Motor Development and ASD
In 2012 Flanagan and colleagues presented evidence that infants’ head lag during a pull-to-sit task at age six months was significantly associated with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder at…
Toddlers and the ADOS
There are indications that the emphasis on early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder has produced important positive changes in screening and diagnostic practices. Universal autism screening leads to earlier referral…
RBT Supervision Success
By Amanda Buchmeier, M.S., BCBA, LBA Registered Behavior Technicians are required to be supervised for 5% of the hours spent providing behavior-analytic services per month. Here are five strategies for…
Epidemiology of Autism: Current Research
A recent paper published in the Annual Review of Public Health (Lyall et al., 2017) offers a summary of the state of the science with respect to the epidemiology (i.e.,…
ASD in Multilingual Families
In an increasingly multicultural country, clinicians and educators in the US are often confronted with autism spectrum disorder in children from bilingual or multilingual families. A persistent concern has been…
Has a doctor ever told you…?
A report in the Washington Post dated November 13, 2015 had the headline “Autism cases in U.S. jump to 1 in 45.” The story opened with the paragraph: “The number…
Re-examining a Breakthrough
A recent report published on-line by Lancet (Pickles et al., 2016) maintains that a parent-mediated intervention for children with autism has produced the first “long-term symptom reduction after a randomized…
TMS and Autism
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a relatively recent technology that has been FDA-approved for the treatment of depression and migraine with aura. TMS uses a magnetic field to stimulate specific…
ASD and Antidepressant Use
A recent paper (Boukhris et al., 2015) raised once again the concern that women who take antidepressants during pregnancy are at increased risk for giving birth to a child who…
Asperger’s Lost Tribe
Hans Asperger is a forgotten genius whose rightful place in the history of autism was pre-empted by the wrong-headed, self-serving plagiarist, Leo Kanner. So goes the alternative narrative put forward…