Latest Aspergers News Headlines from Med Worm

Below are the latest news stories from around the world about Aspergers/Autism (occasionally a less relevant story will slip in there due to the joys of internet technology; but I am working on improving that so please bear with me!) Just click on any of the headline links below to read the full story:

Adolescent special needs - the epic trip 35 friends and relatives across five sites. Two provinces and 7 states. More than 3,300 miles of driving. It was an epic family car trip.A car trip with 1 dog, 1 neurotypical child, and two boys on the spectrum. Two boys, and two hormone wracked adolescent.It was a great holiday. We had no need of a lawyer, a physician, a veterinarian, a mechanic or a psychiatrist.So it can be done, assuming one is a special needs veteran and accustomed to crises that might topple a regular parent. The mixture of motion, of car time and time limited but intense visits seems to work for our guys. It's not something I remember from the days I read parenting texts, but we're data driven. We go with what works.The trip is an opportunity to reflect on the autistic adolescent. On the one hand, the desires are in...  Asperger’s, Autism and the New DSM The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), is the psychologist’s bible for diagnosing mental illnesses. Used by clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and doctors to determine the mental condition of a patient, the DSM has been an excellent tool for categorizing illnesses. The current manual in service is the DSM IV, which has been in [...] (Source: AspieWeb.net)  My Children Want You To Know My children want you to know that being of few words does not mean being of little intelligence. My children want you to know that being socially awkward doesn’t mean they cannot be wonderful, kind, loving and loyal friends. My children want you to know that they stim because they need to, not because they are brats with little self-control who wish to irritate you. My children want you to know that they are not “picky”, “wussy” or “incorrigible” because they cannot tolerate certain lights, sounds, fabrics or foods. They experience the world quite differently than you do from a sensory standpoint, and they are doing their best to process and handle all of it. Think of having the volume turned up on every one of your senses at all times. Read the re...  Adult prognosis of autism syndromes - expert anecdotes I am not aware of any good academic studies on the adult outcomes for children with autism syndromes. The presumed diversity of the underlying injury and recovery mechanisms makes hard research even harder. So the best we can do for now are anecdotes from clinicians with longterm experience ...Experts Discuss Autism's Long-Term Course - NYTimes.comSeveral readers had questions about the range of adult outcomes in autism and how treatments may affect outcomes in individual children....More and more individuals with autism are now able to function independently as adults. This is a major change over past decades, probably reflecting earlier diagnosis and more effective treatments. There is a very good summary of this in a chapter by Patricia Howlin in the Handbook of Autism (2005, Wiley).Unf...  The twilight of "schizophrenia" Neurologic disorders, alas, are not going away. The concept of "schizophrenia", however, is shuffling off the stage.Today's obit comes from Kwang-Soo Kim, a stem-cell scientist at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts:  "These disorders are not really disorders. There's no such thing as schizophrenia. It's a syndrome. It's a collection of things psychiatrists have grouped together."[1]Just like autism. Autism is a collection of "things" psychiatrists have grouped together, sustained by law, regulation, tradition -- and the current lack of a better alternative.[1] Schizophrenia 'in a Dish': Scientific American 4/13/2011See also:Victory: The war against 20th century psychiatric diagnoses is all but won (Source: Be the Best You can Be)  Autism and Empathy I watched a great video today featuring John Elder Robison that touched on the subject of Empathy and Autism. There is a popular opinion that people with autism do not have empathy. I am not sure if this true. I think I am a very empathetic person, but I am not completely sure that I am empathetic in the way that other people are. Sometimes, when I see someone who is sad, I feel sad too. If it is someone very close to me, I can feel their sadness like it is my own. Sometimes even worse. I think this is similar how most people experience empathy. On other occasions, I think I can not experience empathy in the common way due to not always understanding the way the general population thinks and feels. There have been many times in my life where I have found myself being stared at in exasperat...  Science Rules! One of my favorite blogs has another great one: http://thisisindexed.com/2011/02/damn-science/ (Source: Andrea's Buzzing About:)  The expectations trap Four months ago we learned lessons from two family bicycle outings. One was an educational failure. The follow-up was a memorable success.No denying, I was proud of that one. I wouldn't have thought it possible just three years before. If we weren't willing to risk failure, we wouldn't established a new baseline.That's why I was willing to try another crazy idea. This time we tried a mass nordic ski event after dark in unfamiliar territory. This went well beyond last year's Nordic ski resort.We applied what we'd learned. We studied satellite maps of the ski route and the surrounding territory, developing and revising our primary and backup plans. We researched parking in detail. We took a car and drove the route at night -- that's how we learned event map's major parking area was now a m...  Victory: The war against 20th century psychiatric diagnoses is all but won I started rabble rousing about the fallacies of psychiatric classifications (diagnoses, nosologies) about eight years ago. Five years ago I went public, since that time I've labeled 29 posts as "diagnostic definition" related [1] including my most recent rant...... We're due for another DSM edition, but I doubt that will be any better.The good news is that in the last 8 years it's become clear to every researcher that all of the common neurospychiatric conditions, from "ADHD" to "ODD" to "Autism" to "Aspergers" to "Bipolar disorder" to "Schizophrenia" are very rough categorizations of thousands of different "phenotypes" (where a phenotype is the end-result of the interaction between genes and environment) that are themselves dynamic over the lifetime of the brain. (Even after adolescence...  