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Healing Scores

Friday, April 10 2009 | Send to a friend

Healing Scores

Jesus Rios

The number of children with autism has risen dramatically in recent years. Angelina Rios has eight children; five of them have autism.

The diagnoses began with her third child, Jesus. She was devastated, but the diagnosis did help explain his behavior—Jesus had verbally withdrawn, become insensitive to pain, and would have inconsolable fits. After Jesus was diagnosed, Angelina started looking at her other children and wondering if autism might explain the behavior of Juan, Justo, Angel and Angelina.

Juan Rios

Caring for the children is a full-time job, but in the last couple of years, the Rios family has come up with an inventive kind of therapy—using music from movie soundtracks. Angelina joins Dick Gordon to talk about the improvements in her kids since she first got the idea to play them music from Star Wars.

• See a photo of the Rios family
• Hear some of the music that has helped the Rios children

"#1 Team from the US"

Dennis Streets

The NCAA men's basketball championship has been decided, to the delight of UNC fans.

Dennis Streets knows firsthand what it's like to be on the court when the stakes are high. In 1974, he traveled with other college students to Leningrad in what was then the Soviet Union. They thought they'd have a friendly exhibition game of basketball with their Soviet hosts. Instead, they found themselves being introduced as the number one team from the U.S. and playing against former Olympians.

Dennis in 1974

Dennis tells Dick why the mismatch was a game to remember.