Idelle Kursman

April is Autism Awareness Month

Autism

The increasing rate of autism should be everyone’s concern, not just those who have a family member with the diagnosis. At the present rate, 1 in every 59 children is diagnosed with autism. There is a spectrum according to the severity: those on the high end of the spectrum are able to function independently while those on the lower end require constant care and supervision. Any child could receive the diagnosis regardless of socioeconomic class, color, or religion. Anyone who feels it is not “their problem” may one day be in for a big surprise—if that person does not have a child with autism, then a sibling’s child, a niece or nephew’s child, or a grandchild could have this developmental disorder. Therefore, autism should be everyone’s concern.

National Autism Awareness month concept with puzzle or jigsaw pattern on heart with autistic child’s hands supported by nursing family caregiver

The following is a list of questions people may have. I will try to answer them as clearly and succinctly as possible.

Q. What is autism?                                                                                                      According to the website Autism Speaks (https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism), “Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), refers to a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech, and nonverbal communication.” As every individual is unique, autism affects each person differently.

Q. What are some telltale signs of autism?                                                                                                                      Signs include

  • Repetitive behaviors like hand flapping, rocking, jumping
  • Inability to make eye contact
  • Speech difficulties
  • Repetition of words (echolalia)
  • Inability to participate in social interaction
  • Sensitivity to sounds, smells, and tastes
  • Trouble understanding the feelings of others
  • Agitation with schedule changes
  • Unusual mood patterns, sleep difficulties
  • Hyperactivity
  • Fixation on particular topics
  • Limited attention span

In my novel True Mercy, one of the main characters is an eighteen-year-old man with autism named Adam. I include many characteristics of autism in my portrayal of Adam like hand lapping, rocking, echolalia, sensitivity to smells, unusual mood patterns, and fixations on certain topics.

Q. When do signs of autism appear in children?

According to Autism Speaks, signs of autism may occur from the first few months of life to as late as 2 or 3 years old.

HelpGuide (https://www.helpguide.org/articles/autism-learning-disabilities/does-my-child-have-autism.htm/ ) has compiled a list of early signs of autism:

The baby or toddler doesn’t:

  • Make eye contact, such as looking at you when being fed or smiling when being smiled at
  • Respond to his or her name, or to the sound of a familiar voice
  • Follow objects visually or follow your gesture when you point things out
  • Point or wave goodbye, or use other gestures to communicate
  • Make noises to get your attention
  • Initiate or respond to cuddling or reach out to be picked up
  • Imitate your movements and facial expressions
  • Play with other people or share interest and enjoyment
  • Notice or care if you hurt yourself or experience discomfort

Q. What can parents do if they notice these signs?

If a parent notices their child has developmental delays, it is vital they seek the advice of their child’s pediatrician to find out if testing is needed. The earlier the diagnosis, the sooner the child can receive early intervention, which is critical for the child to make gains in their development. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is the therapy that has proven to help children with autism make significant improvements.

Q. What are some resources to get help?

I gathered some resources but this list is by no means exhaustive.

Autism Bedforshire http://www.autismbedfordshire.net

Autism Speaks http://www.autismspeaks.org

Autism Society http://www.autism-society.org

Autism Web http://www.autismweb.com

Autism Hwy http://www.autismhwy.com

HelpGuide  https://www.helpguide.org/home-pages/autism.htm

Addendum:

I had intended to conclude my blog post at his point, but when Amy Tobik of Autism Parenting Magazine (https://www.autismparentingmagazine.com/supportive-states-raising-autism-child/?utm_source=Autism+Parenting+Magazine+Contributors&utm_campaign=71fe1ce660-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_06_18_01_56_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_782e0cc91d-71fe1ce660-96778409 ) sent me this article by Krystal Rogers-Nelson, I couldn’t resist including it. She provided a list in the order of the most supportive states for raising a child with autism.

The three main factors considered for these rankings include:

