The California State University East Bay campus in the Hayward hills is the site of an unusual experiment in higher education for people with autism. Starting in the fall quarter, college-age autistics will be encouraged to attend and build an educational community; one that draws on the autistics’ unusual academic strengths. The experiment will test the possibilities for autistics in a university setting, and more generally the possibilities for a range of students with disabilities…

…The emerging Center for College Students with Autistic Spectrum Disorders is an attempt to open wider higher education for autistics. The young adults with autism, born in California in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the number of diagnosed cases of autism grew geometrically, are now reaching college age. They and their parents are faced with life after high school. In particular, they are challenged to find alternatives to a life of dependency and Social Security payments that has been the main lot of adult autistics in California.

An estimated 70 percent of adults with autism in California are unemployed, with the majority enrolled in the Supplemental Security Income/Social Security Disability Insurance systems. Much of the growing literature on autistics focuses on their limitations and disabilities: the socially awkward behaviors, the large gaps in cognition and conceptualization, the self-stimulating behavior like spinning or rocking and self-talking.

But it is also true that many students with autism possess academic skills more advanced than many students in computation, observation and documentation. They often bring a different way of looking at the world and a singular creativity. Can these skills and insights be harnessed in ways that allow the students with autism to succeed in college and in the larger world and work world? This question is central to the experiment about to begin in Hayward. Read more…

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Researchers say they have found the first piece of the genetic puzzle that could lead to greatly improved diagnosis, treatment and even prevention of autism.

A multi-university team, which included the University of Miami School of Medicine, has identified a gene associated with autism, according to a report published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Nature.

It may be only one of as many as 50 genes involved, and environmental factors are also involved, but Margaret Pericak-Vance, director of UM’s Institute for Human Genomics, says the discovery could lead to practical results within a decade. ”Things are moving so fast, in the next five years or so you can see some of this information being translated maybe into prediction, even therapies,” she said.

The study is a collaboration of the UM institute, Vanderbilt University, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Washington in Seattle and the University of California, Los Angeles. In the study, research teams visited a dozen sites around the country and studied more than 10,000 subjects, including individuals with autism spectrum disorder, family members and volunteers without the disorder. Read more…

Posted by Carrie Pollare

Source: Miami Herald

Who knew that such a simple thing as a cartoon could, perhaps, help detect early signs of autism in a child? In a Yale study, researchers created five cartoon versions of children’s games, like “peek-a-boo” and “patty-cake, which were shown to two year olds.” The study found that children with autism did not respond to the action in the cartoons the way other children did and their eyes did not track the fast movements and the noise in the same way. Researchers pointed out that parents can notice their children glazing over to what’s on the television screen as early as eight months old. Read more…

Posted by Carrie Pollare

Source: CBS, Denver

Another autism controversy… Some parents are trying hyperbaric chambers as a treatment for their autistic children. While still unproved as a remedy, there have been reports that this type of therapy, which boosts the amount of oxygen in the child’s brain, has improved the functioning of some autistic children and is not physically dangerous to them, although it can be dangerous to the parent’s financial health at $100 to $900 per treatment.

A small study looked at 56 children, ages 2 to 7, who had varying degrees of autism. Each received 40 one-hour treatments. Thirty of the children had the pressure in the chamber increased by 30 percent, while the 26 children in the control group had the pressure increased by only 3 percent. Results showed that 30 percent of the children who received the treatment reported “greatly increased functioning,” while 8 percent in the control group did.

Others in the field remain skeptical. Read more…

Posted by Carrie Pollare

Source: ABC News

A study by the Vanderbilt University Medical Center has concluded that the same gene may be responsible for both autism and gastrointestinal disorders. Research determined that 118 families out of 214 selected for the study have at least one child with both autism and gastrointestinal issues.

According to Daniel Campbell, the study’s lead author, “Among individuals with autism, 30 percent to 70 percent also have GI problems, including chronic constipation or chronic diarrhea. And, because many of these patients have difficulties with communication, they may act out rather than be able to communicate that their ‘tummy hurts.’” Read more…

Posted by Carrie Pollare

Source: www.tennessean.com