Autism Vox

May 9th, 2008

Nothing Like a Ferris Wheel

Despite the heavy rain and wind outside—serious weather for the serious tone of today’s posts—summer is coming and with it surf, sand, sun, ocean swimming, and rides (!!!!!). The ferris wheel is Charlie long-time favorite: Oobject lists 10 unboring ferris wheels and something tells me that Charlie would enjoy them all, from homemade to this […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 2 comments

March 19th, 2008

Fish in the Sea

A Difficult Youth Is A Good Thing for a Fisher——um, a fish, according to a study about the Bluehead Wrasse reported about in Science Daily back in February:
[Scientists] discovered that fish larvae that survive a long, rough, offshore journey eventually arrive at a near shore reef in good condition, and that they thrive afterwards.In contrast, […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 2 comments

March 16th, 2008

15-year-old and carer disappear in the ocean

Probably because of the unusually warm weather (around 60 degrees) we had on Saturday but I started to think about the beach and the ocean, which is Charlie’s natural element. We’ve been renting a beach house down at the Jersey shore almost every August of Charlie’s life and this summer promises to be no different. […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 9 comments

February 19th, 2008

Smells Like It Smells

Friends have told me about their kids having an overpowering need to smell things—-perhaps these Kool-Aid scented shoes from Reebok would have been just the right thing, over and over numerous sets of “smelly” markers and scratch ‘n’ sniff stickers. I wouldn’t say that my son Charlie is oversensitive to smells. There have been times […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 8 comments

February 2nd, 2008

Be Careful What You Listen To

In musicogenic epilepsy, seizures are trigged by music; Neurophilosophy writes about Stacey Gayle, whose seizures seem to have been trigged by hearing Sean Paul’s Temperature. Rock and roll—complete with high-volume drum beats and amped-up guitars and very loud singers—-does not seem to bother Charlie too much. But he definitely tells me “all done” and “turn […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 7 comments

February 1st, 2008

A Pill to Induce Autism?

A “group of German researchers” has announced that they have “perfected the method for inducing autism.”

??!!!?!?!???

They have also, it is parenthetically noted, figured out how to “cure” autism (this study on reversing symptoms of autism and Fragile X is cited). Cure being a fighting word in discussions about autism, I’ll note that this “autism-inducing drug” […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 16 comments