Enjoying this blog? Check out the rest of the Health & Wellness Channel 
Tracking eye movements has been described as a new way to detect autism in infants; researchers have also found that, when autistic children look at faces with animated expressions, they tend to focus on the eyes and mouth. A study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry has found that determining whether a toddler focuses […]
Vaccination rates for children in the UK are still not at a high enough rate to offer maximum protection against infectious diseases such as the measles and mumps, today’s Telegraph reports. According to the NHS, 85% of children have received the MMR shot this year, the same rate as last year:
experts warn that to achieve […]
Kamila and Henry Markram of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne have developed a theory that autism is caused by a “supercharged” brain, today’s Telegraph reports. The Markrams posit that autistic individuals—far from earlier notions that they were without emotions and the capacity to feel—-”‘perceive, feel and remember too much’” and very intensely:
Faced […]
An article in the September 10th New England Journal of Medicine entitled Recurrent Rearrangements of Chromosome 1q21.1 and Variable Pediatric Phenotypes describes the associations between a microdeletion at 1q21.1 and impairments including mental retardation associated with microcephaly, cardiac abnormalities, or cataracts. A microdeletion at 16p11.2 is associated with susceptibility to mental retardation or autism and […]
Body ownership is the feeling that your body belongs to you and is there constantly; vision, and other sensory signals, contribute to it. A sense of body ownership is often disrupted, the September 2nd Science Daily notes, in “a range of different neurological, psychiatric and psychological conditions, such as after a stroke, in autism, epilepsy, […]
As of this Wednesday, the fall semester is underway at my college and I’m explaining how to pronounce v as w in Latin to one class, and leading another in reciting and writing the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet. I’m teaching early in the morning thanks to Charlie being in middle school, which starts […]
Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia are studying how to use 3-D imaging to analyze the facial structures and brain abnormalities of autistic children, in the hopes of developing a formula to identify autism in young children. From a press release:
“When you compare the faces and head shapes of children with specific types of autism […]
As a parent, when I see the phrase “nature-nurture,” I get a bit stuck on the “nurture” word, as any suggestion that we didn’t provide the right emotional, social, and so forth “environment” for Charlie and did not provide enough “nurture” can lead a parent to think of the discredited “refrigerator mother” theory of autism. […]
Charlie often looks out of the corners of his eyes and looks in the distance when someone’s talking to him. Over time, I’ve learned that this does not mean that he’s not paying attention or listening, and a new study suggests that passive, observational learning imprints itself on the brain just like active learning. Always […]
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 […]
Autism mother gets on her soapbox.
Written by Kristina Chew, PhD [email] for b5media.
A Dozen Steps
A Hearty Life
Alzheimer's Notes
Autism Vox
Breaking the Mirror
Breastfeeding 1-2-3
Diabetes Notes
Eating Fabulous
Genetics & Health
Grounded Fitness
Health and Men
Healthbolt
Help My Hurt
Kids Health Notes
Lively Women
Mental Health Notes
Pink Ribbon Review
Veggie Chic
Weighting Line
Womb Within
Recent Comments