During the spring, summer, and fall, the Utah Conservation Corps sends crews of 4–8 AmeriCorps members to conduct trail and restoration projects in Utah national parks and forests. As a UCC AmeriCorps crew member, you can find yourself anywhere from the desert silence of Utah’s red rock country to the remote alpine wilderness of the Wasatch mountains

The Utah Conservation Corps (UCC) is seeking 4 AmeriCorps crew members to serve on the 2012 survey crew.  Crew members will conduct accessibility surveys of trails, campgrounds and facilities within the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest and work closely with the Forest Service to develop transition plans and make changes on the ground.  The crew will document such things as picnic table dimensions and trail width/slope according to ABA (Architectural Barriers Act) standards.  Crew members will enter survey data into a U.S. Forest Service database for use by the agency and the public.

They are especially looking for at least one crew member who uses a wheelchair, since wheelchair accessibility is one of the standard criterias used in the surveys. 

AmeriCorp crew members are paid positions through the Utah Conservation Corpsstart and go from June 4 through November 2, 2012.

For more information about these job opportunities, contact Kate Stephens, Program Director, Utah Conservation Corps, (435) 797-8135.

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, a time to recognize that we can each play a part in promoting the social and emotional well-being of children and families in our communities and protecting our children.

In Africa, when the hunters come back to their villages, the first thing they say in greeting is, “How are the children?”

Our children should be our greatest concern, yet there are thousands of children every year who are abused, neglected, and sometimes fatally injured.

“There is no better thing we can strive for than to keep children safe.”  So stated Esterlee Molyneux, executive director of the Child and Family Support Center of Cache County, in an article in the Herald Journal this week. 

How are our children in Utah? Molyneux goes on to say that “every 38 minutes, a child in Utah is abused or neglected.  Of those, 42 percent of victims are 5 or under.” 

The Child and Family Support Center in Logan strives to strenthen families and protect children through their crisis hotline, respite nursery, parent/child eduation classes and community activities.  They offer representatives who will come to your community group to talk about parenting strategies, personal empowerment, community awareness and child abuse prevention.

Any child can be at risk; abuse is not always something that is immediately evident. That is why it is important to become aware of the signs of abuse and neglect and then know where and when to report them.  The Utah Department of Human Services, Child and Family Services web site provides information about what signs to look for with a child, and a number to call to report a suspected abusive situation.

There are many local, state, and national organizations that are there to help keep our children safe. This month, become aware of the prevention organizations in your community and state.  Become involved.  Support programs that prevent abuse and strengthen families.

As the Prevent Child Abuse Utah web site states, “We don’t have to be Super Heroes to prevent child abuse.”  We just have to be aware, report suspected abuse, and support the programs that work 24/7 to keep our children safe.

The CPD salutes the undergraduates who introduced their work during Research Week. Here’s a look at what they’re doing:

Access to Education

Karen Hart, one of the students involved in the project, stands with her poster the the undergraduate research presentation.

A team of students from the Interdisciplinary Disability Awareness Class participated in a project to examine accessibility on the Utah State University campus. They looked for physical, technical and social barriers.

They worked with Utah State University to examine floor plans. They were encouraged to report their findings back so that they could help identify areas that needed improvement.

“We discovered that many existing accessibility features were not on floor plans, and some marked ‘accessible’ did not meet ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements,” the group reported. “We recommend that the project of mapping campus accessibility become a part of the IDASL class curriculum, making the surveying of campus buildings a service learning activity.”

Student team members included Bernadette Caldwell, Karen Hart and Jennifer Maughn, with Macedonia and Lupita Damian as consultants. They were mentored by Jeanie Peck and Alma Burgess of the CPD. The team collaborated with Disability Resource Center Director Diane Baum and used WebAIM’s WAVE tool in some of its evaluations.

Copy Number Variation of C4 Genes in Autism

Elizabeth Robertson was one of the students involved in the research.

Students from the Biomedical Laboratory at the CPD continued to work on research investigating autism and its possible link to genes involved in immunity. Their conclusion was that the causes of autism are many, and more study needs to be done.

Undergraduates Curtis Steinfeldt and Elizabeth Robertson worked with Michal Benson and Dr. Jonna Westover, and with Dr. Anthony Torres, their research mentor.

“The C4 protein component of the complement system is made up of the protein products of the C4A ad C4B genes, which play an important role in innate immunity.  An abnormal production level of C4A or C4B proteins can be attributed to deletion or duplication of C4 genes and is associated with several autoimmune diseases,” the team reported.  Past research out of the CPD’s biomedical laboratory suggested that people with severe autism had lower copy numbers of C4B genes, while C4A gene copy numbers were higher.

This current study did not find a similar correlation.

“ASD has many causing factors,” the researchers concluded. “This group does not seem to be affected by abnormal C4A or C4B gene copy numbers. Future studies of C4A and C4B genes in ASD subjects will need to be done in order to confirm the role of genetics and immune function in autism.”

