The Atlantic has an absorbing tale in the current issue about the first person ever diagnosed with autism. The man, now 77, is named Donald Gray Triplett and the story’s authors tracked him down in Mississippi where — 74 years after he was institutionalized for exhibiting introverted behavior — he spends his days playing golf, …
Autism
Using Videos to Help Diagnose Autism in Babies
The causes of autism are still unclear, but evidence is building that early intervention — before age 1 — may help mitigate or even prevent the developmental disorder from occurring in the first place. Making such early treatment more possible, researchers now report a promising new way of detecting autism in infants as young as 14 months.
Analyzing baby sounds to detect autism early?
A new technique that identifies early differences in vocal development between children with an autism spectrum disorder or language delay and those developing on a normal trajectory could give pediatricians and other caregivers a tool for earlier detection of autism, and as a result facilitate earlier intervention. To distinguish the
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Doctor behind vaccine-autism link loses license
It took nearly six months but the General Medical Council (GMC) in the U.K. has pulled Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s license to practice medicine in the United Kingdom.
Wakefield is the researcher who nearly single-handedly fueled parental concerns about the link between vaccines and autism. In 1998, he published a paper in the medical …
No benefit to delaying childhood vaccinations
In all the time I’ve covered health and medicine issues, nothing has been more polarizing than the debate over childhood immunizations. And while scientific evidence continues to mount against a causal connection between vaccines and developmental disorders such as autism, there was one concern voiced by some parents that seemed to …
Autism research: infertility treatment link, no benefit of special diet
Autism researchers from around the world are meeting this week in Philadelphia at the annual conference of the International Society for Autism Research, and have presented studies investigating everything from the impact of an autistic child on the strength of his or her parents’ marriage, to the merits of popular gluten-free,
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Parents of autistic children not more likely to break up
Though the oft-quoted statistic — that strain and stress contributes to an 80% divorce rate among parents of autistic children — has long had its critics, new research presented today at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Philadelphia more definitively undermines that figure with findings based on families of more than
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Raising awareness with bobbleheads and burger candles
In efforts to raise awareness — and money — for autism and malaria, a fast food chain and comedian and Major League Soccer (MLS) team owner have signed on for some unique promotional items.
Toward a more effective genetic test for autism
Expecting parents who have one child or other family members with an autism spectrum disorder often request genetic testing to determine their unborn child’s risk for autism. Currently, however, the most frequently used genetic tests—karyotyping, which examines a sample of cells for abnormalities and testing for Fragile X syndrome, a
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“Cuddle chemical” may help alleviate autism symptoms
Oxytocin, a hormone often referred to as the “cuddle chemical” for its role in helping to foster intimate relationships—particularly between mothers and their newborns—may help people with autism to read and react to social cues, according to the preliminary results of a small study published in the Proceedings of the National
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DSM-5: Hoarding, binge-eating and hypersexuality
Adding Asperger’s syndrome to the autism spectrum, eliminating the terms “substance abuse” and “dependence” in favor of “addiction and related disorders,” introducing the condition “hypersexual disorder” and introducing an assessment of mental illness based on severity are among the proposed changes for the new edition of the Diagnostic
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Children born to older mothers at higher risk for autism
Women who give birth after age 40 face a higher risk of having an autistic child, regardless of the father’s age, according to a comprehensive study of all births in the state of California in the 1990s. Researchers from the University of California, Davis, found that a woman who gave birth after age 40 was 50% more likely to have an
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Study linking vaccines to autism officially retracted
Twelve years ago, the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet published a study indicating a link between the mumps, measles and rubella vaccine (MMR) and autism. The finding validated the fears of a growing subculture suspicious of vaccines, and played a role in the significant decrease in vaccination rates—in the U.K., for
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