Phony Autism specialist sentenced to 3 years in prison

This woman gives BCBAs a bad name.


Link: http://www.theautismnews.com/2010/10/29/phony-autism-specialist-sentenced-to-three-years-in-prison/



Phony Autism specialist sentenced to three years
in prison
October 29th, 2010

English

Stacy Lore, who was convicted and sentenced for falsifying her credentials to work with autistic children.

The Autism News

By Jeff Morganteen | Stamford Advocate

STAMFORD — The New York woman who used forged credentials to fleece more than $150,000 from families with autistic children and the Norwalk school system was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday morning.

Stacy Lore, 34, formerly of Carmel, N.Y., was given an eight-year prison sentence that will be suspended after she serves three years, followed by five years of probation. She is accused of posing as a board certified behavior analyst and told Norwalk school officials she had two master’s degrees and a doctorate so she could work for the public school district as a consultant on autism treatment services.

Victims of her scams said they paid her tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for what they though was specialized treatment for their autistic children. One such parent, Kim Graham, said she uncovered the fraud after moving her high-functioning son to another specialist who had real-life qualifications and effective therapies. She became suspicious and checked the online registry for the Behavior Analyst Certification Board. She could not find certification records for Lore. It took months for school and police officials to act, she said.

Using her forged credentials and a company named Spectrum Kids, Lore billed the Norwalk school system $155,000 for services to children with autism between 2007 and 2008, records show. Families of the special-needs children whom Lore treated without any qualifications spoke out in court in the moments before Judge Richard Comerford handed down the sentence.

All of them urged the court to punish Lore with the maximum amount of prison time allowable, arguing her lack of qualifications with autism treatment stunted the development of their children. They called her a monster, liar and manipulator and said she bought a black Mercedes with the money she made by posing as an autism treatment specialist.

Margaret Bustell, of Norwalk, told the court she confronted Lore when she realized the scope of her fraud. At the time, Lore defended herself and showed her falsified credentials and advanced degrees from New York University.

In reality, she only had a 1993 high school equivalency diploma from New York state.

“They were real children with real problems, and we needed real solutions,” Bustell said, choking up at points while reading her statement to the court.

Defense attorney William Pelletreau, of Norwalk, said Lore made no excuses for her crimes and urged the court to accept the recommended sentence of a three-year suspended prison term, saying it was a case that “screams for” psychiatric treatment.

Before handing down the prison sentence, Comerford expressed doubts that Lore was remorseful for her crimes. He also cast blame at those responsible for allowing Lore to pose as a certified behavior analyst for so long.

“There are more people responsible for this than are in this courtroom today,” Comerford said.

Bustell said families of the children affected by Lore’s fraud plan to sue the Norwalk school district. Attorney Greg Kimmel is representing four families in a civil action against Lore and the city of Norwalk that he plans to file in the next few weeks.

Lore has been charged by Weston authorities on similar accusations and is also the subject of an investigation in New Fairfield, prosecutors said Thursday.

Source: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Phony-autism-specialist-sentenced-to-three-years-734681.php

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Posted by The Autism News

Writing a book

I am on Twitter and follow many in the Autism community. There has been a lot of buzz around a new book that came out by a new author; a Mom of 3 daughters with Autism. Her name is Kim Stagliano and she wrote "All That I Can Handle: I'm No Mother Teresa." It even has a foreword by Jenny McCarthy. This is big time, people. I have not read it but I am going to pick it up. From the excerpts I've read, it sounds hilarious.

Here is a link to her website:
http://www.kimstagliano.com/book.html

She has inspired me to write a book, telling our story. How many Moms go into the field of the disorder that their child is diagnosed with? And how many of them go to an advanced level in that field, whether it is holding a designation or a medical degree. Maybe somebody will want to hear our story and be inspired by my little man.

Turning a corner

Saturday was a terrible day; I'm not gonna lie. I sat at the park after Joey's game and fought back tears. I was ready to sell my furniture, pack what I could into a U-Haul, give the house back to bank and just go to WA. 5 months down of living apart and I feel spent. I'm lonely....I miss my husband terribly....more than I have ever missed a man in my life. I'm exhausted...from the sheer fact that I am everything to Joey, besides being a grad student and an ABA therapist. I'm just so tired.

But then we started a new week and life has seemed to improve. Yesterday, cuddled up watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, I told Joey that it was time to go to religion class. He said "ok," without a moment of hesitation. This morning, he told me he didn't want to go to school today, only "baseball school." A normal parent would get upset with that but I looked at it as triumph. He wanted to go play ball with his friends! Success!! When I picked Joey up from school today, his teacher came up to me and said that he had the best day so far of the school year. He stayed on task and completed all of his assignments on time.

He truly amazes me all the time. This is what I need to remind myself when I am so tired. This is what keeps me going.

The Big "6"

When is an allowance a good idea?

