The autspot

Autism Rate Now 1 in 100, Federal Government Says

In a conference call, the government just confirmed that 1 in 100 American children has an autistic spectrum diagnosis. They're still saying they don't know why, or whether the increase is real. And HHS Secretary Sebelius showed where the government is still going wrong by talking about "more research in the genes underlying autism." The rest was bureaucratic blah-blah-blah. -- Dan Olmsted

8-year-olds with autism up 50% in 2 years

Hi everyone. Autism research was really in the news today. Here's one of the major articles! Bottom line: the CDC and NIH are beginning to understand what we already knew. Autism is a major public health crisis and our communities and leaders are going to have to think long and hard about how we can help. http://autismdaybyday.blogspot.com/

Girls not fully accounted for in autism statistics

Super interesting article. I have copied and pasted the Link if you want to continue reading the article. In 2001, an experiment was done on 100 babies who were 24 hours old. The study wanted to see if there were certain differences between the male and female brains. The assumption to be tested was whether or not females are "predominately hard-wired for empathy" while male brains are" predominately hard-wired for understanding and building systems." The results could be very helpful for the understanding and future treatment of autism. Today, research is trying to determine what is typical and atypical for both females and males. The exciting part is that we are just beginning to understand what the extremes are for the female brain. We should never assume that females and males on the autism spectrum should look the same. There are gender differences including behavior and interests. http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/child-107818-student-mother.html