Brightening the lives of people with autism.

Medical News Today November 2009

A small US study involving toddlers diagnosed with autism, some as as young as 18 months old, showed that intensive early intervention delivered by trained specialists and parents was very effective and improved IQ, social interaction and language ability.

The five year study was based at the University of Washington (UW) Seattle and was led by Dr Geraldine Dawson, who used to be professor of psychology and director of UW's Autism Center, and is now chief science officer of Autism Speaks, an awareness, fundraising, science, and advocacy organization. A paper on the study was published online in the journal Pediatrics on 30 November.

Medical News Today

UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute Study Shows California's Autism Increase Not Due to Better Counting, Diagnosis

January 7, 2009 (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A study by researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute has found that the seven- to eight-fold increase in the number children born in California with autism since 1990 cannot be explained by either changes in how the condition is diagnosed or counted — and the trend shows no sign of abating.

Published in the January 2009 issue of the journal Epidemiology, results from the study also suggest that research should shift from genetics to the host of chemicals and infectious microbes in the environment that are likely at the root of changes in the neurodevelopment of California’s children. “It’s time to start looking for the environmental culprits responsible for the remarkable increase in the rate of autism in California,” said UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of environmental and occupational health and epidemiology and an internationally respected autism researcher.

By Ellen Notbohm

1.  Behavior is communication.  All behavior occurs for a reason.  It
tells you, even when my words can't, how I perceive what is happening around
me.  Negative behavior interferes with my learning process.  But merely
interrupting these behaviors is not enough; teach me to exchange these
behaviors with proper alternatives so that real learning can flow.
      Start by believing this:  I truly do want to learn to interact
appropriately. No child wants  the negative feedback we get from "bad"
behavior. Negative behavior usually means I am overwhelmed by disordered
sensory systems, cannot communicate my wants or needs or don't understand
what is expected of me.  Look beyond the behavior to find the source of my
resistance.  Keep notes as to what happened immediately before the behavior:
people involved, time of day, activities, settings.  Over time, a pattern
may emerge.

Wired

By Amy Wallace

November 2009

Photo: Andrew Zuckerman

To hear his enemies talk, you might think Paul Offit is the most hated man in America. A pediatrician in Philadelphia, he is the coinventor of a rotavirus vaccine that could save tens of thousands of lives every year. Yet environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slams Offit as a “biostitute” who whores for the pharmaceutical industry. Actor Jim Carrey calls him a profiteer and distills the doctor’s attitude toward childhood vaccination down to this chilling mantra: “Grab ‘em and stab ‘em.” Recently, Carrey and his girlfriend, Jenny McCarthy, went on CNN’s Larry King Live and singled out Offit’s vaccine, RotaTeq, as one of many unnecessary vaccines, all administered, they said, for just one reason: “Greed.”

New York Times
 
 
Daniel Tammet

PERCEPTIONS The drawings of Daniel Tammet, above, who wrote the 2007 book “Born on a Blue Day,” about living with autism, show how he visualizes some numbers.