Posted by Susan Moffitt on Thursday, August 11th, 2011
Neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield of Oxford University has created a firestorm of controversy by correlating autism with increased computer use amongst children. She contends that the use of social networking Web sites is altering children’s brains, creating shorter attention spans, an expectation of instant gratification and a lack of empathy (i.e. “autistic-like traits"). She proceeds to [...]
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Posted in Autism and the Internet, Autism Awareness, Studies
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Posted by Susan Moffitt on Monday, March 28th, 2011
Facebook has become the cyberspace version of another era’s malt shop – the place where teens hang out after school and socialize. But lately, there’s been a great deal of media attention about its dangers. In addition to those concerns, there are other pitfalls as well, including teens without many friends feeling depressed, suffering from [...]
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Posted in Autism Advice from Parents, Autism and the Internet, Autism Awareness, Commentary, Facebook, Parents
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Posted by Susan Moffitt on Sunday, March 13th, 2011
Sal Khan was a hedge fund manager tutoring his cousins through distance learning. He started making them instructional videos to reinforce their learning when he couldn’t be there in person and after a few lessons, his cousins told him that they liked him better on video. After absorbing the shocking statement, he realized it was [...]
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Posted in Autism Activities, Autism and the Internet, Education, Students, YouTube
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Posted by Gary G. Porter on Monday, February 21st, 2011
In Sunday’s Doonesbury comic strip, even famed cartoonist Garry Trudeau decided to weigh in on the autism-vaccine debate, taking swipes at Jenny McCarthy in the process. McCarthy, who has become the de facto face of the anti-vaccination movement, has taken a beating in recent months, particularly when charges of fraud surfaced from a 1998 study [...]
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Posted in Autism and the Internet, Autism Causes, Autism Controversy, Autism Speaks, Commentary, Jenny McCarthy, Parents, Studies
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Posted by Gary G. Porter on Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
With the meteoric rise of social media Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter, many individuals and groups now have the opportunity to reach large numbers of people to promote awareness, advocacy and attention for their causes. Such is the case with autism, where a dramatic spike in prevalence over the last 10 years has [...]
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Posted in Autism and the Internet, Autism and the Media, Autism Awareness, Autism Support, Facebook, Technology, Twitter
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