So, we start this week’s parenting column with a query – are the caregivers that help Corvallis’ autistic children, like physical therapists and behavioral specialists for instance, working cohesively together, or do they seem siloed within their specialties. According to new research from our favorite local research institution, the answer impacts outcomes more than folks realize.
Also this week, Oregon lawmakers seek to increase school bus safety and toughen the state’s child labor laws – and some local classes for kids and parents.
First, that New OSU Autism Study: Oregon State University researchers have highlighted the ways motor skills and cognitive skills develop in connection with each other in young children with autism, and found an opportunity for behavioral and physical therapists to work together to improve care.
“We know they’re highly linked, but we often talk about them in different domains,” said study co-author Megan MacDonald, head of the School of Exercise, Sport, and Health Science in OSU’s College of Health. “When we look at wraparound services and talk about academic, social, physical and cognitive services, there’s so much we could do together.”
When assessing, diagnosing and providing services for young children with autism, providers are often siloed from each other, MacDonald said. Occupational and physical therapists focus on fine and gross motor skills, while behavioral therapists focus on emotional regulation and executive function.
But in many situations, the two sides depend on each other, she said. Fine motor skills are closely linked to cognition, such as the combination of moves kids must remember and perform in the correct order to write their name. The gross motor skills used in a playground game of kickball work in tandem with the social and emotional skills used to interact with other students and work as a team.
To investigate these connections and their practical implications, the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, surveyed the families of 172 children with autism between the ages of 4 and 7. The parents answered detailed questionnaires about what they observed in their children’s motor skills and executive function.
In addition to connecting cognitive and physical development, the paper was unique in its comparison of autistic children in the U.S. and in Taiwan, to explore whether the results were the same despite differences in the everyday tasks set for children in Western versus Eastern cultures.
Researchers found a significant association between motor skills and executive function in both the areas of “working memory,” or how a child fared with multi-step activities, and “inhibition,” or how well a child followed directions. Fine motor skills were more strongly linked with cognition than gross motor skills. The findings were similar across both countries.
The study found that children develop the capacity for problem-solving through the interaction of their motor behavior, and through exploring and interacting with their environment. With this, researchers wrote, early motor skills seem to lay the foundation for later cognitive development among children.
This idea is supported by previous neurophysiological research findings that brain regions thought to be only involved in either cognitive or motor functions actually co-activate when people engage in certain cognitive and motor tasks.
The results have implications for early interventions with autistic children, MacDonald said.
“It’s really an opportunity to collaborate and work together,” she said. “Can the folks in kinesiology who know how to break down and teach motor development skills be involved in some of the early techniques for developing cognitive skills?”
The findings may also provide entry points for families, who spend far more time with their kids than the weekly appointments they might have with different therapists.
“We’re talking about the importance of play, functional and otherwise,” MacDonald said. “Really engaging with kids in opportunities where they can use their skills and we can also teach them how to do some of these skills.”
Co-authors on the study were Megan McClelland, Will Massey and Sam Logan at OSU and Ming-Chih Sung at the University of South Carolina – Upstate.
Classes
Childbirth Class at Samaritan: This course can be taken at any time, but it’s helpful to finish it a few weeks before baby’s arrival. This 4-week course helps expectant parents prepare for birth and early parenting. Parents can expect to learn about comfort measures for pregnancy, labor, birth, and the postpartum period. The overall goals of the course are to normalize the birth experience and increase parents’ confidence. It’s possible to perceive birth in a positive way, rise to the occasion, and adjust to whatever presents.
This course includes information about:
- Anatomy and physiology.
- The mind-body connection.
- Signs and stages of labor.
- Patterns associated with normal and more complicated labor.
- Medicated and non-medicated comfort measures.
- Baby positioning strategies.
- Medical interventions associated with complications.
- Strategies for informed decision-making.
- Care of the birthing parent and infant during the first hours, days, and weeks postpartum.
- Hospital procedures related to infant care.
- Breastfeeding.
- Behavior of the infant as it relates to feeding, calming, and sleeping.
- Car seat safety.
- Jaundice, SIDS, ‘purple crying,’ and Post Partum Depression.
Parents will be given information on local resources, books, videos, and websites.
Classes are at the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, Tuesdays, 6:00-8:30 pm, March 5, 12, 19, 26, 2024. This class can be taken online or in person. Registration is required, and detailed location information will be provided for registration.
Cost: $110* per pregnant person (partner included). If you have Oregon Health Plan insurance (IHN or Pacific Source), Your plan will cover this class at no cost to you. Contact the Corvallis Maternity Coordinator at 541-768-6908 for details.
