Mental health among autistic individuals is an underdeveloped area of research—a situation that many autistic people are advocating to change. This is especially crucial since rates of depression and thoughts of suicide are higher among autistic people than in the general population. Read more ›
Sarah Greichen came up with the idea for Score A Friend at age 13 when she wanted her twin brother, who has an autism spectrum disorder, to have the same opportunities she enjoyed as a teenager in school. She began a mission to ensure her brother – and students of all abilities – could build friendships and experience authentic inclusion at school and in communities. Read more ›
Ask someone who has a child diagnosed with autism about wait times for lining up services, and they measure in months. The backup is only expected to build as the number of children on the autism spectrum balloons. Vanderbilt is now trying out a stopgap to squeeze in more kids — telemedicine. Read more ›
There are numerous examples of people with learning disabilities and mental health disorders doing extraordinary things: the child on the autism spectrum who is masterful at putting together incredibly intricate Lego creations, the young person with Asperger’s syndrome who knows more about presidential history than most adults, the child with dyslexia who is a master chef in the kitchen.
This is not a coincidence, according to a book that could help turn the stigma associated with these challenges on its head.
Dr. Dennis P. Wall of the Wall Lab at Stanford University discusses current autism-related research projects (such as Autism and the Microbiome) and novel wearable technology that helps children recognize emotions. Read more ›
Does your child with autism have trouble making friends? Are social interactions anxiety-provoking and unpredictable? Speech and Language Pathologist Hilda Man, MS, CCC-SLP offers practical strategies to support the development of social skills in your child with autism. Read more ›
About 1 in 59 eight -year-old children in 11 communities across the United States were identified as having autism in 2014, according the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Surveillance Summary published in April 2018.
The data in this report come from CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network – a tracking system that provides estimates of the prevalence and characteristics of autism spectrum disorder among more than 300,000 8-year-old children. ADDM is the largest population-based program to monitor autism and the only autism tracking system that examines health and education records. Read more ›
Interventions shown to be highly effective in treating symptoms of autism are already limited, but the options shrink even further in the presence of anxiety comorbidities, particularly obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
Research has been focused not only on identifying a specific anxiety disorder in children and adolescents with autism, but also in distinguishing between the symptoms of each disorder and how to treat each disorder. Read more ›
Did you know that sensory integration therapy improves daily function in children with autism? Learn more about this therapy and how it can benefit your autistic child. Presented by Vibha Pathak, OTD, OTR/L. Read more ›
There are 13 categories that guide how disability is defined under the federal special education law known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). In order to be eligible for special education and related services as a “child with a disability,” a child’s educational performance must be adversely affected due to the disability. Read more ›
