Children with autism tend to mix up personal pronouns, referring to others as ‘I’ and to themselves as ‘you.’ Some studies suggest this pronoun switching reflects a fuzzy distinction between self and others. Another possibility is that these children misuse pronouns because they have a poor grasp of…

“It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a child with autism to raise the consciousness of the village” - Coach Elaine Hall. By Keri Bowers and Debra Muzikar As part of the Art of Autism California Road Trip in May, The Art of Autism honored people who are unsung heroes in California. As…

Help students who are struggling with interpreting social situations, reading facial expressions, noticing body language, and understanding idioms and other metaphorical forms of speech with these great social skills games and cards sets. This week, you can also save 15% on any of these games by usi…

“Well, hello folks! Welcome to The Friendship Game, the only game show where everyone’s a winner because everyone gets a friend!” Navigating the social world is challenging for everyone and making friends is one of the most socially complicated. Some people have the natural ability to network, make …

A new tool allows researchers to identify thousands of genome errors in dozens of people at once, a huge boost in efficiency from previous methods1. The technique is a variation on so-called ChIP-Seq, which detects segments of DNA that serve as landing strips for proteins that control gene expressio…

Apple is well known for its accessibility features in all its products. Are you interested in knowing what accessibility features are available in Apple products? Apple.com/accessibility lists accessibility features  for various categories like vision, hearing, physical & motor skills,…

"My sign name is Ciaran because I laugh a lot."Ciaran O'Brien is a 15 year old deaf boy who always has a smile on his face. Ciaran is also big into acting, and pays attention to character development - how his character might walk, behave, and move. Through sign language, amazing facial expressions …

The anxiety and trouble with social skills seen in people with autism stem largely from neurons outside the brain that govern touch, suggests a mouse study published today in Cell1. Mice lacking the autism-linked gene MeCP2 in only these touch neurons develop anxiety and social deficits later in lif…

Token economies are commonly used in many environments. They’re typically simple to implement and achieve desired results for behavior change. Furthermore, there are tons of research on how to best use them. If you want to get the best results while simultaneously promoting independence in your lear…

How did one mom create a successful buddy program and lasting friendships for her autistic son? When it comes to parenting a child on the autism spectrum, don’t you wish that there was a book with all the answers? A roadmap to helping them grow and thrive? Each autistic child is unique and there ar…

Over the past five years, researchers have become increasingly aware of an extraordinary coincidence: Many of the cellular pathways involved in cancer overlap with those implicated in conditions associated with brain development, such as autism. Intrigued by this connection, autism researcher Janine…

The post Antidepressant test; federally funded flop; budget boost appeared first on Spectrum. Source: Spectrum News

By Keri Bowers and Debra Muzikar As part of the Art of Autism California Road Trip in May, The Art of Autism honored people who are unsung heroes in California. As we traveled up and down the state we had the opportunity to stop at people’s homes and their businesses. This is the second of a t…

When scientists discover candidate genes for autism, they look for a compelling biological story — something that might explain how or why the gene is involved in the condition. In constructing this narrative, they’ve noted that some of the dozens of genes linked to autism are not independent actors…