In another episode of “World Gone Mad," a sixteen-year-old Ohio boy has been jailed for allegedly trying to sell sugar packets at school. Conceptualized as a practical joke, the teen took sugar packets from the cafeteria and transferred them to a soda straw wrapper, telling classmates it was a “secret sugar rush concoction." Punishment was swift [...]
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Posted in Aspergers Syndrome, Autism and the Law 
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Researchers at the University of Texas, led by Professor Mark O’Reilly, have declared that Sensory Integration Therapy (SIT) is scientifically ungrounded and should cease to be used by a majority of occupational therapists in the treatment of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Since many agencies are mandated to use only scientifically-proven methods, they advocate that Applied [...]
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The latest big autism story is a new study by University of Connecticut psychology professor Deborah Fein that claims some children with autism can not only lose their diagnosis as they get older, but become indistinguishable from typical peers. Fein assessed 34 adults who had been given an autism diagnosis as children, many of whom [...]
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Seattle theater artist and playwright, Lauren Marshall, has developed an amazing class for both neurotypical and special needs children. Entitled “Theater of Possibility," Lauren synthesizes what she has learned as a mother of two daughters on the autism spectrum with Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) and “Theatre of the Oppressed," a movement that employs theater as [...]
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Of all the sad autism stories I have encountered, perhaps none has haunted me more than that of Ayn Van Dyk, the ten year old Canadian girl who was abducted from her school by Canada’s Child Protective Services. As this site has documented in the past, Ayn had been successfully found safe and sound after [...]
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The tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut shines a light on the need for exceptional care of autism spectrum students as they transition out of public schools and into adulthood. We see this phenomenon come into play as Adam Lanza is said to have spent two years living in isolation in his basement, largely playing violent video games [...]
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I recently examined the events in Newtown through the lens of special education in this country, contending it is a broken system in need of as much attention as gun control and mental health. Out of that sprang a question in my mind, “In the last year, how many special needs children died in our [...]
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Something has been tugging at my heart in the wake of the unfathomable tragedy in Newtown, CT. The obvious broken systems have been laid bare. Gun control issues must be wrestled away from special interests and mental health must be recognized as an urgent public health issue. But there’s another broken system in America that [...]
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For those of you who followed my articles in the past, you will know I’ve been out of the autism loop for a while, consumed by the affairs of my immediate family of sixteen-year-old twin sons with high functioning autism. Having seen them to their junior year of high school, I can tell all of [...]
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Caltech researchers believe they have evidence that those with high functioning autism (HFA) don’t seem to care what other people think of them. This lack of “theory of mind,” or the capacity to know what others think and feel is not a new premise. In their recent experiment, Caltech researchers had those with HFA and [...]
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