Autism-Articles

Most parents look forward to the end of August because it is back to school time. Back to school time for parents with children who have special needs can be a mixed blessing. Transitions and change are difficult for all children, but particularly children with autism. Here are some tips for parents to help make back to school time more pleasant for you and your child with autism. Begin getting into the school routine early. Make a picture schedule of the morning routine and start following it. Start getting up a little bit earlier each day and going to bed earlier at night. This will make thing easier instead of waiting until the night before school starts and saying, "School is tomorrow. You need to go to bed at 8:00" when your child has been staying up until 10:00. Think twice before purchasing new school clothes. In my experience children with autism do not generally like the feeling of new clothes. To send a child to school with all new scratchy clot...

It is clear that the autistic population is increasing exponentially in various forms ranging from Asperger's Syndrome through to profound classical autism. What is not clear is why. Recent studies on the brain function of autistic people have given new clues and insight into this remarkable diagnosis and the people who bear it. RESEARCH ON THE AUTISTIC BRAIN: Science is beginning to uncover specific gene variations, which appear to be related to -- if not responsible for -- the incidence of autism, or the risk of it manifesting in any person (this is not new and there is plenty of research on this topic) Brain scans reveal that children with the "gene variant" appear to have more nerve cell connections in the frontal lobe, but fewer between this area and the rest of the brain, according to Science Translational Medicine Similarly, studies conducted at the University of California in LA used functional magnetic resonance imaging to establish that c...

A new study by Dr Keely Cheslack-Postava, of Columbia University, New York, has shown that women who become pregnant again within a year of giving birth could be putting their next child at an increased risk of Autism. Such babies are three more times likely to have the developmental disorder according to researchers, who state that women's bodies need time to recover from a pregnancy, with the result that children conceived too quickly after childbirth are more likely to be deprived of vital nutrients. Based on a study of 600,000 California families, the results help prove that closely spaced pregnancies can be dangerous. British doctors, however state there is no reason to panic and stressed that the chances of any baby developing autism is very remote. But they have also advised mothers to leave a gap of at least a year in between having a baby and getting pregnant again. Published in the respected medical journal Pediatrics, the study looked at the inci...