  1. State laws requiring insurance coverage of ABA therapy (points were weighted based on age limit, coverage limit, and types of insurers required to provide services)
  2. If a state is part of the ADDM Network (Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, which estimates the number of children living with autism and other developmental disabilities in various places in the United States).
  3. Grants available to individuals and families in the specified state
Rank State Age Limit? Coverage Limit? ABA Therapy Requirement for ALL Insurers in State ADDM Network Grants Available
1 California No No** Yes No Yes*
2 Massachusetts No No Yes No Yes*
3 Indiana No No Yes No Yes
4 Colorado No No Yes Yes No
5 Vermont 21 No** Yes No Yes*
6 Maryland 19 No Yes Yes Yes*
7 New Jersey 21 No No Yes Yes*
8 Washington No No Yes No No
9 New Hampshire 21 Varies based on age No No Yes*
10 New York No $45K Yes No Yes*
11 Oregon No*** No No No No
12 Connecticut 15 No No No Yes*
13 Maine 21 $36K Yes No Yes*
14 Pennsylvania 21 $36K Yes No Yes*
15 Mississippi 8 No Yes No No
16 North Dakota 21 No No No No
17 Ohio 21 No No No No
18 DC No limited to cost of similar therapy No No Yes
19 Wisconsin 9 $50K No Yes Yes*
20 Delaware 21 $36K Yes No Yes
21 Arkansas 18 $50K Yes Yes No
22 Minnesota 18 No No No No
23 Nebraska 20 No No No No
24 Utah 10 No No No No
25 Wyoming 20 No No No No
26 Illinois 21 $44,877 Yes No No
27 Florida No $36K, $200K lifetime Yes No No
28 Georgia 6 $30K No Yes Yes
29 Rhode Island 15 $32K No No Yes*
30 South Carolina 16 $50K Yes No No
31 Virginia 10 $35K No No Yes*
32 Kentucky 21 $50K No No No
33 Kansas 12 limits based on hours Yes No No
34 Michigan 18 varies based on age Yes No No
35 Oklahoma 9 $25K Yes No No
36 South Dakota 18 varies based on age Yes No No
37 Texas 9 varies based on insurance plan Yes No No
38 Alaska 21 varies based on insurance plan No No No
39 Iowa 21 $36K No No No
40 Louisiana 21 $36K No No No
41 Arizona 16 varies based on age No Yes No
42 Missouri 18 $40K No Yes No
43 Nevada 18 $72K No No No
44 North Carolina 18 $40K No Yes No
45 Tennessee 12 varies based on insurance plan No Yes No
46 Alabama 9 $36K No No No
47 Hawaii 13 $25K No No No
48 Montana 18 varies based on age No No No
49 West Virginia 18 $30K No No No
50 New Mexico 19 $36K, $200K lifetime No No No
51 Idaho n/a n/a No Law Requirement No No

Multiple grants available for this state.
**Can’t exceed the cost of treatment allowed under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
***Must start treatment before age 9.

Idelle Kursman is the author of True Mercy, a thriller designed to bring awareness to two issues: families coping with a loved one with autism and the human trafficking crisis. True Mercy is for sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IngramSpark, and Smashwords.

Need help with blog content? Please contact me through my website, www.idellekursman.com.

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Meet Writer/Editor Ben Wolf

2 Comments / Writing

I am so excited to write about this year’s Write Stuff Writers Conference that I attended on March 21-23. The Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group (https://greaterlehighvalleywritersgroup.wildapricot.org/) organizes it every year and this was my fifth year going. As always, I learned a lot and enjoyed it immensely. Everyone was so warm and welcoming that I felt I was reuniting with life-long friends.

Author/Editor Ben Wolf was this year’s keynote speaker. He has written and edited over 100 published works. Ben is the founder of Splickety Publishing Group, a magazine that publishes flash fiction. He has written novels and a children’s book. In 2015 he won the Cascade Award (https://oregonchristianwriters.org/2015-cascade-contest-winners/) for his novel, Blood for Blood, and his children’s book, I’d Punch a Lion in His Eye for You, was a Cascade Award winner in 2016 (https://oregonchristianwriters.org/cascade-award-winners-2016/). His concentration is primarily in speculative fiction.

Ben is 33 years old. When I arrived at the conference to find him as the keynote speaker, my first thought was, “How could someone so young teach the attendees, most older than he is, about writing?”

But it turned out he could. He actually taught us quite a lot.

The following are a few pieces of advice from his talk on “The Three Pillars of Storytelling: Your Novel’s High Concept.” He referenced his information from the book Fiction Writing for Dummies by Randy Ingermanson.  In some of the bulleted points, I will be quoting directly from a few of Ben Wolf’s PowerPoint slides.

  • The Goal of Every Story is to deliver a powerful emotional experience.
  • Every story must do at least one of the following: educate, entertain, or persuade.
  1. ) Entertain-writers are required to do research to make sure they are meeting their readers’ expectations, particularly in that genre (e.g. In romance: some combination of love, lust, and conflict).
  2. ) Educate-writers must think of what they want their readers to learn along the way.

3.) Persuade-in the case of “issue” fiction, they must decide what topics they want to change or influence readers’ minds about.

