Music Therapy & Related Issues

one handed recorders

Here are some websites pertaining to recorder playing by individuals who only have use of one hand.

http://home1.gte.net/bharrell/build.htm

http://home1.gte.net/bharrell/recorder.htm

http://www.flutelab.com/fotos/blok/blok.htm

http://www.dolmetsch.com/goldseriesrecorders.htm

Running With Walker

Running with Walker: A Memoir
by Robert Hughes

List Price: $17.95
Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.58 x 9.18 x 6.20
• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Pub; 1 edition (September 16, 2003)
• ISBN: 1843107554

Editorial Reviews
Book Description
By the time he was three, Walker's parents were concerned enough about his delayed development to consult a paediatric neurologist. Doctors diagnosed autism and issued a grim prognosis: 'I hold out no hope for this child'. But they hadn't accounted for Walker's intelligence, affection, and sense of humour - or for the remarkable bonds that grew within his family.
Walker's father, Robert Hughes, tells a touching and inspiring story of discovering that their 'perfect little boy had a problem'. With disarming honesty and humour, the book tells how a family copes and keeps hope alive despite the staggering difficulties autism presents.

About the Author
Robert Hughes teaches English at Truman College in Chicago. His articles have appeared in Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune, Parents Magazine and Chicago Magazine.

Avg. Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
It's really all about love, October 6, 2003
Reviewer: A reader from Chicago, IL
I enjoyed reading this book and the realism of this family. There is not a moment when Walker's autism is cured - no Helen Keller moment. And, for most of us, there isn't. But, we love our children fiercely and we are their protectors and guides for this life we gave them and share with them! Robert Hughes is a father who loves his son - period! Doctors, therapists, educators and specialists usually do not understand the depths of this love, nor do parents of typically-developing children. This book is about autism and the difficulties it presents to a family, but ultimately it is about love. My favorite part of the book is when a pediatric neurologist has just diagnosed Walker as "object-oriented" and has said "I don't hold out any hope for this child" and Ellen, Walker's mother, says to him "Then I guess that's why God didn't make you his mother" and Robert Hughes says that his wife's rebuttal is "the kind of sentence I only dream about days after a conversation". For those of us living with autism, it's a good idea to have a few of these comebacks ready to pull out of our backpocket when someone tries to dissuade our hope or our love!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
An amazing story of grace, dignity and love of family, October 2, 2003
Reviewer: Janel Hastings from Claremont, CA
Robert Hughes has expertly depicted the challenges, the heartache and, yes, even sometimes the humor, of life with an autistic child. More than just a book, Running With Walker is a beautiful conversation with the author, and invites the reader to instantly grasp images from the Huges family household in Chicago, and to fall in love with a family who has maintained its grace, dignity and wit in the face of unimaginable obstacles.
A moving, first-hand account written through the eyes of a father with unconditional love, Running With Walker is an absolutely amazing journey.

Love Song to a Family, October 1, 2003
Reviewer: hiredpen (see more about me) from Alexandria, VA United States
"Running With Walker" shows the reader the very best and the very worst of what life has been like for the Hughes family. It's a very honest and straightforward telling of the mistakes and successes these remarkable parents had, raising their two remarkable sons. The prose is rich with descriptive metaphors, and the transitions are so smooth that you don't even think about putting the book down till you reach the end. But most of all, "Running With Walker" is a love song from the author to his family: a moving litany of everything best about each member of the Hughes family. You can't help but love them too, after you read their story.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A Remarkable Breakthrough, September 17, 2003
Reviewer: A reader from Arlington, VA United States
Early in this memoir, we learn that the parents of Walker Hughes experienced no theatrical Helen Keller/"Miracle Worker" moment to define their understanding of their son's autism. This proves to be foreshadowing.
Throughout the narrative, the reader is propelled by a kind of exhilarating expectation of the breakthrough that will transform Walker's life and that of his family. This is fueled by affection among the principal characters and their allies, as well as by the flashes of recognition that bind the experiences of the Hughes family with families everywhere.
The end of the book arrives without the cinematic resolution we have come to crave. Nevertheless a remarkable breakthrough has been achieved -- a wondrous description of what autism is about, and a lesson on How It Is that hope is nourished and joy is perpetuated in the course of yet another set of life challenges.
I recommend this book as a clinical study, but also as literature: Camus comes to Chicago.

Boy Triumphs Over Autism With Dog

A Boy And His Dog Brave Autism Together

from the Spring 2003 issue of The BARK magazine

Brad Pomeroy looked at his wife as if she'd suggested bungee jumping the Alps. "The last thing we need right now is a big dog!"