Don’t Give Up Yet! Vote for AWN in December! Last month, we were just a few places short of winning the Pepsi Refresh Everything contest. This month we are sure to win! Well, not really, so I must ask again: Please keep voting for the Autism Women’s Network EVERY DAY in December! There are 3 ways to vote: Vote via facebook:  When you are signed into your Facebook account, click on the following link to vote: http://apps.facebook.com/pepsirefresh/idea/view/id/651fb4be-a94f-102d-b2ee-0019b9b9e205 Vote via cell phone:  Text 101500 to Pepsi at (73774) Vote online:  http://www.refresheverything.com/awn Thanks very much everyone! Related posts:Vote For The Autism Women’s Network Every Day In August! Vote For The Autism Women’s Network Every Day In September! Duct Tape, Plumbing, and Bad Medicine (Source: LBnuke)  Livescribe Echo note taking pen - records and indexes lectures Journalists love the Livescribe Echo smartpen, a pen/recording/digital ink combo. It's a bit of a specialty item for journalists, but for Asperger's and other special needs students I can see how it might be helpful.See:This column will change your life: Note-taking | Life and style | The GuardianThe Pen Gets Mightier - Magazine - The AtlanticMy new favorite gadget: Livescribe Pulse pen - James Fallows - Technology - The AtlanticLivescribe Echo Smartpen Lets You Do Almost Everything | Gadget Lab | Wired.com (Source: Be the Best You can Be)  Exhaling Beauty: an Evening Celebrating Females on the Autism Spectrum Exhaling Beauty by Kim Miller Last night, Karen and I attended Exhaling Beauty: an Evening Celebrating Females on the Autism Spectrum. The aim of the event was to share and showcase the talents, experiences, and spirit of the female ASD community. They definitely did that. I have never heard of another event like this and I am very thankful that they put on this amazing show and will be taking it on the road. It was really nice to be there with Karen, especially on the day that she passed her national social work license test. Congratulations Karen! The show consisted of talks by authors Shana Nichols, Rudy Simone, and Liane Holliday Willey, and featured the artwork of Kim Miller. Shana Nichols is a psychologist who specializes in working with girls on the autism spectrum. I don’t t...  Rethinking neuropsychiatric diagnoses I started bemoaning the classification (aka ontology, nosology) of neuropsychiatric disorders about 8 years ago. I'm not the only one. One of the things I liked about Greene's Explosive Child book is that he is clearly unimpressed with the DSM IV nosology.We're due for another DSM edition, but I doubt that will be any better.The good news is that in the last 8 years it's become clear to every researcher that all of the common neurospychiatric conditions, from "ADHD" to "ODD" to "Autism" to "Aspergers" to "Bipolar disorder" to "Schizophrenia" are very rough categorizations of thousands of different "phenotypes" (where a phenotype is the end-result of the interaction between genes and environment) that are themselves dynamic over the lifetime of the brain. (Even after adolescence, we see maj...  Vote For The Autism Women’s Network Every Day In September! Thanks to everyone who voted for AWN in last month’s Pepsi Refresh Project. We didn’t win, but we were in the top 100 highest votes for our category and will be able to participate in September’s challenge. Please keep voting every day through September 30th! The voting process is kind of confusing and round-about depending on which method you vote with. I think the easiest way is texting. To vote by texting, text 101500 to Pepsi (73774). I have been voting by clicking the link in my sidebar and logging in through Facebook. Every day, I need to click the vote button 4 times. Please make sure you have voted after you click the button. You will know if you voted because the vote button will disappear and be replaced by some text thanking you for voting and asking if you w...  Stupid Irony! Someone defined poetry as “life condensed”.  Sometimes I think that disability is life magnified.  Today’s lens is Irony: I dropped my reaching tool behind the bed where I … struggled to reach it. Forgot to take my ADHD meds. Was too stiff to pull on my elastics:  the wrap for my elbow, the two pads [...] (Source: Andrea's Buzzing About:)  Vote For The Autism Women’s Network Every Day In August! Please vote for the Autism Women’s Network (AWN) in the Pepsi Refresh Everything Project. I have been working with AWN since the beginning as director of web development and technical services and it is a truly awesome organization. AWN is a unique organization that was founded by women on the autism spectrum. Our mission is to provide effective supports to autistic females of all ages through a sense of community, advocacy, and resources. This month, AWN is taking part in the Pepsi Refresh Everything Project. Please vote for us every day in August! Goals To organize 5 Workshops with focus on female specific autism qualities To provide online support & mentoring for autistic females & families To secure Autism Women’s Network as a non-profit organization You can vote ...  Autism Society Conference Keynote with Alex Plank Alex Plank gave the keynote presentation at the Autism Society’s 41st National Conference on Autism Spectrum Disorders. Alex speaks honestly and openly about being autistic and connecting with other autistic people online. His website, WrongPlanet.net, has been helping autistic people connect with each other since 2004. Alex’s keynote is the first of 7 videos from the conference. The panel discussion also features Sandy Yim from the Autism Women’s Network. All videos can be found on the Autism Society’s YouTube Channel. Related posts:Video: Autism Reality by Alex Plank Macworld 2006 :: Day 1 | Power Tools Conference Autism Women’s Network (Source: LBnuke)  Life is for living – a review of “Get out, explore, and have fun!” On her blog at About.com:Autism, Lisa Jo Rudy usually asks questions. In her soon to be released new book, Get Out, Explore, and Have Fun!: How Families of Children With Autism or Asperger Syndrome Can Get the Most Out of Community Activities, she answers two very important questions: Why should you “get out, explore, and have fun” with your autistic child? How do you do this? By far the more important of these two questions (in my opinion) is the first, the “why”. Too many parents of children diagnosed as autistic spend all of their “free” time trying to make their child “more normal” or “less autistic”, and not enough time on letting their child be a kid. As Lisa explains, this is true even in – especially in – sch...  Perspectives of Autism from My Family I have been different from other people for as long as I can remember. Over the years, I have had many different diagnoses, opinions, and treatments that were not quite right. My parents have tried to get me help since I was a little kid, but no one really knew what to do with me. I was a smart but strange kid. I didn’t understand things, especially people. I didn’t fit in. I thought school was dumb. I thought a lot of things were dumb. Turns out a lot of them are, but many were not as black and white as I thought at the time. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I began seeing shades of grey. During my early years of school, I barely talked at all and spent a bunch of time in the principal’s office. My teachers and school psychologists thought I could be normal if I...  A world without autism If autism could be cured, and if we, as a society, chose to cure it, what would that mean for our future? How would it impact our lives, and the lives of our children (and descendants many generations down the line)? What would society look like 50 years from now? 100 years from now, when autism (or autism-like traits) were no longer a part of our world? (Source: 29 Marbles)

