Autism runs in families to a much greater degree than previously thought, according to new research that has tracked the younger siblings of children with the developmental disorder.
Family MattersAutism
Autism
Family MattersAutism
The Healthland Podcast: Customizing Your Baby, Masturbation, and the Vaccine Wars
Welcome back! This week we debate the ethics of a blood test that can reveal your baby’s sex at just seven weeks of pregnancy. Also: a big new study on how masturbation affects sexual development. Finally, science editor Jeffrey …
Family MattersParenting
Should Pediatricians ‘Fire’ Patients Whose Parents Don’t Vaccinate?
Recently, my 4-year-old got poked five times, and vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella, diptheria, tetanus and pertussis — among other nasties — coursed into her loudly protesting body. Within hours, she’d spiked a …
Video: Ballet’s Emphasis on Repetition Helps Autistic Kids
This week, TIME Video features the dance program Ballet for All Kids, which was created for children on the autism spectrum. “A lot of these kids with autism, they’re trying to communicate something and they have all this stuff …
Study: Siblings of Autistic Kids Show Similar Brain Activity
The genetic roots of autism may reach further in families than previously thought, according to new research.
Family MattersPregnancy
What Does Bottle-Feeding Have to Do With Autism Risk?
As if there weren’t already enough tension between bottle-feeding and breast-feeding moms, now a researcher at the State University of New York at Albany is courting controversy by suggesting that bottle-feeding is associated …
The Healthland Podcast: The Casey Craze, Autism and Tween TV
This week we debate why America has gone precisely nuts over the Casey Anthony verdict. Also, we talk about new findings on the causes of autism. And we try to figure out how TV shapes tween values. Click the play button to …
Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy Linked to Higher Risk of Autism
Children whose mothers use antidepressants during pregnancy may be more likely to develop autism than kids whose mothers do not, say researchers in California.
Study: Environmental Factors May Be Just as Important as Genes in Autism
Autism is undeniably influenced by genes, but a new study suggests that environmental factors may also contribute significantly — more than researchers previously thought — to the developmental disorder. In fact, …
Could Amanda Knox Have an Autism Spectrum Disorder?
Amanda Knox, the 23-year-old American college student who was convicted of sexually assaulting and killing her roommate, Meredith Kercher, in Italy in 2007, allegedly after an orgy gone wrong, got good news this week. Independent …
A Controversial Autism Therapy Unravels a Family
Some unproven psychological therapies and techniques for autism aren’t simply ineffective. They can split families and cause untold harm to children, as one family in Michigan learned at terrible cost.
Studies: New Clues to the Genetic Roots of Autism
Random changes in genes, rather than changes handed down from parents, may be responsible for some cases of autism, say scientists who report in three new papers a major breakthrough in understanding where those genetic changes may lie.
Dropping the ‘Disorder’ from PTSD. What Do Psychiatric Labels Mean?
What’s wrong with me? The question of where to draw the line between normal and abnormal and how to label our mental differences has become more vexing than ever. It’s an issue that fuels the continuing debates over Americans’ …