autism

Two years ago, a yellow spongiform robot named Keepon became a minor YouTube sensation when one of its creators programmed it to do a squishy, twisty dance in time to the Spoon song "I Turn My Camera On." The video has garnered more than 2 million hits. Now Keepon's keepers, Marek Michalowski, a Ph.D student in robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, and Hideki Kozima of Miyagi University in Japan, are turning Keepon's attention to a more serious task: to study how children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) interact socially and to see if the robot may be able to help in therapy.

Although autism affects people in different ways, many children with the disorder don't like looking directly at people's faces, because they find expressions unpredictable and disquieting. This makes it hard for them to learn to read emotions in others.

The Transporters, developed by a team at the U.K.'s Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, entices autistic children to look at expressions by superimposing actor's faces onto the fronts of animated toy boats, cable cars, and other kid-friendly vehicles.

There is more evidence this month demonstrating that we are not, in fact, presently suffering through an age of increased incidence of autism, but rather as the definition of autism is refined, we discover individuals who were previously misdiagnosed. A University of Oxford study has followed up with a group of 38 adults who were originally involved in a series of studies on developmental language disorders in the late 80s and 90s. Those who manifest symptoms of the disorders have difficulty with spoken language, a trait also seen in autism.

Paul Offit has written an op-ed in todays New York Times which hastens to point out what other news stories have largely misrepresented in the Hannah Poling autism lawsuit: The outcome of the court ruling does not mean the government is admitting to a causal link between childhood vaccines and the onset of autis

Could a nasal shot of hormones make a person more compassionate and less socially awkward? Thats the thinking behind new research from scientists at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Psychiatrist Eric Hollander and psychologist Jennifer Bartz found that inhaling oxytocin, a hormone that occurs naturally in the body, could alleviate the more debilitating symptoms of autism: an inability to recognize emotion, a failure to connect with the world, and a tendency toward repetitive, obsessive behaviors. Children with autism have low blood levels of oxytocin, which could explain their poor social skills. The work could help not only the one in 150 children afflicted by the illness in the U.S. but also perhaps the millions of people who suffer from social phobias.

A pair of twins is born, and both infants begin to develop normally. By their first birthday, however, the male sibling has begun to diverge from his sister, showing less eye contact and affection. He often wears a spaced-out expression and fixates on certain puzzles and patterns. By age three, his mounting symptoms lead to a diagnosis that has become disturbingly routine in recent years: autism.

What causes the disease, which now strikes 1 in every 166 children, and why does it affect four times as many boys as girls?

Those who believe that the 25-cent peep show is restricted solely to humans, guess again. A January study at Duke University Medical Center revealed that male rhesus macaque monkeys will “pay” to gaze at images of female monkey posteriors. The animals gave up quantities of fruit juice for prolonged views of either female hindquarters or the faces of high-ranking males in their society.