The IAN Research Report: Elopement and Wandering, a project of the Kennedy Krieger Institute, reports that about half of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders between the ages of 4 and 10 years wander or run away from safe places (four times the rate of the same behavior in their unaffected siblings). More than a third [...]
The first scientific review of research on birth-related risk factors for autism has identified conditions that may contribute to the neurobiological disorder. Sixty different birth-related conditions were explored; the following thirteen conditions and complications were identified as having the strongest association with increased risk of autism: abnormal birth presentations (e.g., breech), umbilical-cord complications, fetal distress, [...]
CALIFORNIA CONTINUES TO ATTEMPT TO ENACT MEANINGFUL AUTISM INSURANCE REFORM LAWS. Twenty-seven states in the U.S. have enacted laws that require private insurance companies to cover evidence-based autism therapies, such as Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). In California, Senate Bill 166 and Assembly Bill 171 are in the works and would require health insurance companies to [...]
CHILDREN CONCEIVED IN DECEMBER THROUGH MARCH HAVE A GREATER RISK OF AUTISM. In a study of 7 million children born in California across a 12 year period, researchers from the UC Davis MIND institute found that children conceived in the winter through early spring months had a progressively greater risk of being diagnosed with autism [...]
Evidence-based Practices in Interventions and Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders Odom, Collet-Klingenberg, Rogers, and Hatton (2010) Clinicians and teachers working with children with autism spectrum disorders are required by insurance companies and regional centers to use evidence based practice (EBPs) in their treatments. Parents are looking for treatment centers that use only EBPs with their [...]
WOMEN WHO START PRENATAL VITAMINS EARLY ARE LESS LIKEY TO HAVE CHILDREN WITH AUTISM. A recent study by the UC Davis MIND Institute reported that women who did not take prenatal vitamins in the three months before their pregnancy and the first month of their pregnancy were twice as likely to have a child with [...]
Randomized, Controlled Trial of an intervention for Toddlers With Autism: The Early Start Denver Model (Dawson, G., Rogers, S., Munson, J., Smith, M., Winter, J., Greenson, J., Donaldson, A. and Varlet, J., 2010) In 1987, O. Ivar Lovaas studied the efficacy of an early behavioral intervention and demonstrated that early behavioral intervention could result in [...]
PECS Training May Increase the Production of Spoken Words in Children with Autism Deborah Carr and Janet Felce, two researchers in Wales, United Kingdom, recently published an article in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders describing an experiment they conducted. The experiment investigated the results of the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) training [...]
There have been questions about ABA’s effectiveness with children with Autism and mental retardation (MR). MR is measured by IQ and is categorized into ranges of mild, moderate, severe, and profound impairment. Approximately 70% of children with Autism also have a diagnosis of MR, although this statistic has been the source of some debate. There [...]
Daily Stress, Well-Being and Coping for Parents of Children with Autism (Pottie & Ingram, 2008) Few studies have attempted to understand how parents of children with Autism cope with the daily demands of raising a child with special needs. Pottie and Ingram state that the goal of this study was to identify the ways parents [...]
