Archive for the 'Research' Category

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CCBD call for papers extended

Published on 15 June 2009 in News, Professsional development, Research and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Sheldon Braaten announced that the call for papers for the regular conference sponsored by the Council for Children with Behavior Disorders has been extended. Here’s the text of his message.

8th Biennial International Conference on Children and Youth with Behavioral Disorders

“Strategies for Promoting Academic and Behavioral Competence of Students with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders”

At the
Four Points by Sheraton Denver Southeast
Denver, Colorado
September 23-26, 2009

Call for Proposals – Deadline has been Extended
Continue reading ‘CCBD call for papers extended’

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Mirror neurons background

Published on 9 June 2009 in Autism, Causes, News, Research and The press. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

In Scientific American, Daniel Lametti wrote an article providing background research on mirror neurons and implications for future research. The article, “Mirroring Behavior: How mirror neurons let us interact with others,” only has a few words about Autism and mirror neurons. However, readers of EBD Blog who are new to the topic and who want to understand the concepts in general will likely benefit from reading it.

Link to Mr. Lametti’s article.

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ICDR priorities voting ends soon

Published on 14 May 2009 in Families, News, Policy and Research. 0 Comments

As noted here earlier, people have a chance to influence future priorities for research about disabilities. It’s an opportunity for families to affect policies and shouldn’t be missed. Here’s a reminder that the time for public voting on the importance of the priorities ends tomorrow (15 May 2009).

The federally mandated Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) utilized a Web-based approach to collect online disability research comments to assist in developing a federal disability and rehabilitation 2010 research agenda. The comments were submitted from March 27th until April 17th. Additionally, registered participants were invited to review all research related comments submitted and to vote on their top 10 concerns in each topic area from April 22nd through April 29th.

As we indicated previously, the voting was suspended on April 23 to modify the database application due to the overwhelming number of recommendations. If you voted previously, it will be necessary to recast your votes during the new one-week timeframe: May 8-15, 2009. We apologize for this inconvenience and encourage you to return to the site to vote for your research priorities. For more information, please visit www.icdr.us/stakeholders.

Similar content also appears on LD Blog. Please share the word.

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Chromosome 5 and Autism

Published on 29 April 2009 in Autism, Causes, Families, News and Research. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Important studies of humans’ genes conducted by a team led by Hakon Hakonarson and Gerard Schellenberg have revealed that individuals with Autism are substantially more likely to have different genetic structures at specific areas on chromosomes than individuals who do not have Autism. Although previous studies of the human genome in Autism had yielded differences of substantial scientific interest, the differences often only accounted for a small percentage of the populations; instead of fewer than 1-3%, these differences may be present in ~15% of cases.

A research team has connected more of the intricate pieces of the autism puzzle, with two studies that identify genes with important contributions to the disorder. One study pinpoints a gene region that may account for as many as 15 percent of autism cases, while another study identifies missing or duplicated stretches of DNA along two crucial gene pathways. Significantly, both studies detected genes implicated in the development of brain circuitry in early childhood.

“Because other autism researchers have made intriguing suggestions that autism arises from abnormal connections among brain cells during early development, it is very compelling to find evidence that mutations in genes involved in brain interconnections increase a child’s risk of autism,” said study leader Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Both studies link material on chromosome 5 with Autism. The research implicates genetic material near locations known as the cadherins (particularly cadherin 10 cadherin 9), neurexins, and ubiquitins. Genetic material in this area affects the creation and eliminate of molecules responsible for adhesion between cells. Neuronal cell-adhesion molecules are important because they affect communication from one nerve cell to neighboring nerve cells.

PDFs of the two studies, “Common genetic variants on 5p14.1
associate with autism spectrum disorders” and “Autism genome-wide copy number variation reveals ubiquitin and neuronal genes,” are available from Nature. Because I’m not a student of genetics, I’d welcome comments from people who actually know this research area and can explain the concepts and mechanisms.

Read the press release from the The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (PA; US); that’s the source of my quotation. Also see coverage by Tina Hesman Seay of Science News, Tina Tsouderos of the Tribune.com carried in the Los Angeles Times.