aspergers - Yahoo! News Search Results
aspergers - Yahoo! News Search Results

 Support group for autism

FAMILIES with children who have autism or Aspergers Syndrome are invited to join support group FLAG – Families in Luton Autism Group.

Posted: Friday, January 20, 2012 1:26 pm | Updated: 1:18 pm, Fri Jan 20, 2012. The gist of it: I have a personal affinity for autistic/Aspergers/stuff akin to those child narrators, so this film really hit the spot for me.

The requirements for an autism diagnosis are about to be redefined, according to Medical Xpress. The American Psychiatric Association is due to include the new parameters in the 2013 edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, otherwise known as DSM-5.

Joplin, MO- Millions of people world wide deal with autism and it's varying forms. One of the most common is Aspergers and a four state man is sharing his story of how you can live with it. In our Brad's Beat report we're spotlighting his story.

Jewish Family Service of Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren Counties announced the scheduling of a Social Learning Group for youth with Aspergers Syndrome and other social skills challenges. Youth ages 11-15 years may enroll in the eight-week program which begins Sunday,...

Worried it's taking too long

DALLAS – “Not about politics” is the part that even some of Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s most loyal supporters might question. The Dallas-based organization, which is the country’s biggest breast cancer charity, insisted its controversial decision to defund Planned Parenthood affiliates was made only in light of Komen’s new policy against supporting agencies that are under investigation. (The ...

The American Psychiatric Association is working on new criteria, to define all types of developmental disorders, and some fear they could lose the diagnosis, and the support that goes along with it.

Some regularly scheduled community support groups are listed below. Please call before attending:

This isn't just an academic debate: By rewriting autism's definition, the American Psychiatric Association will affect services for thousands.