Grieving the loss of your child with Autism over and over again

Lego Club

I've got the green light to start a Lego Club through the clinic I work at. I'm so glad this article was published:) I've been wanting to start one for a while.

http://www.theautismnews.com/2010/09/16/lego-club-helps-autistic-kids-build-social-skills-friendships-block-by-block/

Club helps autistic kids build social skills, friendships block by block

September 16th, 2010

English

Zachary Mathis, 9, constructs a Lego fortress to guard a treasure chest full of Lego rubies while playing with one of his favorite obsessions: Legos.

The Autism News

By Cece Nunn | StarNews Online

On a Friday evening a few weeks ago, six children shared the contents of a blue suitcase filled with LEGO blocks, LEGO people and LEGO animals. The children sat around a conference table in an office on 17th Street and created colorful plastic worlds, including an elaborate fortress and a beach filled with LEGO sunbathers.

By the end of the session, several of the builders, including Drew Matt, 8, were giggling as they chased each other around the conference room.

Invented by a Danish carpenter in the 1940s, plastic LEGO toys are helping children who have been diagnosed with autism, like Drew, build social connections. That’s how the Building Blocks LEGO Club of Wilmington was born last year, when a University of North Carolina Wilmington student working with an autistic 8-year-old noticed how much the boy loved playing with LEGOs.

“He is obsessed with LEGOs,” said Jennifer Mathis, mother of Zachary Mathis. Zachary, whose bedroom is decorated in classic red and blue LEGO colors, is celebrating his 9th birthday today with a LEGO-themed party.

Brian Hartigan, a member of the Psi Chi psychology honor society at UNCW, was the student who worked with Zachary as his personal developmental assistant through Easter Seals United Cerebral Palsy. Because Hartigan had to leave Wilmington this year, the club is now being coordinated by Daryn Blanc-Goldhammer, a first-year graduate student studying psychology at UNCW, and other volunteers.

The club is open to all children ages 5 and up, although younger siblings are allowed to come, and the group meets twice a month at the office of A Caring Heart Case Management Inc., 2541 S. 17th St. Meeting dates are listed on the club’s website at https://sites.google.com/site/bblegoclub/. Parents are required to stay at the meetings, and the next session is scheduled for 5 p.m. Sept. 24.

“When all these kids get together, you don’t know who has what or who is labeled anything because they all sort of act the same in that situation,” Blanc-Goldhammer said.

Playing with LEGOs is an activity many children with autism, a general term used to describe a complex group of developmental brain disorders, enjoy because they like being able to use their hands and their strong visual memories, said Janette Wellman, a psychologist and clinical director at the Wilmington ­TEACCH Center. TEACCH stands for Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication-Handicapped Children.

With LEGOS, “there’s no real competition. There’s no scoring like in a game that you might be playing,” Wellman said. “You’re setting up an environment that has the potential for fostering friendships.”

As the number of children diagnosed with autism and autism-related disorders increases, parents and doctors are searching for ways to halt or reverse the disease’s progression. LEGO therapy has been used at the Center for Neurological and Neurodevelopmental Health in New Jersey to help children with autism and other developmental disorders learn how to interact with one another and peers who are considered to be developing normally.

“One study comparing children who received LEGO therapy to similar children who received non-LEGO social interaction therapy over three years found the LEGO group improved significantly more on scales rating social skills than the control group,” according to a 2009 article on the website of Neurology Now, an American Academy of Neurology publication.

The article described early intervention efforts in the treatment of autism spectrum disorders. Jennifer Mathis said early intervention and LEGOs have had beneficial effects on Zachary, who talked openly recently about the fortress he was building to protect LEGO jewels on the LEGO table in his room.

“I like the building, the creativity,” Zachary said, while playing with a LEGO person with a shark’s head. The shark/man was identified later as Viktor Krum, a LEGO Minifigure based on a Harry Potter character. All Zachary wants for his birthday is the LEGO version of Hogwarts Castle, the fictional school where boy wizard Harry Potter’s greatest adventures take place.

“It’s the only thing on my list,” said Zachary, who as a LEGO BrickMaster is signed up to receive LEGO BrickMaster Magazine and six LEGO models in the mail.

The variety of LEGO toys, if not their tendency to get stuck in vacuum cleaners, appeals to Zachary’s mother. When Zachary had to do a school project related to civil rights activist Rosa Parks, he found a Rosa Parks LEGO Minifigure to help.

“Just imagine whatever you want and LEGO has done it,” Mathis said. “I just wish the pieces weren’t so little.”

The Building Blocks LEGO Club of Wilmington helped Zachary adjust when he switched schools, from Eaton Elementary School to Cape Fear Center for Inquiry. Several of his classmates from CFCI attended the club meetings.

The choice to move to a different school was based on giving Zachary a chance to socialize with children who don’t have autism, Jennifer Mathis said.

“He ended up having friends that he had made on his own,” she said.

Source: http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20100915/ARTICLES/100919777/-1/sports03?Title=LEGO-Club-helps-autistic-kids-build-social-skills-friendships-block-by-block