Hope answered with 3 words: "It's for Andy!"

Their seven-year-old son had torn through first grade - his first year in regular school - with tantrums, rising anxiety and frustration so intense he'd bang his head until the pain drowned the chaos. Midway through the school year, the doctors had reexamined his ADHD diagnosis and added Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism that combines high intelligence with literal, rigid thought patterns and hypersensitivity to noise, bright lights, any startling sensation. Hope had tried drugs, psychotherapy, occupational therapy, gymnastics - every trick in the book to calm and organize Andy's overactive nervous system.

But she knew what he needed most was a friend.

A dog groomer by trade, Hope shampooed a lot of the service dogs in Belleville, Illinois. She was only thinking "companion" for her son, though. Andy wasn't blind or deaf, she reasoned, just lonely and frustrated. She combed the newspaper, circled a couple of ads, and called only one, for a young black Lab named Kaiser.

The Pomeroys trooped over to see Kaiser the next evening. Andy, stressed by a long day ending in a strange place, promptly threw a tantrum. He rolled on the floor grunting and flailing, his blond hair askew, his fair skin flushed red. Kaiser came over, looking as sensible and concerned as a good nanny, and gave him a kiss. "This is the dog," said Hope.

As soon as Kaiser got the hang of his new dish, bed and toys, Hope ventured onto the Internet, curious to learn how to teach him a few special jobs. She wanted Andy to be able to "hug the dog for half an hour if he needs to." And she wanted Kaiser to alert her if Andy bolted, because the local cops were getting tired of her panicked calls.

Again, Hope prevailed. She found Marilyn Pona, founder of two service dog programs, who now did consulting from her home in the Ozarks. After years of training seizure dogs and service dogs for every imaginable physical disability, Marilyn was focusing on psychiatric conditions. The response of the service-dog community has raised her Italian temper: People who should have known better were saying things like, "You can't use dogs in psychiatric situations. If the person gets all upset, the dog might bite."

"Nonsense," spat Marilyn, who knew full well what the right dog, with the right bonding and training, could do to steady someone with a psychiatric condition. She'd been hearing from people all over the country: A woman with a panic disorder said that when she was out in a crowd and started to sweat, she focused on her dog and the symptoms stopped spiraling. A woman with schizophrenia said that now, when she was alone at night and she heard a
voice hissing vile insults, she looked at her dog. If his ears weren't
pricked, she knew, with a sureness no human could give her, that the voice was in her head.

Marilyn asked Hope a lot of questions, reviewed a videotape of Kaiser and Andy at the park, e-mailed reams of information. Then she came to St. Louis and poked between the dogs nails, prodded him everywhere, watched his reactions to crowds and stress, Andy's moods and Hope's commands.

"Your instincts are excellent," Marilyn announced. Together they worked out a training plan, and a vocabulary Hope could use consistently for commands. She'd already worked on a basic obedience with Kaiser, who had an obliging nature and would do a down-stay until hell freezes over. Now, with Marilyn's
help, she moved to the commands that mattered the most to her: "Kisses," a delightful means of sensory stimuli; "Touch" (Kaiser nuzzles Andy); "Hugs" (he puts his head on Andy's shoulder); and "Lap up" (Kaiser rests his chin on Andy's lap so the little boy can hold onto him).

Kaiser learned so fast, Hope kept going. She taught him "Hold," so that when Andy was connected to Kaiser's halter but looked like he might bolt, Kaiser would lean the opposite direction. "It gives me that extra few seconds to grab Andy before he takes off," she told Marilyn as they zapped e-mails back and forth.

"Kaiser gets really upset and whines when Andy is out of his sight," Hope wrote later that week. "Is this normal?" Better than normal. He had a vocation.

Soon Kaiser was surprising Hope with help she hadn't even expected. They went out for dinner on Father's Day, forgetting that the restaurant would be packed. Andy hadn't had a real kicking-and-screaming tantrum since the dog's arrival, but this crowd guaranteed one. Hope shot Brad a look, and they prepared for a quick exit. But as Hope reached for her purse, Andy asked through tears and wails, if he could get under the table. She said yes, figuring he needed to be someplace dark and out of the way, and held up the tablecloth so he could wriggle underneath it. She heard a scrabbling and a
few choked sobs, then blessed silence.

