Pressure. The pressure to succeed. The pressure to fit in. The pressure to be normal. Pressure leads to anxiety. Anxiety and autism and Aspergers Syndrome often go hand in hand. I know because I am autistic. Knowing that I am not ‘typical’ often fills me with dread and overwhelming anxious thoughts.…

Mutations in a gene called POGZ lead to a constellation of traits, such as vision problems, hyperactivity and a small head, according to a study of 25 people with mutations in the gene1. All of the individuals have developmental delay and more than half have autism. The findings stem from an interna…

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Suggestions on participation in theater productions By Parasuram Ramamoorthi, Ph.D. Drama therapy can benefit autistic children and adults. Drama helps the individual to realize his/her potential through acting out roles and engaging in creative play. Behavioral issues such as hand flapping, rockin…

Some opportunities The Art of Autism has come across for autistic people and their families. The National Autism Association Give A Voice Program is giving away free IPADS to non-verbal autistic people. They have a limited amount of funding and each application will be reviewed for financial need. T…

by Debra Muzikar Editor’s Note: Normal People Scare Me Too is available for purchase on NormalFilms website. It was released this week. We will be screening this film on the Art of Autism’s California Road Trip in May. James Jagow’s created the musical score for the trailer. It&#…

When you head to the emergency room (ER), you almost expect stress — the long waits, the hubbub of other people and the endless, seemingly discombobulated stream of doctors and nurses. But for those with autism, a neurological condition that affects communication and can make people sensitive to sti…

Many of the genes implicated in autism are unusually long — a feature that leaves them susceptible to breaking during cell division, a new study finds1. These genes may be ‘hot spots’ for mutations that crop up in patches of the brain. The study identified 27 fragile regions in the DNA of cultured p…

By Ron Sandison Stephen Mark Shore said, “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.” Every person who has autism is unique in his or her own ways. When I was eight years old I was diagnosed with autism. The educational specialists and doctors warned my parents that I w…

Much of what scientists know about the neurobiology of social behavior in autism comes from studies of rats and mice that carry autism-linked mutations. But the advent of easy and reliable gene-editing methods has brought a surge of interest in creating monkey models with these mutations. Marmosets,…

10 May 2016: Heading to Baltimore ‘Charm City’s’ historic inner harbor is the scenic backdrop to this year’s International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR). On Wednesday, some 1,800 autism researchers and clinicians are expected to descend upon the Baltimore Convention Center in Maryland to prese…

Did you see the interview Mark Zuckerberg of facebook did with one of his accessibility engineers a couple of weeks ago where they talked about "Auto alt text"?Matt King, an accessibility engineer with Facebook who also happens to be blind (and an accomplished athlete and musician), has been working…

Toilet training can be easier! Toilet Training for Individuals with Autism by Maria Wheeler, MEd, and Toilet Training Success by Frank Cicero, PhD, BCBA, offer toilet training tips and strategies for parents and professionals to implement into their programs using the methods and principles of Appli…

By Yadira V. Calderon I am often extremely concerned with the statistics of children with special needs that experience abuse at a higher rate compared to their non-disabled peers. But stats lack purpose and reality for me, and I rarely find them meaningful or interesting. As a parent of a child wit…