  • There are 5 pillars of writing fiction

1.) Construct a believable setting

2.) Create interesting character

3.) Create a strong plot

4.) Develop a meaningful theme

5.) Do all of it with style

In this blog post, I am going to concentrate on the second pillar-interesting characters.  Ben used examples from the movie Star Wars. For those unfamiliar with the plot, Trance (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/plotsummary), a plot author, summed it up as follows: “Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire’s world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the mysterious Darth Vader.”

  • The best way to hook a reader is with a compelling character. How does a writer achieve this? By knowing their character’s backstory.

1.) Who are they?

2.) Where did they come from?

3.) What happened that shaped who they are today?

4.) What does the character want?

5.) What is their motivation?

The writer must know the following about each character in their story

  1. ) Values-Those things a character holds most strongly to be true. Nothing is more important than. . .  Writers must convey values through action and behavior and make sure their character’s values have potential for conflict.

As an example, Darth Vader’s values were that nothing is more important than power and his son, Luke Skywalker.

2.) Ambition-The one abstract thing your character wants the most in life.  Give each character one ambition per story. What does your character want to gain? Some examples are wealth, power, peace, destruction, healing, and success.

Luke Skywalker’s ambition was to be a hero.

Story Goals-The one concrete thing your character wants in the story. The character must believe this will help him/her achieve or get closer to achieving their ambition. The more specific the writer can be about the character’s story goals, the better. It is essential the reader believes the story goal matters, the character has a chance to achieve their goal, and there is a chance the character may fail.

3.) Han Solo’s story goal was to obtain the money he needed to pay off the bounty on his life from Jabba the Hutt, a powerful gangster in the galaxy who had great influence in both the criminal and political underworld.

Finally, as demonstrated from Trance’s plot summary stated earlier, the author must formulate

  • A simple, one-sentence idea that describes the main conflict of the book.

Ben has spoken at over 40 writers’ conferences to date. I highly recommend any writer striving to improve their craft sign up and listen to his advice. He may be a youngster, but he gives many valuable pointers to writers of all genres.

Authors interested in getting help with their stories can reach out to Ben through his website, www.benwolf.com/editing-services. He offers coaching and editing services and has helped many authors bring their works to publication.

Idelle Kursman is the author of True Mercy, a thriller designed to bring awareness to two issues: families coping with a loved one with autism and the human trafficking crisis. True Mercy is for sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IngramSpark, and Smashwords.

Need help with blog content? Please contact me through my website, www.idellekursman.com.

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When Children with Autism Become Adults

Autism

 

                                                                               Photo by Nathan Anderson

The Autism Population is increasing and the children are becoming adults. They need work and programs.

In my novel True Mercy, one of the main characters is Adam Hitchens, a young man with autism who does simple, repetitive clerical tasks at a local business. He has a place to go every day and is proud to hold a job. I recently read the article “500,000 Teens with ASD are Headed to Adulthood. Where will They Work?” By Suzanne Garofalo. It appeared in the Houston Chronicle and was reprinted in the disabilityscoop (https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2018/11/16/500000-teens-asd-work/25736/. The article contains many examples of young adults on the autism spectrum who have been able to find satisfying employment and now feel productive and have a sense of purpose. Many employers are realizing it is well worth their while to train and keep these employees, finding many of them to be dedicated and hardworking. Garofalo writes that “Research shows job activities that encourage independence to reduce symptoms and increase daily living skills.” Some businesses even qualify for a tax write-off for participating in programs to employ these individuals. While this is certainly encouraging and a reason to celebrate, Garofalo also points out that “nearly half of 25-year-olds with the disorder have never held a paying job, according to Autism Speaks.” All people by nature need a schedule, a program with activities, or work in order to thrive. Parents are finding that as their special needs children get older, it becomes harder to find programs and resources. Many programs have waiting lists.

It is my hope that more opportunities for this population increase throughout the country. With the rate of autism now 1 in every 59 births in the United States, “It is a population that’s exploding but finds few opportunities.”

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Pittsburgh

Other Current Issues

It is difficult to think and write about anything other than the shooting in the Pittsburgh synagogue. Whereas only a few years ago, we had to worry about violence from foreign countries, now the main concern is violence committed by our own citizens. The massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue is a tipping point for me personally because I know so many people in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. All over the world, people go to houses of worship on their Sabbath to find peace, inspiration, and community; it is one of the last places one would expect a deranged individual to shoot people. I am certain I won’t be the only one who will be preoccupied with this massacre the next time I attend a house of worship.