She waited, twisting her napkin. When she dared to peer under the cloth, Andy was nestled against the dogs chest, sound asleep. Ten minutes later, he woke up, climbed back into his chair and ate his dinner. Hope and Brad smiled at each other in dazed relief. This was the first time their son had recovered, on his own, from a public tantrum.

Author Daniel Goleman describes these explosions as "emotional hijackings": There's so much noise, both outside and inside the brain, that the higher cognitive centers overload. Rage tramples reason and spirals out of control. Mom pleads, strangers frown, consequences threaten - but nothing breaks the spiral. Expect a dog.

Simple animal presence, warm and safe and familiar and nonjudgmental. No words adding to the chaos, no adult disapproval intensifying the pressure. Just a dog, a reassuring distraction that interrupts the hijacking, distracts from the rage and gives the brain a minute to re-centre itself.

On Father's Day, the Pomeroys stayed and ordered dessert. On the way out of the restaurant, Hope bent and hugged Kaiser's neck.

The next gift came when he learned to stay on Andy's bed until the little boy fell asleep. "Before, we could lay Andy down at 9 and it'd be midnight and he still wouldn't be sleeping," Hope told Marilyn. "Now he tucks Kaiser's paw under his cheek and they lie together until Andy falls asleep."

The first time they tried the new ritual, though, Hope forgot something. She forgot that Kaiser obeys a down-stay until hell freezes. She left the two of them snuggled and went down the hall, enjoying a rare chance to finish little chores she usually abandoned. The quiet was so peaceful, she completely forgot the dog - until an hour or so later, she walked past the bedroom and heard him softly whining. Andy was sound asleep, and Kaiser, mission accomplished, had been waiting for Hope to come back and release him.

She praised him and turned it into a routine. Now, he whines the minute Andy falls asleep, and as soon as she hears the signal, she returns to release him. For his part, Kaiser has reversed the process: The minute Andy wakes up in the morning Kaiser drops toys on Hope's face until she wakes up too.

"Excellent," replied Marilyn when Hope reported the innovation. "We'll enhance that as an alert behavior." She urges her clients to notice what their dog does naturally, then build on that. Kaiser was so attuned to Andy that he was writing his own job description. It was time, suggested Marilyn, to give him more responsibility.

That Saturday, Hope took out Kaiser's service halter and asked in her happy voice, "You want to get dressed?" He was so excited to work, he wouldn't even go to the backyard to relieve himself until she insisted. She packed the halter side pocket with a chew toy - for Andy, for frustration – plus her checkbook, Andy's medicine and
c-o-o-k-i-e-s for Kaiser. Then she slid open the van door and they drove to Wal-Mart, a circus of clanging, carts, screaming children and flickering fluorescent lights.

Hope had already driller Kaiser on directions - left, right, front - so she could reposition him as necessary in aisles and checkout lanes. They'd also worked on spatial awareness so he could walk alongside Andy without running either one of them into a wall. Now Andy clutched the leather handle on top of Kaiser's service-dog vest and they proceeded through the store. Every time Andy felt a little dizzy or confused or cranky, he rubbed Kaiser's ears.

"Kaiser likes these," he'd say, pointing to some over-bright packaged toy, or "C'mon Kaiser," when an aisle clogged with people.

As soon as they reached the checkout lane, where people packed close and jostled each other, Kaiser quietly moved in front of Andy, blocking him from strangers' elbows and swinging purses. Hope, watching like a mother hawk, heard Andy breathe a little sigh of relief. She praised Kaiser's thoughtfulness and mentally added "Block" to his repertoire.

The following week, they started retrieving lessons. "Seed the floor,"
suggested Marilyn, showing Hope how to make a game out of strewing objects and letting Kaiser bring them to her, gradually building a sequence of "Get," "Bring," "Give." Kaiser happily fetched and re-fetched a slimed sock, a spoon, a medicine bottle, a TV remote control. He had trouble with Andy's old scratched CD, but the next day he pushed it over to a throw rug with his nose, used the rug to flip it up and seized it triumphantly. Finally he retrieved an object on his own, outside the choreographed game. A wrapped
tampon had fallen out of Hope's purse. He brought it to her discreetly and nudged it into her hand, managing not to tear the paper.

Next, she taught Kaiser an "Up," where he stood on his hind legs and placed his paws on Andy's shoulders. The idea was to ditch the five-pound weighted vest the therapist had prescribed to "ground" Andy when he got upset, and use the dog's friendly weight instead. Just one problem: Kaiser would only obey the command if Andy was standing in front of Hope or against a wall.

