By Robert Watkins Some would say I’m a fool. I’ve been successfully employed before. Heck, I held one job for twelve years! I also lost one job before the month was out. But I was a software engineer for twenty years, and good at it. Come on now: an Aspie software engineer? Of course you…

Bev Baker-Ajene waited so long to get an adult-sized wheelchair for her teenage daughter, Savitri, that she eventually forgot she’d ordered it. For the better part of a year, Baker-Ajene pushed Savitri — who has cerebral palsy, spastic quadriplegia and epilepsy — in a child-sized chair that was too …

The hormones oxytocin and vasopressin promote social interactions in male monkeys but make female monkeys more aggressive than usual. Researchers presented the unpublished findings today at the 2017 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Oxytocin and vasopressin play key roles i…

If you opened a sliding door and entered a space with soft blankets, pillows, multicolored lights, speakers and air conditioning, where do you think you would be? If you answered “my personal heaven”, we may consider that as the right answer but we are really talking about a little po…

An experimental leukemia drug and a chemical in black pepper ease breathing and movement problems in a mouse model of Rett syndrome, according to a new study1. Rett syndrome is a rare brain condition related to autism, caused by mutations in the MECP2 gene. Because the gene is located on the X chrom…

You like to categorize things into ‘it is’ or ‘it is not’. It helps you keep track of the world around you, but I have to tell you are going about it the wrong way. This is not a world of binaries. Certainly some binaries do exist, but this is largely a world of spectra- vibrant, living, breathing, …

Autistic children in the United Kingdom are increasingly being suspended or expelled from school because of ‘behavioral problems,’ official figures show. Some regions in the U.K. have seen a 100 percent increase in these types of exclusions since 2011. Research carried out by myself and …

Children who contract serious infections have an increased likelihood of being diagnosed with autism, a study of more than 1 million children suggests1. Many studies have explored the link between infection in a pregnant woman and autism in her child. The new study is among the first to examine the …

Autism is diagnosed more often in boys than in girls by at least a factor of four. Of the many hypotheses proposed to explain that gender difference, a biological one posits that testosterone exposure during gestation primes fetal brains to be more male-like. And some autism researchers have focused…

Did you know October 7th is National LED Light Day? To celebrate, today’s blog highlights 3 creative projects that use LED lights to help kids with visual impairments have more independence – and fun! Because LEDs emit very little heat, they can safely be incorporated into everyday ob…

For a time, Nikki Lower had all the help she needed. Although she often felt she “didn’t quite fit in” during high school, she worked hard and excelled academically. After graduation, Lower did some volunteer work, but the stress of that work, and some social difficulties, led her to a therapist, wh…

One of the most difficult tasks educators face is managing classroom behaviors and implementing effective behavior management systems.  There is nothing wrong with teachers applying positive reinforcement contingencies (such as implementing token boards, marble jars, or using teacher delivered …

You've heard of "high-functioning" autism, but it doesn't mean what you think it does.Source: The Autism Site

A new analysis challenges the idea that mutations in the sperm of older fathers account for higher rates of autism in their children1. Spontaneous, or ‘de novo,’ mutations are known to accumulate in sperm over time — leading some researchers to suggest that these mutations explain why men aged 50 or…