Autism

In this piece for Psychology Today, Dr. Jonathan D. Raskin lists 10 facts about the current version of the International Classification of Diseases, which is...

“Although there is no established connection between autism and murder, some eagerly leapt to causality and scapegoating,” Andrew Solomon writes in the New York Times. “Tarring the autistic community in this manner — like presuming that most black people are thieves or that most Muslims are terrorists — is an insidious form of profiling. It exacerbates the tendency for people with autism to be excluded, teased and assaulted in childhood and adulthood.”

We first came under pressure to give our developmentally disabled and autistic daughter a psychiatric drug when she was in her mid-teens. She was attending a local school for autistic children but was unable to adapt to their program, and we were urged to consult a psychiatrist. What enabled us to resist the pressure to put our daughter on drugs?

To what extent are healthcare providers equipped to assess nuance in the experiences of pain among nonverbal children?

Huffington Post and journalist Steve Brill have combined to launch a 15 part series about how Johnson & Johnson illegally violated FDA restrictions by pushing the antipsychotic drug, Risperdal, for use with adolescents and the elderly. The series, entitled “America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker,” launched yesterday and will include mixed media, videos, podcasts, source documents, as well as 15 written chapters. Click more for a synopsis of part 1.

Researchers at the University of Michigan reviewed published and unpublished trials of serotonin receptor inhibitors (SRI) for the treatment of autism spectrum disorders (ASD)....

It’s time to change how we think about and relate to people whose makeup is or appears to be different from the norm. Currently, the dominant way in research, practice and the general public is to think of what’s different—let’s say a biological or neurological difference—as the source of disability and difficulty, and to relate to and treat (in various ways) that biological or neurological difference. But there’s another way to go, and more and more researchers and practitioners are taking it.

From Pacific Standard: People with hidden or invisible disabilities are often subjected to violence and verbal abuse, as well as denied accommodations and asked to...

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network has voiced opposition to the President's autism proclamation and participation in Autism Speaks' "Light it Up Blue" Campaign. The...

Autism rates are on the rise, with the latest report from the US Centers for Disease Control showing 1 in 50 children to be affected.  Prozac, the first of the SSRI antidepressants, was launched in 1987 and sales have risen since then. Estimates are that up to 13% of US pregnancies are exposed (or around 500,000 US pregnancies per year). Available scientific data from animal and human studies raise serious concerns that exposure to SSRIs during pregnancy damages the developing brain and may cause neurodevelopmental abnormalities, including autism.

From Massive: Increasing evidence suggests that psychedelics may revolutionize mental health care. In order for this "psychedelic renaissance" to last, scientists and citizens will need...

A new NIH-funded study suggests that children from low-income environments are more likely to have neurological impairments. The researchers claim that these neurodevelopmental issues are “distinct from the risk of cognitive and emotional delays known to accompany early-life poverty.”

Research on 966 mother-child pairs from the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment (CHARGE) Study finds that prenatal SSRI exposure was nearly 3...

In this piece for USA Today, Candy Grande offers 12 non-drug approaches for helping kids cope with school-related anxiety, such as having a discussion about...

From The Sydney Morning Herald: New data from Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme shows that a total of 16,570 Australian toddlers, children, and teens under 17 were...

From Kotaku: Therapists across the country are running Dungeons & Dragons therapy groups to help socially isolated kids open up by participating in role-playing games. "There...

From Aeon: We typically think of empathy as an emotions-based state that involves feeling another's distress or joy. However, cognitive, rationalist empathy involving reasoned perspective-taking may...

For too many years I was taught and believed that children diagnosed with autism were incapable of learning through the normal channels of relationship. I accepted that they must be taught differently and could easily dismiss their frequent displays of emotional distress as simply a symptom of their autism. This all changed when I attempted to reconcile what the autism intervention and child development fields had to say about what children need for optimal social and emotional development.

From Big Think: As our algorithms are increasingly being made in our own image, they are at heightened risk of experiencing "mental health problems." "Take the...

A study of the Swedish medical birth registry, conducted by researchers from Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S.A., found a 3.3X greater risk of...

Pediatrician Claudia Gold assesses the controversies around the rise in autism diagnoses: "The massive rise in diagnosis of autism indicates that something is amiss....

"... Absence of clear practice guidelines for psychotropic medication use in children with ASD" leads to a range of drugs for depression, anxiety, psychosis...

In this month’s Schizophrenia Bulletin, a person diagnosed with autism, OCD, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, and major depressive disorder provides a first-hand close reading and description of their own psychiatric experiences.

-The Atlantic reports on the growth of "autism-friendly" movie theaters, sports arenas and now live theaters.

A new documentary “Life, Animated,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, tells the story of a man with autism who learned to interact...