To register contact Pollywog at 541-917-4884 or pollywogfamily.org.
Prenatal Yoga: This is a time to move and breathe, build strength and endurance, relax, and release in preparation for the journey of birth. Here, you are surrounded by love and positivity. Please come as you are from where you are.
This class happens every Thursday 6:00-7:00 pm at Monarch on 4th, 520 NW 4th St, Corvallis.
Cost: $5. Registration is not required; drop-ins welcome.
For more information, contact Kat via the contact us form at http://yogamama.ppcbrands.com.
Momma and Little One Yoga: A class designed to enhance your bond with your infant while regaining abdominal strength and easing the physical strains associated with being a new mom. Here you will meet other new moms, play with your little one, and move your body in a relaxed, light-hearted atmosphere. Throughout class, you are free to feed/nurse, soothe, and be the mother that you are.
This class happens every Thursday 4:30 – 5:30pm at Monarch on 4th, 520 NW 4th St, Corvallis.
Cost: $7. Registration is not required; drop-ins welcome.
For more information, contact Kat via the contact us form at http://yogamama.ppcbrands.com.
News from the State Capitol
School Bus Traffic Cams: A bill that resulted from a student coming within seconds of being struck by an aggressive driver is one step closer to becoming law in Oregon.
A high school student, Sean Sype, saw and reported the incident, prompting Rep. Courtney Neron, D-Wilsonville, to introduce House Bill 4147, which would allow school districts to add cameras to school buses to catch and ticket drivers who break state law by blowing past the stop signs and flashing red lights on buses, endangering students’ lives. The measure passed the House on a bipartisan 49-5 vote last Monday and is headed to the Senate.
Sype, a junior at Wilsonville High School, described his experience in written testimony submitted to the House Education Committee.
“I am passionate about this bill passing because on October 15, 2021, I witnessed an aggressive driver speed past the bus stop-arm while one of my peers was exiting the bus,” he said. “If that student had been crossing the road, he would have possibly been killed. It is important that drivers who ignore the law are held accountable.”
At least 24 states, including Idaho and Washington, have laws allowing such cameras, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The National Transportation Safety Board recommended every state allow the cameras after a pickup truck driver struck four children, killing three of them, in Indiana in 2018.
Neron cited a 2023 report from the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services, a school bus driver organization, that surveys drivers throughout the country each year. Oregon bus drivers documented 1,427 incidents of drivers illegally passing them on just one day, and throughout the country bus drivers reported more than 62,000 violations in a single day.
Failing to stop for a stopped bus with flashing red lights is already the highest level of traffic violation, punishable by a fine up to $2,000. The bill would allow districts to partner with local law enforcement to send tickets to drivers caught on camera breaking the law.
The bill doesn’t include funding for school districts to add cameras or for local police to review footage and send tickets. Rep. Boomer Wright, R-Coos Bay, supported the measure but said the lack of funding bothered him.
“When we propose a bill that costs school districts and police departments money, maybe we ought to fund it,” Wright said.
Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, was one of only five lawmakers to vote against the measure, and he said he voted “no” for consistency. He has long opposed photo radar programs because he doesn’t trust that data gathered by the cameras when they’re not actively taking pictures of lawbreakers will remain secure.
New Child Labor Laws: In 2020, a Ford dealership located in a suburb of Portland settled with the U.S. Department of Labor for nearly $28,000 over reported violations of federal child labor law.
Federal investigators had learned that six workers, ages 16 and 17, were performing prohibited tasks as lot attendants at Landmark Ford in Tigard, including operating trash compactors. One teen was injured when he was thrown backwards into a tailgate while riding in the bed of a pickup truck.
State investigators with Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries scrutinized the dealership and levied a penalty for the company’s failure to obtain a required certificate to employ minors. But unlike federal investigators, the state bureau didn’t investigate any of the safety violations or issue fines for them. Because of the federal penalties, the state wouldn’t have been able to keep any of the money from a fine issued to the dealership. (The dealership did not respond to a voicemail from InvestigateWest seeking comment.)
The case is an example of a longstanding quirk in Oregon law that requires the agency to refund child labor penalties if an employer also faces federal penalties for the same violations. The restriction doesn’t apply to any other type of labor investigation besides child labor.
As a result, dozens of times over the last two decades, the bureau has declined to investigate employers who were also under federal investigation for child labor, state labor officials said.
They are now asking lawmakers to turn them loose. In testimony before the state Legislature’s House Business and Labor Committee in January, Labor Commissioner Christina Stephenson said the status quo gives bad actors a competitive edge and can in effect make the state a comparably attractive place to break the law.
