By Autism Science Foundation
The week in autism research discoveries
This week’s podcast will be an interview with Matt Cicoria from the podcast Behavioral Observations. We discuss the meaning of the words “Profound Autism” and why a blanket term of “autism spectrum disorder” may not be helping anyone...
Last week in North Carolina, the Meeting on Language in Autism was held, with 3 days of amazing presentations and lots of productive discussions about how language and speech develops and how people with autism communicate. This podcast describes...
This podcast provides updates on studies that help with prediction of an autism diagnosis – which is important for preparing for the future and for intervening early. First, a study that uses environmental factors to create an equation for...
On this week’s podcast we interview Dr. Susan Daniels who is the National Autism Coordinator for the Department of Health and Human Services. This position is created by the Autism CARES Act (which is under reauthorization) and represents one...
In the last version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the different subtypes of autism were folded into one label: autism spectrum disorder. A similar revision is being made around the International Classification of Diseases, the system the...
Are you the parent of an infant? Are you wondering how you can get assessments on your child without having to struggle with your pediatrician’s time at a well- baby checkup? Are you interested in how your...
Irritability and aggression are dangerous behaviors that can lead to harm and injury and are overlooked in research. Unfortunately there are only two FDA medications approved to treat them in autism. The drugs have many side effects,...
Those who are minimally verbal or non speaking represent about 25% of those with an autism diagnosis, yet there is really a lack of effective interventions for this group of autistic individuals. It used to be that everyone who...
On the first podcast of 2024, we describe a new paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association or JAMA which uses physiological measurements like heart rate and skin conductance to predict severe and dangerous behaviors, specifically aggression. ...
Just three days before 2024, ASF provides a summary of the the highlights of scientific discoveries and how they have translated into tools families can use. They include ways to speed up diagnosis and reduce waitlists, study of the...
This week’s podcast re-explores a question about a potential therapy for autism – minocycline. Minocycline is an antibiotic used to treat a number of different infections and some anecdotal reports have linked it to an improvement of autism....
A recent publication in the Lancet was dedicated to clinical recommendations to support autistic females at birth. Because more males than females are diagnosed with autism, their needs are often misunderstood, misinterpreted, or just ignored. Researchers, clinicians, scientists,...
Everyone who has looked for support for autism spectrum disorder is familiar with waitlists. Waitlists for evaluation, diagnosis, intervention, consultations and referrals. These waitlists prevent important opportunities for services and many groups developing technologies, policies, and approaches to...
Nobody ever talks about catatonia in autism. This podcast explores the symptoms of catatonia, how to measure it, what parents should know about tracking the symptoms, what the treatments are, and what the causes are. Dr. Martine Lamy...
The words “syndromic autism” have been used to describe individuals with autism who also have a rare genetic mutation. Is it time to change those words to something else? Scientists and clinicians Drs. Jacob Vorstman and Steve...
This week we talk to Sergiu Pasca from Stanford University. He has revolutionized the field of understanding the field of brain development in neurodevelopmental disorders and just published a new study which examined the genetic influence of brain assembly....
Everyone knows that every person with autism has their own unique strengths and challenges. Autism is heritable, and there are over 100 genes associated with autism. There are also an unknown number of environmental factors influencing outcome, so...
In recognition of September 26th, this podcast explores one of the more dangerous issues in autism: wandering. But it’s really not wandering in the traditional sense. Wandering in autism mostly means running off, bolting, deliberately with intent...
Can biomarkers that measure things like visual social attention be a good proxy for an in person behavioral diagnosis? Why would this be important? This week’s podcast explores two new studies the the Journal of the American Medical...
Everyone needed support during the pandemic, but families affected by autismneeded special support. This included siblings. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital tried out an intervention around stress and anxiety reduction in siblings in 2020. Not only...
In a highly discussed paper, researchers from Drexel University report their findings on a scientific and methodologically rigorous study on the accuracy of information posted on the social media platform Tik-Tok. They also discuss where the information comes from...
This week’s podcast covers two new papers of interest to the autism community. First, another study showing increase in self harm and suicide in those with autism – no new news there – but a new discovery this week...
There are dozens of good reasons why scientists need to study the brains of people with autism. One is to understand what happens in the brain as people with autism get older and see how the brain changes over...
This week’s ASF podcast returns with a special guest: Dr. Andrew Whitehouse from the University of Western Australia talks about a new unifying theory of the spectrum of autism symptoms and features. It’s called “emergent and transactional”, and while...
This week’s podcast explores new evidence that exercise produces longer term improvements in coordination and motor skills. Parents can play a big role in how these skills are developed over time. Physical exercise also has different effects on...
