Now available on the EBU website, an interactive map of Europe  allowing you to see at a glance where your country stands on the key issue of a binding WIPO "books for blind people" treaty.

Back in February, EU Commissioner Barnier promised the European Parliament that he would ask EU Member States for a mandate to negotiate and agree such a treaty. EBU has asked EU governments for their position on a binding WIPO treaty.

The interactive map displays their responses as received to date. Now is the time to influence their decision, ahead of the fast-approaching Copyright Negotiating Committee "SCCR" which starts in Geneva this July 16th. 

Please follow the link above enabling you to contact the WIPO representative in your country to urge them to support the proposed treaty. The more pressure we can put on the decision makers, the more likely they are to agree to a treaty.

Please publicise and disseminate this map as widely as possible and encourage a maximum amount of people to respond. We count on your support to move this issue forward, and this map is a great way of calling your WIPO representatives to account!

Researchers at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have initiated a study designed to explore the predictive value of neuroimaging for reading intervention with early elementary students.

Principal Investigator Dr. John Gabrieli is the director of the Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center at the McGovern Institute in addition to holding a faculty appointment at MIT. Dr. Gabrieli says of the study, "This is an exciting opportunity to deliver intensive reading instruction to children at the young ages when such instruction is thought to be most beneficial, and to use the neuroimaging to better understand which children most benefit from this instruction."

The Summer Time Adventures in Reading and Teaching project will include selection of beginning readers at-risk for reading difficulties. The students will receive six weeks of intensive instruction using the Seeing Stars® program to improve their reading skills. Seeing Stars is designed to stimulate symbol imagery and to develop reading skills including phonemic awareness, word recognition, and fluency.

Participating students will receive fMRI brain scans to measure brain activity, in addition to completing standardized measures of reading, before and after instruction. The intervention will be provided by Lindamood-Bell® staff and will be closely monitored by MIT investigators.

Investigations using brain scans and their relation to reading will potentially help to predict which students may develop reading difficulties and which interventions can help develop and increase brain function and reading performance.

From the Front Line : Disabled children's needs are 'invisible' - The real needs of thousands of disabled children are invisible to UK statutory providers. 

Newlife Foundation for Disabled Children has exposed a catalogue of failures in the provision of essential equipment for disabled and terminally ill children. The report, published this week, is based on the submissions of more than 4,300 professionals.

'From The Front Line' records responses of professionals who have supported applications to Newlife's Equipment Grant Scheme, which provides pain-relieving beds, wheelchairs, safety seating, communication and therapy aids for children.

Newlife found that 77 per cent of those professionals – including physiotherapists and occupational therapists - had not approached local statutory services first. The charity believes professionals are doing what is best for children and so they do not turn to local services first because they believed there was no point.

Newlife is calling on government, local authorities and health providers to ensure unmet need for equipment is better measured in the future.

Read more here.