Autism Didn’t Stop This Teen From Becoming Captain Of His High School Football Team
Sept. 24, 2014
At 6-foot-6 and weighing 270 pounds, Josh Bailey definitely has the build of a football team captain. But in the earlier years of his life, the Michigan teen’s struggles with autism made playing on team, much less serving as its captain, seem impossible. Football changed everything. As Josh told the Free Detroit Press, “Football has given me basically all of my high school friends. It’s given me something to love.”
A brain wave test could diagnose autistic kids more accurately — and earlier
Sept. 22, 2014
The brains of children and adolescents with severe autism react differently to certain audio-visual stimuli than children and adolescents without autism, according to a new study. The findings have the potential to lead to a more objective and accurate diagnostic tools for the disorder. The study, which was conducted by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University, found that a brain wave test shows promising signs of being an accurate biomarker for autism. The results were published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities on Monday.
How Young Is It Possible to Treat Autism?
Sept. 10, 2014
Autism spectrum disorder, experts know, is sometimes treatable. In one good-size study, about 9 percent of kids with a diagnosis at age 3 had shed it entirely at age 19, and they were more likely to have done so if they had received behavioral interventions geared at helping teach them certain skills and behaviors that come naturally to kids without an ASD diagnosis. And even when the disorder remains, treatment can make the difference between young adults with severe ASD being able to live relatively independent lives and having to be institutionalized.