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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 1978)
FAB cleans out bank books of student organizations By Paula Dittrick, Bank accounts turned cartwheels during a Fees Allocation Board meeting Friday afternoon when board members allocated themselves more than $2,000 before giving $200 to Nebraska University Public Inter est Research Group. FAB also promised to act on the organi zation's request for an additional $2,165 at FAB Feb. 3 meeting. Board members unanimously voted to recall all unspent student fees from student organizations with a year-end balance of more than $50. The recall left organizations with no student fees funding at the fiscal year's end and boosted the contingency fund balance to about $6,500. FAB chairman Nate Eckloff told mem bers that Vice Chancellor of Student Af fairs Richard Armstrong supported the re call of excess funds. All campus organizations "are eligible to come to the contingency and receive money if they need it," Eckloff explained. The largest amounts recalled included $1,627 from the Student Bar Association and $423 from the Graduate Student Association. In other action, the board allocated $200 from the contingency fund to re lieve NUPIRG's $125 debt to Gateway Bank. NUPIRG Student Director Don Macke. asked for $2,365 from the contingency fund. He said the money was needed to support the organization's operations through May. NUPIRG received no student fee fund ing for the past fiscal year, Macke said. He told board members that NUPIRG "is not social in nature, but uses a lot of money to meet basic office expenses." He said his organization conducts re search and assists students in a number of problems which he claimed should make NUPIRG eligible for fees support. NUPIRG has been categorized with special interest or athletic groups, Macke said, and should be reclassified. Macke said his organization serves the majority of students and proposed associa tion with ASUN." He said that he had not discussed this idea with ASUN executives but added that a legislative body like ASUN could use a research branch. FAB member Jane Motzke said ASUN has some $1,000 left in a miscellaneous student service account and suggested Macke inquire about it. idaikj monday, january 23, 1973 vol.101 no. 62 lincoln, nebraska Behavior modification changing mystery and silence of autism Don Macke said he preferred not to ask ASUN for this money. He said any excess funds ASUN should be used for the legal services program., Macke said that although "we've (NU PIRG) been used to working with nothing, we can't do that any longer." He mention ed a $125 overdrawn bank account and told board members that some $2000 in grants is pending until March. Until Friday NUPIRG money came fror federal grants, private contributions and the Lincoln Action Program. Most NUPIRG money comes from the Lincoln Action Program, Macke said. He asked the board to allocate funds before NUPIRG becomes obligated to an off campus source and off-campus problems. He said the Lincoln: Action Program grants were geared to.ward programs dealing with the low income and the elderly. NUPIRG operations include five divi sions: an agricultural division, a consumer division, a legislative division, a local division and an environmental division. The environmental division is sponsor ing an energy seminar on the UNL campus scheduled for Feb. 14 and 15. Macke said he has . been unsuccessful finding funds to finance the proposed seminar. Most of the needed money will pay for promotion, he said. Stan, 3, sits in the middle of the room and spins in circles. Jack, 5, bangs his head on the wall and tears at his little-boy curls. Theresa, 8, turns her hand over and over, staring at it as if it were a new toy. These children are a mystery to their parents and physicians. Although fic ticious, Stan, Jack and Teresa illustrate the symptoms of a disturbance with no known cause, cure or sure-fire treatment. These children are autistic. An -estimated two in every 1,000 children are bom autistic, according to Kathy Scholl, clinical supervisor and instructor at the University of Nebraska speech and hearing clinic. Besides being withdrawn and uninteres ted in life around them, they have some trouble communicating, she said. With the behavior modification therapy now used to train autistic children, only one in every four treated have hopes of leading normal lives, Scholl said. The rest lose their autistic label after childhood and are labeled as emotionally disturbed adults. Sign language, is a new addition to the regular speech training, has been successful with some autistic children, Scholl said. She said the combination is called "total communication" and teaches children to say a word as they sign it. One child at the clinic increased his vocabulary from zero to 300 words, including two-and three-word phrases using signing, Scholl said. "But there's no one wonder cure for every child," she pointed out. Although autistic children are behind normal children in motor and social skills as well as in speech, Scholl said they can't be labeled retarded. She cited the textbook example of the five-year-old who had never made an intelligible sound until the day he counted to fifteen, receited the alphabet and several nursery rhymes. Although these cases are rare, autistic children can be taught to dress themselves, 1 eat, and perform other motor activities normally, she said. Lynnette Green, a student in a day care laboratory last semester, said an autistic child she worked with could run, laugh and liked to be hugged, just like a normal child. "But it was terribly frustrating (working with him)," she 'said. "You could never tell if he really recognized you or just came to you accidentally." Green said she dreaded working with John (not his real name), but she soon learned he was special. "Other kids would get mad at him because he would dump blocks all over or cry," Green said. "They'd say, Teacher, teacher, look what John's doing. . . They don't understand why he does the things he does. . John just lives in his own separ ate, private world." In their own world, children do not respond to their parents, are not affection ate and do not develop normal speech, Scholl said. That autistic label is used sparingly, Scholl said. Many children come under the heading of "autistic tendencies" instead, she said. According to Scholl, research on autism is growing. The trend now is toward the theory of a physiological cause of the emotional disturbance, but she said there are other theories too. For now, however, autistic children still are mysteries, three-fourths of which will never be solved. inside I Artist is tip against the wall at work: Muralist Mar! Rogovin will beat UNL until Fed. 25 ..page 9 Pop container bill is bottled up in committee: Action is delayed on returnable container legisla tion pace 7 Weather whether or not: Icy winds whip students in mid-winter cold wave.- Michael Nikuncn col umn page 4 Fa v Ik v v ' i " m ran-1 m irr7jry .,. . ., : tjyiiiit - --tarn r ( J ' "''""" '"" ' 1 1 "x: 'A.::";y.' tMw& ' .7 'v' hi)"vW i " L! ) 1 J '' it- ' " j 1 i -J 1 If JtV -r.i-nif! irniMiTiTiiTTrnVriT iwi i im um finr-wwiitumn i HiHi ii i atigiJiMM m Photo by Tim Ford About 500 men, women and children walked in near-zero degree weather from 10th and P streets to the Capitol in protest of the 1973 .Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion. See story on page 2. Photo by Ti Kirk Scottsbluff Regent Robert Simmons Simmons draws criticsn Scottsbluff Regent Robert Simmons has drawn criticism from Omaha Sen. Glenn Goodrich after his appeal to the Nebraska Legislature for the NU Board of Regents defeat of his proposal to abolish UNO football.' Simmons sent a letter Jan. 12 to senators in the sixth district accusing "a few people in Omaha" of withholding educational funds "to perpetuate the tradition of that institution (the former University of -Omaha) that no longer exists," according to an Omaha World Herald news story. Simmons sent the letter after the regents killed his proposal at the Jan. 7 meeting. Goodrich replied to Simmons letter, calling Simmons anti-Omaha. "It is you (Simmons) who sustains division in the N.U. system . . . when that division has long since been repair ed," Goodrich said in the letter. In his letter to western senators, Simmons said that UNO receives at least $300300 in taxes each year for football, but hinted the amount could be as high as $500300. . Goodrich, a member of the legis lature's Appropriations Committee, dis agreed, saying that the UNO football program receives $ 1 93 JX)0. Only $60,700 comes from state tax dollars, he said. Simmons said a "complicated cost accounting' would be needed to deter mine the actual cost of the UNO pro gram, A cost report is being prepared by UNO officials, according to UNO Athletic Director Don Leahy.