The researchers used DNA from newborn blood spots in their studies. The samples were from people identified with autism spectrum disorder and from control subjects.

The research was done in cooperation with the UC Davis MIND Institute, the CPD and the Utah State University Biological Engineering Department.

Traumatic Brain Injury Training Module

Deborah Blanchard was one of the team that worked on TBI.

Students from the Interdisciplinary Disability Awareness and Service Learning class took on Traumatic Brain Injury, with the objective of updating information and training regarding TBI, then making it available to the public online.

They incorporated new information about veterans and athletes. Eventually this training will be converted into a pair of modules that can be accessed on the CPD website.

Among the facts the team reported:

TBI hospitalization charges in Utah totaled over $91 million in 2009.

 That same year, 2,395 Utahns sustained TBIs that resulted in hospitalization.

Another 471 Utahns died from a TBI.

The leading causes of hospitalizations included falls, motor vehicle traffic crashes and suicide attempts.

Students Katie Lovendale, Deborah Blanchard and Stefany Susanvas worked on this project. Their mentors were the CPD’s Jeannie Peck and Alma Burgess.

Toxoplasma gondii cyst formation in the female mouse brain

Lori Stettler

 Lori Stettler, a student who works at the CPD’s Biomedical Laboratory, was involved in a project at Johns Hopkins University involving parasites, mouse brains and schizophrenia. She worked on the research during an internship set up through Dr. Anthony Torres, who mentors her work at the CPD.

Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite known to cause birth defects in a fetus if a mother becomes infected during pregnancy.  Cats can be carriers of the parasite; humans can carry it, too.

 The researchers report the protozoan is also suspected to cause schizophrenia for these reasons: :  “1) individuals with schizophrenia have higher antibody titers to T. gondii than controls, 2) certain adult individuals with Toxoplasmosis have symptoms similar to schizophrenia, 3) Toxoplasma infections induce elevated levels of dopamine as commonly seen in schizophrenia, 4) individuals with schizophrenia have a higher exposure to cats (Toxoplasma host) as children than control subjects, 5) mice infected with Toxoplasma have a lessened fear response towards cats and therefore are more susceptible to being eaten by cats.”

The study involved three infected and three control female mice. Cysts formed in the brains of all three infected mice, and in none of the brains of the control mice. Microglia, or cells involved in an immune response in neural tissue, were also more prevalent around those cysts.

Acknowledgements for the research credit  Dr. Robert Yolken and members of The Stanley Division, the Mikhail Pletnikov Lab, Dr. Mikhail Pletnikov, Geetha Kannan, John Power, Dr. Jun Nomura and Chunxia Yang. The Stanley Medical Research Institution was recognized for providing funding;

This CPD Legacy Story was written by Deborah Blanchard, a participant in the Interdisciplinary Disability Awareness and Service Learning (IDASL) classroom for the 2011-2012 year.

My name is Deborah Blanchard and I have participated in the IDASL class this year. I am getting my Bachelors degree in Communicative Disorders and hope to get into graduate school to be an Speech Language Pathologist. I hope to work in an early intervention program or in a school district.

I have been able to learn so many things in the weekly IDASL seminars and also at the different sites where we do service learning hours. I was also fortunate to be involved in a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project that was focused on Traumatic Brain Injury and what affects it can have on people in their daily lives. 

I decided to take this class because in speech therapy you have to work with people that have a wide variety of disabilities and I wanted to be familiar with the different kinds of disabilities and understand a larger scope of what disabilities affect.  I have gained new perspectives on many issues,  such as accessibility and legislation that affects those with disability issues. I have felt more comfortable in approaching people with disabilities on a daily basis because my perspective has changed and I see the person first.

This class has changed how I am going to offer the best services to my future clients. I had never thought beyond the process of speech therapy for clients and did not realize that there would also be a need to use adaptive technology, or that accessibility might be an issue for the many unique people and learning levels that are out there. I have learned about the many different types of adaptive technology that will help in my future profession.

I will also be able to use this information on a personal level in my family as my parents’ age. This is by far the most practical and helpful class that I have ever taken.

For the third year in a row, the Center for Persons with Disabilities enjoyed the help of volunteers from Grand Valley State University, who came here as part of their alternative spring break.

This year, the group of nine students spent Wednesday cleaning and organizing at CReATE (Citizens Reutilizing Assistive Technology Equipment.)

When CReATE receives chairs it can’t use, parts that are usable are taken off so they can be used for other mobility devices.  The students organized these parts. You can read more about their work in the warehouse on the Utah Assistive Technology Program Blog.

They also helped out at the CPD’s  Disability Skills Laboratory–and we posted some fun pictures of that on the CPD Facebook Page.

They were the second group of midwesterners who spent their spring break with us. The first, from Minnesota’s St. Benedict and St. Johns colleges, came to us in early March. You can read about their visit in an earlier post–and check out some delightful photos from their bowling night with the Top Sports program–we put those on our Facebook page, too.