“You might even come over to Oregon to do your violations if Oregon’s the one where you get half off on your penalties for child labor violations,” she said.
Oregon lawmakers may change that in this year’s legislative session. House Bill 4004, passed unanimously by the Oregon House on Feb. 14, would empower the labor bureau to both pursue and retain penalties that employers pay for child labor violations, even in cases when federal labor officials are also involved. The bill is now in the Senate.
Rep. Travis E. Nelson, D-Northeast Portland, said the proposed change “just makes sense.”
“Oregon should be able to fully and independently enforce our child labor laws,” he said.
‘Long overdue’ changes
The mandate to refund employers’ child labor penalties when they’ve also paid federal ones has been in place since the late ’90s, though neither lawmakers nor labor officials can say why. The bureau’s request to change the law now comes amid greater national attention on child labor issues.
In her presentation to lawmakers, Stephenson cited what she described as “an explosion” of children being employed in dangerous, prohibited lines of work across the nation, as revealed in news coverage by the New York Times.
“It’s disproportionately migrant children and kids of color,” she said.
Oregon Labor Commissioner Christina Stephenson said refunding child labor penalties to employers could invite more bad actors. (Courtesy of Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries)
The Portland office of the U.S. Department of Labor and the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries communicate frequently about reports of illegal child labor in the state.
In the last year alone, the state labor bureau referred 24 of the most serious cases of child labor to federal investigators, those involving reports of hazardous occupations and injuries, said Josh Nasbe, legislative director for the bureau.
Because it would have to refund employers for child labor violations, the labor bureau just doesn’t investigate when federal officials are involved. When they do investigate, it’s typically for less serious violations, such as employers failing to secure or update the certificate needed to employ minors, said Laura van Enckevort, administrator of the labor bureau’s wage and hour division.
In some of those instances, the agency may not levy penalties at all. About a quarter of cases in 2023 were resolved through a compliance agreement with the employer, which sets out the path to correct the violations.
If a business continues to violate the law after being penalized, the labor bureau may also rescind its certificate to employ minors, van Enckevort said.
Other states, such as California, have increased the penalties that employers can face for violating child labor law. But in Oregon, the maximum penalty hasn’t changed since 1981.
Nelson described his shock to learn that severe injury or death of a child doing prohibited work can only cost the employer up to $1,000. He introduced an amendment to the bill that would also raise the maximum penalty employers can face for egregious violations, including those that result in a child’s injury or death, to $10,000.
“These are kids that we are talking about,” he said. “I think that an increase is long overdue.”
Claim backlogs
The Bureau of Labor and Industries’ child labor unit currently consists of a single employee, leaving little capacity to take on a large influx of cases.
Its pursuit of greater enforcement capability on child labor comes as the agency deals with persistent backlogs in wage and civil rights claims and oversight of apprenticeship programs. The agency is requesting budget adjustments from lawmakers to help address some of those backlogs, but no new funding is included for child labor enforcement.
The agency won’t be adding staff, but van Enckevort said the change in the law would allow the department to conduct investigations more efficiently, because its actions wouldn’t hinge on what the federal Labor Department does. By keeping penalties, the agency can also recover the cost of its investigations. After the bureau is reimbursed, any additional funds would go to the Common School Fund, from which all of Oregon’s school districts receive money.
“If we’re pursuing an employer who is really egregious and violating the most serious child labor laws and holding them accountable, it’s going to have a ripple effect through all industries that employ minors,” van Enckevort said. “While I don’t think we’ll take every single case, I think there will still be some communication and balance between the two agencies on enforcement.”
The bill sailed through the House Business and Labor Committee and the full House with unanimous votes on Feb.12 and 14. The only representative to critique the bill voted for it anyway.
“Sometimes I think we just pass stuff that really is not something that’s necessarily needed, because we don’t necessarily have a problem,” said Rep. Virgle Osborne, R-Roseburg. “I just feel like this is one of those bills.”
The bill must move out of a Senate committee by Feb. 29 to stay alive.
Labor bureau officials said taking a more active role on child labor is important for it to uphold its mission to protect workers.
“The fundamental question the bill is asking is: Who should bear the cost of these investigations?” Nasbe said. “Should Oregon taxpayers bear the cost, or should the employer who has been adjudicated to have violated the child labor laws bear these costs? And we think that’s a very easy answer.”
By Advocate Staff. Outside contributors include Julia Shumway of Oregon Capital Chronicle for School Bus Cams, Child Labor by Kaylee Tornay of InvestigateWest, and Molly Rosbach of Oregon State University for Autism Research.
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