Two recent papers suggest that a childhood diagnosis of ASD is important for adulthood quality of life and well being. But another one points out that it isn’t the only thing, or even the primary factor, involved in improved...
The disparity in diagnosis between Black kids and white kids is narrowing, but not by luck or coincidence. Based on previous research, clinicians are altering their professional training and their outreach to make sure more Black families are diagnosed...
Compared to other types of research, there are so few studies that look at three time points in the same person with autism over their live to better understand groups and predict outcomes. What is missing? What do...
Digital therapeutics may very helpful in helping families and individuals on the spectrum. What are they? How can they be used? This week’s #ASFpodcast talks to Lani Hessen from the Digital Therapeutics Alliance who is holding a...
With just a few weeks to go until June, this week’s podcast is a short summary of the prevalence of transsexuality in the autism community and how many people are autistic in the trans community. More importantly, there are...
Last week in Stockholm, Sweden, 2200 researchers and scientists working to understand and help those on the spectrum, met to share their most recent findings and exchange ideas. What were the main takeaways as ASF saw them? We...
The title gets you, right? Well, on this week’s #ASFpodcast we report on a new study that examines epigenetic profiles of sperm and how they related to child outcomes. Do some of the marks on bio-dad’s sperm match...
Quick answer: 26.7%. But what is “profound autism” and why is this label necessary? Have the rates of profound autism changed over time? How many do not have profound autism and are their needs different and...
This week we conduct an interview with Michelle Hughes, PhD, epidemiologist with the CDC, who answers all of our questions about how many people have autism, how they are counted, what has changed since the last count and why the...
This week, we talk to Whitney Guthrie from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who spent the last 6 years conducting the gold-standard randomized control trial that demonstrates intervention for social communication skills at 18 months shows greater effects than intervention starting...
What do anxiety, prevalence, ketamine, other neurodevelopmental disorders, siblings, genetics, brain imaging and the autistic researcher committee at INSAR all have in common? They were all topics at the last Day of Learning. You can hear a 20...
The CDC released data from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (ADDM) on Thursday. In the past 2 years, the prevalence of autism has increased about 20%. Why? Are there more new cases or is diagnostic...
TikTok is overtaking the internet and many are using this platform to learn about a variety of psychiatric illnesses and psychological problems. But how accurate are these videos in sharing medical information? Could they be causing things...
Screening for autism is meant to cast a broad net to gather those who show enough features to be included for a full diagnostic evaluation. The most common of these tools is the MCHAT – the Modified Checklist for...
A new paper in Translational Psychiatry this week outlines the reasons why some conditions that occur with autism are actually co-morbid, and not co-occurring. The podcast will break down clues on why sometimes they are co-morbid, and present an...
Just like no two people are the same, no two strains of mice are the same. Using dozens of different strains of mice with and without a genetic mutation associated with autism called CHD8, researchers at University of Southern...
This week’s #ASFpodcast highlights a new study from Dr. Elizabeth Kaplan-Kahn, who is improving a measure of Quality of Life for autistic individuals who are minimally verbal or have cognitive disabilities. These individuals may have different outcomes as other...
The media has just called another biological marker a “diagnostic test”, when in this case, it was always intended to be an aid, not a test itself. It involves using baby hair strands to look a variation in metabolism...
Many of the existing tools to identify autism cost money or are not specific for ASD, and they are hidden behind paywalls and are hard to obtain. A group of scientists led by Tom Frazer at John Caroll...
People tend to go towards a “strengths only” or “weaknesses only” approach to describing autism. But even if you think about a single aspect of autistic challenges – social communication – autistics can show both. How can you...
It’s that time! The ASF Year of End Science Wrap-up was published in December, so it’s time to share it on the podcast. We cover everything from parent mediated interventions to genetics and racial and ethnic disparities. ...
Last week a publication (see below) was published as a commentary in the journal Autism Research. It states that researchers, parents, clinicians, educators and the overall community should not be limited in their use of language to describe the...
Stressful life events, among other things, affect autistics more than those who are typically developing. Why? What would cause this vulnerability? New studies suggest that cognitive inflexibility may be the key. Autistic people tend to have...
Like ASD, the prevalence of ADHD has increased significantly in the past 2 decades. A critical analysis examines the factors, and many of them can be applicable to the increase in the rise of autism diagnoses: increased diagnosis...
Is there a specific “signature’ that make the autism brain unique? Can there be a common set of findings that certain gene expression goes up and another go down and where? And is it linked to behavior? ...