Dr. Joshua Sparrow, a child psychiatrist with the Brazelton Touchpoints Center at Children’s Hospital in Boston, recently responded to in the New York Times questions about children and the stress of the holiday season.
Several readers wrote about their children with autism spectrum disorders and their children’s difficulties both with handling the sensory overload that comes with this time of year and with understanding the deeper meanings of the holidays. The challenges of children with autism spectrum disorders and the behaviors that result can be baffling for those who have had little experience with them. It can likewise be baffling for those who are familiar with autism, including parents and other family members, as well as the children themselves. Curious? Continue reading
When girls with symptoms of autism or ADHD seek professional medical help, their problems are often played down or misinterpreted, and there is a real risk that they will not get the help or support they need. As such, more training is needed in this area, particularly in the public sector, reveals a thesis from the University of Gothenburg. [continue reading…]
Sophie Molholm, Ph.D., discusses her new study of how children with autism spectrum disorders process sensory information such as sound, touch and vision. Dr. Molholm is associate professor in the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience and of pediatrics.
A new study by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has provided concrete evidence that children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) process sensory information such as sound, touch and vision differently than typically developing children.
The study, which appears in the August 17 online issue of Autism Research, supports decades of clinical and anecdotal observations that individuals with ASD have difficulty coping with multiple sources of sensory information. The Einstein finding offers new insights into autism and could lead to objective measures for evaluating the effectiveness of autism therapies. [continue reading…]
