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“When he wants juice, hold the cup in front of him and say ‘joo’ and he will try to say something like that and keep on doing it, and then when he can say ‘joo’ and he wants the juice, hold the cup and say, ‘juice’ and he will try to say it and then […]
Researchers at Rutgers University in Newark are studying how our visual system interprets the intent of subtle physical movements. Today’s PhysOrg quotes the leader of the research, Dr. Maggie Shiffrar, professor of psychology:
Almost all people possess some autistic tendencies, explains Shiffrar, but her research shows that those with the fewest autistic tendencies “are best at […]
The brain seeks patterns even when none exist, according to an October 3rd Scientific American podcast:
When we feel like we don’t have command of our own fate, our brains often invent patterns that offer a sense of self-control. Some folks knock on wood or step over cracks in the sidewalk. Scientists call this illusory pattern […]
Yes, I do think that the hypothetical “vaccine-autism” link distracts us from the key issues of education, services, and understanding about autism. Nonetheless, vaccines were the topic of some of last week’s top posts:
Musings on Camp and Independence
Should I be sending Charlie to camp?
The Dangers of DIY Doctoring
Doctors and patients at odds, and […]
This week my summer school class on Psychology and Literature read Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. On Thursday morning the students had a quiz in which they had to “diagnose” Christopher, the novel’s main character, with autism or Asperger Syndrome, based on the DSM criteria. We also talked about […]
Writer Ann Bauer’s adult son is autistic and, in an article in today’s Washington Post, she writes about the question that are always just under the surface of my conscious thoughts:
What happens to Charlie after Jim and I are not here?
Bauer, the author of the novel A World Ride Up the Cupboards, has described a […]
Some aspects of autism do run in families, according to a new study about how parents of autistic children process facial expressions. As noted in today’s Science Daily, neuroscientist Ralph Adolphs of the California Institute of Technology and psychiatrist Joe Piven at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studied 42 parents of autistic […]
I’ve started teaching summer school, in a special program for local high school students and a course on translating Virgil’s Eclogues. The Eclogues are pastoral poems about shepherds and poetry and…….ok, that’s a bit too far from the usual discussion on this blog. The other class is on Psychology and Literature and, as of today, […]
The earlier part of this year saw the publication of a number of studies about the genetics of autism, with one scientist speculating about a unified theory of autism.
The July 2008 Nature Genetics has a review of psychiatric genetics that considers progress and controversy. Here is the abstract:
Several psychiatric disorders — such as bipolar disorder, […]
Dr. Keith Shafritz, an assistant professor of psychology at Hofstra University, is using a form of functional magnetic imaging to study why autistic children engage in repetitive behavior such as hand-flapping, rocking, and lining up objects. From today’s Newsday:
In children with autism, Shafritz found deficits in specific regions of the cerebral cortex, the outer […]
Autism mother gets on her soapbox.
Written by Kristina Chew, PhD [email] for b5media.
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