July 12th, 2008
Today’s Scientific American reviews the new study about autism genes in 88 Middle Eastern families and emphasizes that the genes found are “linked to a heightened risk of autism” and, too, that these genes are crucial to a child’s ability to learn.” Noting that marrying second and third, and even first, cousins is not […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 5 comments
July 3rd, 2008
19-year-old Erik Weber has graduated from Grossmont College with an associate’s degree and plans to attend Point Loma Nazarene University to get his bachelor’s degree, today’s Sign On San Diego reports. Weber was diagnosed with autism when he was 3 years old and was not really verbal until he was 8. His mother, Sandy Weber, […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 9 comments
June 29th, 2008
The Naturals are Maurice Snell, Terry Bracey, Dan Massey and Craig Christiansen, a Chicago-area band. Snell and Bracey are autistic; Massey and Christiansen teach music. Christiansen co-founded the Creative Exchange Music Therapy program, which teaches music to children of different abilities. (I need to find a program like this around here—we recently found out that […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 0 comments
June 22nd, 2008
Charlie and I started the week on the West Coast, visiting my family (and Charlie missing his dad so much he tried to walk back to New Jersey)—came back on a red eye Tuesday morning and he was back in school on Wednesday. Meanwhile:
The Regression Question
Do some children seem to be autistic from the […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 1 comment
June 16th, 2008
13-year-old Thomas Gonzales plays trumpet, trombone, baritone and flugelhorn and has accepted an offer to be a professional member of Mariachi Nuevo Ensueño in Azusa, California, the June 15th Whittier Daily News:
Michelle Lazar, founder of Coast Music Therapy, a San Diego-based agency for children with special needs, said that while the topic has yet to […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 14 comments
June 4th, 2008
The average mother of a child under 15 spends more on fast food per year than on books, music, movies, and video games combined, the June 2nd New York Times reports. Ok, ok, we’re in this demographic (keeping in mind that Charlie plays and wants zero video games).
Tags: asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, disabilities […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 12 comments
May 14th, 2008
My son Charlie does not simply like music. It’s simply an essential, and natural, mode that he expresses himself with and just something that he enjoys. He did music therapy when he was 2 1/2 years old and enjoyed hearing someone sing and play the piano to him and try to get him to play […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 8 comments
May 11th, 2008
Hope you got the perfect gift for Mother’s Day—-Margaret Lenahan has. Her 16-year-old son, James, was diagnosed with autism around the time that he turned two; today, he is a junior in the Ryken program for special needs students at Xaverian High School in Brooklyn, and a member of the varsity B basketball team for […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 9 comments
May 4th, 2008
It was a couple of months ago that my son Charlie started—for the first time in his life—to show sensitivity to sound by putting both hands over his ears. We’ve known autistic children and adults who’ve found the sound of merry-go-round music, clapping, sirens, and much more unbearable, but never (we thought) Charlie. And then […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 19 comments
April 26th, 2008
Mid-70s weather last week and Charlie’s still wearing his blue fleece jacket with the hood pulled far over his head, or his fleece vest with the zipper all the way zipped, or his fleece gloves (which, having survived several turns in the washing machine, are decidedly un-fleecy). He’s not been wanting to shed his winter […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 18 comments
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