"Of course," Hope realized. "He's afraid he'll topple Andy. And that would be awful, especially in a crowd." She sighed. "That dog is smarter than I am."

She accepted his version of "Up" and, realizing he was worrying a lot, enrolled him in an agility class for some playful stress relief. Their next adventure will be tracking, so if Andy does run off, Kaiser not only alerts Hope but also goes to find him. He's also doing advanced training with a local instructor who first consulted with Marilyn. "No forced retrieves," she warned him. "This child touches this dog everywhere, and I don't want anything negative associated with touch. Also, no long stays with Andy and Hope out of sight. Remember, if Kaiser doesn't see them, we want him to go find them."

The Pomeroy's August vacation went more smoothly that they'd ever dreamed possible, Andy and Kaiser handling the trip with mutual grace. Then, mid-autumn, Kaiser fell sick. "He was out of commission for about a week, bed rest on the vets orders," says Hope. "That's when I realized how much he helps me. Wal-Mart was a nightmare all over again. Andy touching everything, screaming, running off. He had really bad days at school that week, and he couldn't come home and do "Lap up" with Kaiser, so he was a handful all evening."

Hope practically brought food on a tray, she was so eager to have the dog's help again. "I had him lying on our bed in front of a fan because he was so hot," she admits. "I gave him ice pops and crushed ice and I rubbed creamy baby oil on his feet to relax him because he panicked when he coughed."

The following Monday, Kaiser bounded back to work, healthy as ever. Calm was restored to the family's daily routine.

"Guess we did need a dog," murmured Brad.

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No Cow Left Behind/School Testing

No Cow Left Behind

Written by a local principal and appeared in the
Burlington Free Press (Vermont) on 7/25/03.

As a principal facing the task of figuring out all the complexities of
the No Child Left Behind legislation and its impact on education, I
have decided that there is a strong belief that testing students is
the answer to bringing about improvements in student performance.

Since testing seems to be a cornerstone to improving performance, I
don't understand why this principle isn't applied to other businesses
that are not performing up to expectations. I was thinking about the
problem of falling milk prices and wondering why testing cows wouldn't be effective in bringing up prices since testing students is going to bring up test scores.

The federal government should mandate testing all cows every year
starting at age 2. Now, I know that it will take time out of the
farmers' necessary work to do this testing every year and that it may
be necessary to spend inordinate amounts of money on the testing
equipment, but that should not detract us from what must be done.

I'm sure there are plenty of statistics to show what good milk
producing performance looks like and the characteristics of cows who achieve this level of performance. It should, therefore, be easy to figure out the characteristics necessary to meet this standard.

We will begin our testing by finding out which cows now meet the
standard, which almost meet the standard, which meet the standard with honors and which show little evidence of achievement.

Points will be assigned in each category and it will be necessary to
achieve a certain average score. If this score is not achieved, the
Department of Agriculture will send in experts to give advice for
improvement. If improvements do not occur over a couple of years, the state will take over your farm or even force you to sell. Now, I'm sure farms have a mix of cows in the barn but it is important to
remember that every cow can meet the standard. There should be no exceptions and no excuses. I don't want to hear about the cows that just came to the barn from the farm down the road that didn't provide the proper nutrition or a proper living environment. All cows need to meet the standard.

Another key factor will be the placement of a highly qualified farmer
in each barn. I know many of you have been farming for many years but it will be necessary for all farmers to become certified . This will
mean some more paperwork and testing on your knowledge of cows, but in the end this will lead to the benefit of all.

It will also be necessary to allow barn choice for the cows. If cows
are not meeting the standard in certain farms, they will be allowed to go to the barn of their choice. Transportation might become an issue but it is critical that cows be allowed to leave their low-performing barns. This will force low-performing farms to meet the standard or else they will simply go out of business. Some small farms will probably go out of business as a result of this new legislation.

Simply put, the cost per cow is too high. As taxpayers, we cannot be expected to foot the bill to subsidize farms with dairy compacts. Even though no one really knows what the ideal cost is to keep cows content, the Legislature will set a cost per cow. Expenditures too far above this cost will be penalized. Since everyone knows that there are economies of scale, small farms will probably be forced to close and those cows will merge into larger farms.

Some farmers may be upset that I proclaim to know what is best for
these cows but I certainly consider myself capable of making these
recommendations. I grew up next to a farm and I drink milk.

I hope you will consider this advice in the spirit it is given and I
hope you will agree that the "no cow left behind" legislation may not
be best for a small state like Vermont.