More than 30 years ago, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed a landmark health bill aimed at motivating pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs for people whose rare diseases had been ignored. By the drugmakers’ calculations, the markets for such diseases weren’t big enough to bother with.…

How does it make you feel to know you are different from others? By Austin John Jones You ever feel like a black sheep in a flock of regular sheep? You ever feel like a zebra in a group of horses? You ever feel like you know you are the same as everyone else, but you just still feel different from e…

As a BCBA, I am often asked to address problematic behaviors. One of the most common errors I see in addressing such behaviors is that the adults working with the child have not identified the function (or purpose) of the problematic behavior. Decades of research have shown that there are only four …

An autism diagnosis is based on behavior. But identifying a brain signature for the condition could help support diagnosis and even provide an early biomarker of the condition. Knowing autism’s imprints in the brain may also shed light on biological mechanisms and point to targets for treatments. Th…

Autism and fragile X syndrome have distinct trajectories during childhood, according to a study that tracked children with the conditions for more than two years. In particular, children with autism show an increase in restricted interests in their preteen years that is not apparent in those with fr…

By Conner Cummings I am excited to be back and in a more pivotal role with Zoom Magazine, Zoom is expanding to allow even more autistic individuals the opportunity to contribute using your own creative expression. I have many ideas. I look forward to working with our new team to bring it into focus.…

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The post Spotted around the web: Week of 21 October 2019 appeared first on Spectrum | Autism Research News. Source: Spectrum News

As a person gets older, the likelihood that they’ll be involved in an accident in the home greatly increases. If the aging process is accompanied by some form of vision loss, the risk is even greater. In order for a person with visual impairment to live a safe and comfortable life, their home must b…

By Morénike Giwa Onaiwu It’s hard not to feel a sense of incredulous disbelief as I struggle to put together my words and thoughts for this article as one of several “powerful women” on the autism spectrum. There was a time in my life when I truly never believed that I would be viewed by anyone as e…

Another year of rapid growth and development at Autistry! We have grown so quickly that I only just realized it has been a year since the last newsletter. The silence is not from lack of cool news to report – more like lack of time to report it! New students – Fall semester 2019 we supported 20 stud…

The post Spotted around the web: Week of 9 September 2019 appeared first on Spectrum | Autism Research News. Source: Spectrum News

After a snowmobile accident four years ago, Jered Chinnock was left paralyzed from his torso down, unable to walk. He was prepared to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life but a new study between Mayo Clinic and UCLA is helping him get back to his feet again. After intense physical therapy, an…

Autistic people do not follow other people’s eye movements to focus their attention in the same way that non-autistic people do, a new eye-tracking study reports1. The work adds to a growing understanding of what drives social attention in people with autism. It also points to a potential biomarker …