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Search Results for: label/pretend play and autism

  • How important for children is imaginary play?

    interactions to reinforce self-regulation. The NESCA post notes that an absence of pretend play is still a red flag for developmental conditions on the autism spectrum, particularly if noted between the ages of 18 months and 2 years. With an anecdatum alert, my oldest son is on the autism spectrum and engaged in pretend play. He just did it ways that in retrospect stand out as unusual for his age–and he still does. A lack of pretend play i…

    Authored by on September 8, 2012

  • Autism and the DSM-5

    …ial social aspect of this change, and the one thing that might, when it comes to autism, elevate the DSM-5 above the level of doorstop. [Image credit: Dave Bullock, UK, via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 generic license.]…

    Authored by on April 23, 2013

  • LEGO those gender stereotypes

    an: But you’re a girl.  Girls get butterflies. Daughter (giving me a desperate look): But I really want a jetpack! Realizing that my daughter was becoming unnecessarily upset, especially given the fact that there were 3 boys already engaging in play with their totally awesome jetpacks, myself and the hostess mother intervened.  We kindly reiterated my daughter’s requests for a jetpack.  And, so she was given a jetpack. Later that eve…

    Authored by on August 29, 2012

  • Science, health, medical news freaking you out? Do the Double X Double-Take first

    …larger picture showing a biological pathway by which Variable 1 leads to Outcome A. That’s not generally a process that’s particularly newsworthy, and the pathways can be both too specific and extremely confusing. 4. Look at the original source of the information. Google is your friend. Is the original source a scientific journal? At the very least, especially for original research, the abstract will be freely available. A news story…

    Authored by on April 27, 2012

  • Autism is not the monster

    had three children. With the first two, sure, there were those nights when my husband had to take over to keep me from fleeing to Mexico, never to be seen again. But with our third, it was different. I became one of the 10 or 20  (possibly far more) of every 100 mothers to experience postpartum depression, a persistent, intractable trough of hopelessness, a place where the mind refuses to let in any light. Of these, a small percentage can descend…

    Authored by on March 20, 2013

  • The path from science to alarmism: How science gets twisted before it gets to you

    …particular issue, specifically pesticides and autism. Technically I suppose it does assert a link, but none of this is new information. So I think we’ve pretty much destroyed the headline in that press release. There were not 4 articles suggesting a connection between chemicals and autism. Is it likely that the writers who take this press release and write articles on it are going to read the papers it cites? Are they going to realize that what t…

    Authored by on May 4, 2012

  • Good Deeds, Good Science: Autism Research Foundation

    …e last two years we have provided funding for autism stakeholders (parents, individuals with autism, teachers, students, etc) to attend the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR). All donations made today, February 29, 2012, will go directly to our IMFAR Travel Grants program, helping us provide more scholarships to IMFAR 2012 in Toronto where they will share their real world autism experience with scientists. These stakeholders will t…

    Authored by on February 29, 2012

  • About that 1 in 50 autism number

    r 63,967 children; for 2011-2012, that number was slightly higher at 65,556. From 2007 to 2013, parent-reported autism prevalence increased significantly in all age groups in the 6-17 range and increased for boys from 1.8% to 3.23%. Girls also showed an increase, but not as dramatic, from 0.49% to 0.70%. Autism among children ages 14 to 17 was up more than 1%, compared to children in the youngest, 6 to 9 age group (0.5%). In 2007, this older grou…

    Authored by on April 29, 2013

  • Crowdfunding on the Brain: Finding Biomarkers for Early Autism Diagnosis

    …n holds up with an increased number of study participants, the implications could be quite significant for autism research.       Preliminary data from the Darie Lab shows that there are saliva proteins showing a 20X or greaterdifference  between ASD (ovals) versus sibling non-ASD controls (rectangles). If you decide to kick in some funds, your good deed will not go unrewarded. As a thank-you for contributing, the Darie Lab has o…

    Authored by on December 3, 2012

  • After Newtown missteps, journalists get guidelines

    …almost twice as likely to say that they don’t want to live or work near a person with mental illness if they read an article about a person with mental illness involved in a mass shooting, according to a study published March 20 in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Interestingly, this tendency is the same even if the article avoids any mention of mental illness. This may be because this link between violence and mental illness is deeply engrain…

    Authored by on March 27, 2013

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