Feature Channels: Autism

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

An interdisciplinary team of mechanical engineers and autism experts at Vanderbilt University have developed an adaptive robotic system and used it to demonstrate that humanoid robots can be powerful tools for enhancing the basic social learning skills of children with autism.

• share
• favorite_border

Children who are later diagnosed with autism have subtle but measurable differences in attention as early as 7 months of age, finds a study published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Results indicate a precursor to “sticky attention” problems seen in children with autism

• share
• favorite_border

A new study finds that Infants at 7 months of age who go on to develop autism are slower to reorient their gaze and attention from one object to another when compared to 7-month-olds who do not develop autism, and this behavioral pattern is in part explained by atypical brain circuits.

• share
• favorite_border

Autism results from abnormal cell communication. Testing a new theory, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have used a newly discovered function of an old drug to restore cell communications in a mouse model of autism, reversing symptoms of the devastating disorder.

• share
• favorite_border

Study by Kennedy Krieger’s Center for Autism and Related Disorders reveals key predictors of speech gains.

• share
• favorite_border

Combining hospital MRIs with the mathematical tool known as network analysis, a group of researchers at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley have mapped the three-dimensional global connections within the brains of seven adults who have genetic malformations that leave them without the corpus callosum, which connects the left and right sides of the brain.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a genetic mutation that may underlie common behaviors seen in some people with autism, such as difficulty communicating and resistance to change.

• share
• favorite_border

In a study that included approximately 85,000 Norwegian children, maternal use of supplemental folic acid from 4 weeks before to 8 weeks after the start of pregnancy was associated with a lower risk of autistic disorder in children, according to a study appearing in the February 13 issue of JAMA.

• share
• favorite_border

Autism spectrum disorders affect nearly 1 in 88 children, with symptoms ranging from mild personality traits to severe intellectual disability and seizures. New work to examine which genes are responsible for autism disorders will be presented at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society (BPS), held Feb. 2-6, 2013, in Philadelphia, Pa.

• share
• favorite_border

Maternal inflammation during early pregnancy may be related to an increased risk of autism in children, according to new findings supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. Researchers found this in children of mothers with elevated C-reactive protein (CRP), a well-established marker of systemic inflammation.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Utah (the U) researchers, in collaboration with several groups from around the country, published a paper on Monday, Jan. 14, 2013, following one of the biggest studies of its kind, that extends our understanding of genes related to autism spectrum diseases (ASDs) and advances methods for early detection and treatment.

• share
• favorite_border

Genetics researchers have identified 25 copy number variations (CNVs) that occur in some patients with autism. While individually rare, these CNVs are “high impact,” strongly increasing a person's autism risk.

• share
• favorite_border

A new finding in neuroscience for the first time points to a developmental mechanism linking the disease-causing mutation in an autism-related disorder, Timothy syndrome, and observed defects in brain wiring, according to a study led by scientist Ricardo Dolmetsch and published online yesterday in Nature Neuroscience. These findings may be at the heart of the mechanisms underlying intellectual disability and many other brain disorders.

• share
• favorite_border

Institute for Autism Research summerMax Program is Highly Effective for Children with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (HFASDs).

• share
• favorite_border

Study by Kennedy Krieger’s Interactive Autism Network finds children with autism and psychiatric comorbidities are at especially high risk of being bullied.

• share
• favorite_border

The MySocius app uses naturalistic teaching methods to help children with autism communicate more effectively. One in 88 children is now on autism spectrum.

• share
• favorite_border

Research out of the George Washington University, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals another piece of the puzzle in a genetic developmental disorder that causes behavioral diseases such as autism.

• share
• favorite_border

Autistic-like behaviors can be partially remedied by normalizing excessive levels of protein synthesis in the brain, a team of researchers has found in a study of laboratory mice. The findings provide a pathway to the creation of pharmaceuticals aimed at treating autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that are associated with diminished social interaction skills, impaired communication ability, and repetitive behaviors.

• share
• favorite_border

An international team, led by researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has discovered that “random” mutations in the genome are not quite so random after all. Their study, to be published in the journal Cell on December 21, shows that the DNA sequence in some regions of the human genome is quite volatile and can mutate ten times more frequently than the rest of the genome.

• share
• favorite_border

As investigators begin to piece together a profile of Connecticut school massacre gunman Adam Lanza, much is being speculated about his possible Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis. But to suggest a tie between autism and violent, sociopathic tendencies is to undermine the large body of research and progress that’s been made in understanding the disorder, says autism expert and Executive Director of the Kinney Center for Autism Education and Support at Saint Joseph’s University Michelle Rowe, Ph.D.

• share
• favorite_border

A groundbreaking study on young adults with autism, led by Washington University in St. Louis researcher Paul Shattuck, has been chosen as one of the “Top Ten Autism Research Advances of 2012” by the advocacy organization Autism Speaks.

• share
• favorite_border

Autism sequencing consortium discovers six new drug targets through large-scale studies.

• share
• favorite_border

In a study of 58 communities in four New Jersey counties, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevalence is found to have risen from 10.6 per thousand in 2002, to 17.4 per thousand in 2006.

• share
• favorite_border

Psychologists study clues that provide a point of measurement for psychologists interested in language comprehension of toddlers and young children with autism, as demonstrated in a new video-article published in JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments).

