Mix it up with the ingredients and experiment

Get Started with These Health-Enhancing Water Recipes

The Immune Booster

The immune booster is ideal as a daily drink or if you are feeling a bit under the weather and need a boost. The ingredients taste great and they will infuse your body with immune-boosting nutrients.

Ingredients:

• Orange
• Raspberries
• Ginger

Remove the green leafy part of the raspberries as well as any stems and add a handful to the jug. Slice up the orange into thin slices, leaving the skin on. Then, add some slices of fresh ginger.

Vitamin C Booster

This recipe is packed with color, flavor and natural goodness with an emphasis on vitamin C.

Ingredients:

• Grapefruit
• Cucumber
• Lemon
• Lime
• Watermelon
• Mint

Cut the watermelon into small cubes and the cucumber, grapefruit, lemon and lime into thin slices. Add to your jug or bottle, fill with cold water, then add some fresh mint leaves.

Berry Buster

Berries are packed full of natural goodness and they are delicious, so this infused water recipe makes a fantastic healthy alternative to normal water.

Ingredients:

• Strawberries
• Blackberries
• Blueberries
• Raspberries
• Mint

Slice up the strawberries and add them to your jug or bottle. Add the other berries whole and fill the jug or bottle with cold water. Finally, add some fresh mint leaves.

Pre-order the author’s forthcoming book, Water Wellness, now. (No official publication date yet, expected late-summer 2020)

Kriss Smolka is the creator of the award-winning health & fitness app WaterMinder. WaterMinder was named Apple App Store Editor’s Choice in 2019 and has been featured by The New Yorker, Women’s Health, Glamour, Business Insider, BGR, Venture Beat, Apple, and more. Based on his own experience and extensive research, along with numerous real-life stories from those who have been affected by dehydration, Kriss started work on Water Wellness, a hydration book with the goal of educating everyone on the importance of staying hydrated. For more information visit: https://hydrationbook.com or find and follow the author on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

For several of us, we’ve finally gotten our wish to work from home. But it’s not for the reasons we had hoped. And, with the 24/7 news cycle focused on increasingly alarming news about the Coronavirus, we’re unable to focus on our work.

In these tumultuous times, we’re all trying to wrap our heads around what may be the worst pandemic to take place in our lifetimes. We just want the Coronavirus to be contained so we can go back to our lives before “social distancing” mandated these cautionary measures. Not only are we challenged to maintain six feet of distance from others, but we can’t shake hands, hug or even open doors or push buttons in elevators unless we’re wearing gloves or have our sanitizer handy.

With the rapid spread of this new virus that’s affecting millions of people worldwide, we feel everything from hysteria to anxiety to despondency. The fight-flight-freeze response has become our bodies’ reaction each time we listen to the news. We need to lighten the stress from living in this heightened state of fear. Practicing Mindfulness can provide the calming effect we’re in search of.

Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present and having an awareness of what we feel in the moment. This mental focus, instead of heightening our state of fear, can actually ameliorate it. Mindfulness enables us to work through it with a conscious awareness of how best to do that. We mindfully navigate through our fear in ways that can help us stay calm and centered.

Use these Mindfulness practices to help you through this unprecedented pandemic:

1. Acknowledge the disruption. Recognize that this is a difficult time.

2. Stay rooted in the present. Don’t get ahead of yourself and indulge in thoughts like, “The world is coming to an end” or “I’m going to get the virus.” Slow down those thoughts that project negatively into the future.

3. Take a hiatus from the news. The news and social media are filled with an endless chain of alarming stories and updates. Don’t let yourself binge watch. Limit yourself to watching the news once or twice a day. Otherwise, go about your normal routines.

4. Take a mental health break. Go out for a walk where you avoid being in close proximity to others. Or draw a warm bath and feel yourself relaxing. Give your mind a rest from all the thoughts and worries.

5. Center yourself through meditation. Meditating by focusing on your breath can be very centering. Another way is to silently repeat a mantra or sentence that’s positive and affirmative. You might say to yourself, “I’m healthy,” or “Let go.”

Try this guided meditation.

6. Wind down for the night. Many people are having difficulty sleeping during this troubling time. To help yourself prepare for rest, turn off the TV and put away your devices at least an hour before you go to bed. Listen to soothing music or read a book that will take your focus off of worrying.

The Coronavirus is very real and very frightening, but so are the thoughts we tell ourselves. Be aware of your internal monologue, and if it’s negative, try and make a concerted effort to switch to the positive.

As with all difficult times, this too shall pass.

Grab a copy of Ora Nadrich’s book, Live True: A Mindfulness Guide to Authenticity, on Amazon.

Ora Nadrich is founder and president of the Institute for Transformational Thinking and author of Live True: A Mindfulness Guide to Authenticity, named in the “100 Best Mindfulness Books of All Time” by BookAuthority. She is a certified life coach and mindfulness teacher, specializing in transformational thinking, self discovery and mentoring new coaches as they develop their careers. Contact her at theiftt.org.