Theories abound as to why there is an escalation of violence in the United States.  I have no ready answers or solutions but want to instead eulogize the people that we lost in the shooting.

Cecil and David Rosenthal, aged 59 and 54, were brothers that lived near the synagogue and often helped out during the services and other activities in the building. Both had intellectual disabilities and were described as inseparable. Chris Schopf, vice president of residential supports for ACHIEVA, an agency that provides support for individuals with disabilities in Pennsylvania, said this about the Rosenthal brothers, “Most of all, they were kind, good people with a strong faith and respect for everyone around.”

Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, aged 66, was a doctor. People recalled when others were afraid of treating people with HIV, Dr. Rabinowitz would hold their hands without gloves. Always ready to help others, he ran out immediately when he heard gunshots. Family and patients describe him as loving, kind, and compassionate.

Richard Gottfried, 65, was a dentist and active in the congregation. He worked at the Squirrel Hill Medical Center with his wife, who is also a dentist. They were well-known for taking refugees and immigrants as patients.

Sylvan and Bernice Simon, aged 86 and 84, were married in the Tree of Life synagogue in 1956. They were a close couple who were often seen holding hands. People recalled them as being kind to everyone.

Irwin Younger, 69, was a small business owner and a kids’ baseball coach. He prayed and volunteered regularly at the synagogue. Irwin was always anxious to make newcomers feel welcomed.

Melvin Wax, 88, was a retired accountant. He always arrived early for services and often led the congregation in the prayers.

Rose Mallinger, 97, was active in the Tree of Life synagogue for six decades. She attended services every weekend and people recalled her humor and intelligence. She was warm and loving and never complained about anything.

Daniel Stein, 71, was retired and attended the synagogue every Saturday. A nephew described him as a great guy with a dry sense of humor.

Joyce Feinberg, 75, was a retired research specialist at the University of Pittsburgh.  Her late husband Stephen taught statistics at nearby Carnegie Mellon University. Joyce and her husband would welcome his students into their home.

These eleven people attending synagogue services had no connection with the gunman. As in all these acts of violence, we lose innocent people senselessly.

When will it stop?

Idelle Kursman is the author of True Mercy, a thriller that covers the issues of autism and the human trafficking crisis. 

Note: From now until November 24th, True Mercy is on sale at Smashwords for only 99 cents! Log onto https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/747954 and enter the coupon code EA37K.

 

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Double-Edged Sword of Modern Technology in Vietnam–Increased Connectivity and Human Trafficking

Human Trafficking Awareness

 

I recently came across a very disturbing article in last month’s The Independent Voice.  Vietnam is a developing country in Southeast Asia and its people are anxious to connect with the world using the latest technology.  Studies indicate approximately 68% of the Vietnamese have smartphones and an even higher percentage have internet access.  So while it is still often difficult for those located in rural areas to obtain running drinking water, technological use is widespread. However, internet use is unfortunately far ahead of safety awareness. Nowhere is this more alarmingly apparent than the growing problem of organized groups of young men sending friend requests to young girls on Facebook in an effort to trick them into forced marriages.

These men act as agents to lure young girls living in villages close to the Vietnamese-Chinese border. Why? Because in China men greatly outnumber women, and there are Chinese men so desperate to find women to marry that they solicit the services of these unscrupulous profiteers. These agents often travel to a well-known trading post on the border to sell young girls. Since Facebook is banned in China, Chinese clients are using “WeChat, Weibo, and Viber” as dating apps to purchase kidnapped brides.

Fortunately, charities like Pacific Links Foundation are working hard to combat human trafficking by doing what they can to prevent this criminal activity as well as provide support and resources for survivors. Written on the Pacific Links Foundation website are these frightening statistics:

  • Human trafficking is a growing $150 billion a year business, enslaving over 40 million women, children, and men in forced sexual and forced labor exploitation.
  • The chance of being enslaved in the Asia Pacific region is twice as high compared to developed countries.
  • Vietnam is a source country for cross-border sex and labor trafficking.*

Human trafficking in this region is only getting worse. Advocates insist more safeguards for internet users in developing countries must be put into place on par with users in the developed world in order to combat trafficking. Please check out their website at https://www.pacificlinks.org to learn more.

*Information taken from http://www.pacificlinks.org/counter-trafficking

Interested in reading a novel about the international human trafficking crisis? Check out True Mercy. Available on Amazon, IngramSpark, and Smashwords. True Mercy would make a perfect holiday gift for friends and family—designed to provide an engaging read as well as to inform the public on the evils of human trafficking.

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