• share
• favorite_border

A newly published study found prevalence of autism among U.S. children is inversely correlated with solar UVB doses, the primary source of vitamin D. Maternal vitamin D deficiency or vitamin D deficiency in early life could explain this finding.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Utah researchers use SketchUp in workshops for kids with ASD. They found new communication doors opened between the kids and their grandparents when they participated in the technology-based program.

• share
• favorite_border

Kennedy Krieger expert advises parents on how to plan ahead.

• share
• favorite_border

Kennedy Krieger researchers find families with private insurance more likely to use emergency department for urgent mental health care.

• share
• favorite_border

Reduced production of myelin, a type of protective nerve fiber that is lost in diseases like multiple sclerosis, may also play a role in the development of mental illness, according to researchers at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at McGill University and the University of Montreal uncover a crucial link between protein synthesis and autism spectrum disorder.

• share
• favorite_border

It’s a popularly held belief that individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) gravitate toward STEM majors in college. A new study, co-authored by Paul Shattuck of the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, confirms that yet finds this group also have one of the lowest overall college enrollment rates.

• share
• favorite_border

Although schizophrenia is highly genetic in origin, the genes involved in the disorder have been difficult to identify. In the past few years, researchers have implicated several genes, but it is unclear how they act to produce the disorder. A new study by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center identifies affected gene networks and provides insight into the molecular causes of the disease. The paper was published today in the online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study of eight child prodigies suggests a possible link between these children’s special skills and autism.

• share
• favorite_border

The Chicago region’s first comprehensive center serving patients from childhood into young adulthood with autism spectrum disorders has been established at Rush University Medical Center.

• share
• favorite_border

Kennedy Krieger researchers find a preclinical phase in children with autism that is not easily detected. Published in the journal Child Development, the study found that early in development, children who display early signs of ASD show greater initial delay across multiple aspects of development compared to children whose ASD symptoms emerge later.

• share
• favorite_border

An autism intervention program that emphasizes social interactions and is designed for children as young as 12 months has been found to improve cognitive skills and brain responses to faces, considered a building block for social skills. The researchers say that the study, which was completed at the University of Washington, is the first to demonstrate that an intensive behavioral intervention can change brain function in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders.

• share
• favorite_border

Study provides the first evidence suggesting that the empathy deficits in patients with brain damage to the anterior insular cortex are surprisingly similar to the empathy deficits found in several psychiatric diseases, including autism spectrum disorders, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, and conduct disorders, suggesting potentially common neural deficits in those psychiatric populations.

• share
• favorite_border

The new surveys — conducted on behalf of UJA-Federation by the Autism Science Foundation and the Interactive Autism Network — aim to help service providers expand programs that support all those affected by autism.

• share
• favorite_border

Study by Kennedy Krieger’s Interactive Autism Network finds children with autism are four times more likely to wander than their unaffected siblings.

• share
• favorite_border

A promising study out today in the prestigious Journal of Neurosciences showed that in a mouse model of Rett syndrome, researchers were able to reverse abnormalities in brain activity and improve neurological function by treating the animals with an FDA-approved anesthesia drug, ketamine.

• share
• favorite_border

Parents should not worry that proposed changes to the medical criteria redefining a diagnosis of autism will leave their children excluded and deemed ineligible for psychiatric and medical care, says a team of researchers led by psychologists at Weill Cornell Medical College.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers in Georgia Tech’s Center for Behavior Imaging have developed two new technological tools that automatically measure relevant behaviors of children, and promise to have significant impact on the understanding of behavioral disorders such as autism.

• share
• favorite_border

Vanderbilt University researchers are reporting today that there is insufficient evidence to support the use of medical interventions in adolescents and young adults with autism. Despite studies that show that many adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorders are being prescribed medications, there is almost no evidence to show whether these medications are helpful in this population, the researchers said.

• share
• favorite_border

Neuroscientists at New York University have devised a method that has reduced several afflictions associated with Fragile X syndrome (FXS) in laboratory mice. Their findings offer new possibilities for addressing FXS, the leading inherited cause of autism and intellectual disability.

• share
• favorite_border

Autistic adults have unreliable neural sensory responses to visual, auditory, and touch stimuli. This poor response reliability, the study’s authors conclude, appears to be a fundamental neural characteristic of autism.

• share
• favorite_border

In children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), a common gene mutation has been found to impact the network of connections between different areas of the brain involved in social behavior, such as recognizing the emotions shown on people’s faces.

• share
• favorite_border

A national study conducted from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) found a 62 percent increase in the number of Medicaid-enrolled children ages 3 to 18 taking antipsychotics, reaching a total of 354,000 children by 2007. Increased antipsychotic use was observed across a wide range of mental health diagnoses, and was particularly high for children with ADHD or conduct disorder, although the FDA has not approved the drugs to treat these conditions in children.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study suggests an estimated 46.3 percent of adolescents with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were the victims of bullying, according to a report published this week in the American Medical Association’s Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The study originated at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and is part of a pioneering program of research on adolescents and adults with autism led by Paul T. Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor. Lead author Paul Sterzing, PhD, assistant professor at the School of Social Welfare of the University of California, Berkeley, completed this study while he was a student at the Brown School.

• share
• favorite_border

An international team of researchers, led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego and Yale University schools of medicine, have identified a form of autism with epilepsy that may potentially be treatable with a common nutritional supplement.