Helen Hayes Hospital, located in West Haverstraw, NY and known for its specialty rehabilitation facilities, also provides various assistive technology services to their patients as well as individuals outside of its inpatient department with a doctor's prescription. These services include asses…

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Nearly half of siblings of children with autism have difficulties with attention, language, learning or mood, even when they do not have autism themselves, according to a study of 139 children from infancy to age 9. The study, published 9 October in Autism Research, suggests these siblings need extr…

A study of more than 2,500 families that have at least one child with autism has found three factors that influence autism symptoms in an unaffected sibling1. Children who have two or more siblings with autism tend to have more autism traits than those who have only one affected sibling, according t…

A new tool marries an unusually bright fluorescent protein to a light-sensitive pigment to illuminate individual neurons as they fire. The approach, described 19 November in Science Express, could shed light on neuron signaling abnormalities in autism1. Neurons send signals through the brain in mill…

By Debra Muzikar The holiday season can be stressful time. Routines are broken and expectations are high. While for some people, the homemade smell of a cooking Turkey and stuffing can be inviting, for others with sensitivities to smells the aroma can be nauseating! I don’t want to recreate th…

Although autism is a behavioral diagnosis, many children with the condition share a physical trait: obesity. For years, the link between autism and obesity was anecdotal. But over the past five years or so, researchers have begun to take a more objective look. A study published 2 November in Pediatr…

I was bullied by other kids, teachers and faculty, my own family at times and bosses and yet I couldn’t communicate what was happening until I was well out of my teens. By Christina MacNeal As someone who was an autistic teen and is now an autistic adult I want to share the problems of bullying that…

A chemical tag on DNA that has risen to prominence only in the past few years is altered in people with autism, suggest results from an autism mouse model. The tag, called 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC), is thought to turn genes on, mostly in the brain. The findings, published 30 September in Human…

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The rescue mentality, the resistance to innovation, and the self-serving “we know what’s best” is ultimately preventing people with disabilities from more individualized supports that could lead to more inclusive lives in our communities. By Dale DiLeo If you are unfamiliar with the term “ableism”,…

By Jack Gunthridge I grew up not knowing I was on the autism spectrum. I knew I was a little bit different than everybody else, but they were seen as quirks. I actually attributed it to being born in the late 70s and being exposed to a mixture of the Village People, Culture Club, and Ronald Reagan i…

At University Hospital Bonn in Germany over the span of two years, a video camera recorded 14 people with chronic epilepsy, each with 12 electrodes implanted in their brains, as they waited to have a seizure. The goal was to identify the source of the seizures and treat them with surgery. These peop…

Doing the same task over and over improves most people’s speed and efficiency, and helps them do it in a new context. But for people with autism, too much repetition can make it difficult to apply the learned skill to a new situation, suggests a study published 5 October in Nature Neuroscience1. “We…