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A Review of a Randomized Control Trial of DIR/Floortime Therapy
Parents and clinicians frequently face the issue of making informed decisions amongst heated debates over the most effective approaches for treating young children with autism (Prizant and Wetherby, 1998). Of the current approaches used to treat autism, there lies a continuum ranging from intensive...
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New Trends in Brain and Tissue Banking for Autism Research
Professor Giovanni Morgagni, of the University of Padua published in 1761 a book, “The Seats and Causes of Disease Investigated by Anatomy,” that described nearly 700 autopsies and demonstrated that disease is recorded in the pathology of organs in detectable ways. Dr. Richard Cabot’s review...
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How Science and Evidence Won Out Against Auditory Integration Therapies
There are many ways of learning about our world. One way is through science and the scientific process. There is a growing belief that the methods of science and scientific inquiry are the standards that should be employed when designing and evaluating autism treatments. Ideally, by adhering to...
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Excessive Folic Acid Supplementation: A Cause for Autism Spectrum Disorders?
Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a group of phenotypically heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disabilities characterized by impairments in three core functional domains: reciprocal social interactions, verbal communication and stereotyped, repetitive patterns of behaviors. The ASDs are...
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Risk of Recurrence of Autism in Younger Siblings Higher Than Thought
The risk that an infant with an older sibling with autism also will develop the disorder, previously estimated at between 3 and 10 percent, is substantially higher at approximately 19 percent, a large, international, multi-site study led by researchers at the UC Davis MIND Institute has found....
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Early Motor Experiences Give Infants a Social Jump Start – Study Indicates Infants at Risk for Autism Could Benefit from Motor Training
In a new study published on September 9, 2011 in the journal Developmental Science (Epub ahead of print), researchers from the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Vanderbilt University found that early motor experiences can shape infants’ preferences for objects and faces. The study findings...
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Abnormal Micro-RNA: A Possible Cause of ASD and Schizophrenia
Key Concept: Abnormal micro-RNA programming disrupts early brain development causing autistic spectrum disorder, characterized by delays, plateaus and spurts of brain development. Similar abnormal micro-RNA programming disrupts brain development during adolescence causing schizophrenia,...