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Stanford Medicine Magazine

Published on 20 April 2009 in Autism, Musings, News, Policy, Prevention, Research, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

The spring 2009 issue of Stanford Medicine Magazine, a publication of the Stanford University School of Medicine, examines the turmoil swirling around vaccines. In “Hot Shots: Vaccines under the gun” one can read any of ten articles (not counting an introductory comment by Rosalyn Carter):

  • The demonization of immunization: Shots get the once-over
  • What is a vaccine? Immunization demystified
  • Asking How: Vaccine Side Effects Probed
  • When science gets hijacked: NBC News chief medical editor tells why she broke her silence
  • Insourced to India: A vaccine for a scourge of the developing world
  • Peet’s passion: The medical education of Amanda Peet
  • Field yields: Can genetically engineered plants provide vaccines?
  • Shoot it, don’t smoke it: An injectable tobacco-grown vaccine
  • Golden needles: Vaccines for seniors
  • Grow up: Can vaccines built for kids work in older immune systems too?

Few of the folks who ardently oppose vaccines will likely be swayed by the content provided here. However, this magazine provides an excellent broad-brush treatment of the topic for those who are curious, savvy, and vulnerable to reason.

Link to the issue on the Web. Flash of the electrons to Liz Ditz for alerting me to this excellent resource.

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ICDR input opportunity

Published on 19 April 2009 in Families, News, Policy and Research. 0 Comments

The Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) issued a reminder about its process for securing recommendations about priorities for about disability and rehabilitation research. Following its earlier call for recommendations, ICDR now solicits public voting about the agenda.

The ICDR Seeks Your Recommendations on Emerging Disability Research Topics

Web site provides opportunity to vote and prioritize disability issues of greatest concern

This year for the first time, the federally mandated Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) is utilizing an innovative Web-based approach to collect online disability research comments to assist in developing a federal disability and rehabilitation 2010 research agenda. This technology-driven approach gives the public a three-week timeframe from March 27th through April 17th to submit their recommendations. Additionally, registered participants will be invited to review all comments submitted and vote on their top 10 concerns in each topic area during the one-week period from April 22nd through April 29th. Public comments from stakeholders are the focal point of the disability research recommendations in the ICDR Annual Report to the President and Congress.

All disability-related research topics are welcomed, including discussion about concerns important to the veteran and military communities. The ICDR is seeking comments with special emphasis placed in the following areas:

  • Collaboration and coordination among federal agencies;
  • Health information technology and/or electronic health records;
  • Health disparities;
  • Health promotion in the workplace;
  • Employment and health; and
  • Other critical research issues.

    • Guidelines and Instructions:

  • Access the ICDR Public Comment Web site: http://www.icdr.us/stakeholders for complete instructions, guidelines, and registration.
  • If you do not have access to a computer or the Internet, you may mail your comments to ICDR c/o CESSI, 6858 Old Dominion Drive, Suite 250, McLean, VA 22101 or fax to 703-442-9015. Please follow the following instructions for written comments:
    • No longer than 250 words or 1500 characters
    • Single-spaced using 12-point font in Times New Roman

    • Key Dates:

  • Web-based Public Comments: March 27 – April 17, 2009 (3:00 P.M. EDT)
  • Written Comments: March 27 – April 17, 2009 (Must be postmarked no later than the deadline)
  • Online Public Voting: April 22 – 29, 2009 (11:59 P.M. EDT)

    • Cross-posted to-from LD Blog.

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    More facial expressions work

    Published on 14 April 2009 in Autism, News, Research, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments

    In “Teaching autistic kids to read facial expressions,” Amber Dance of the Los Angeles Times reports on multiple projects looking at (sorry ’bout that) helping individuals with Autism to recognize human expressions. Of course, she discusses the Transporters videos, but she also describes other efforts.

    She mentions KASPAR (Kinesics and Synchronisation in Personal Assistant Robotics), a robot that, among other things, exhibits expressions. Professor Ben Robins of the engineering faculty at the University of Hertfordshire (UK) is involved in that research, examining “robots as therapeutic or educational ‘toys’ specifically for use by children with autism.” Researchers are using KASPAR “to study human-robot interaction as part of the European RobotCub Project, which aims to build an open-source robot platform for cognitive development research.”

    Ms. Dance also mentions research about the effects of methylphenidate on facial regard and a Web-based program for teaching facial expressions. The latter work is being conducted at by Judith Piggot of the Center for Autism Research and Treatment (CART) at the University of California at Los Angeles.

    Read Ms. Dance’s story. Learn more about CART. Learn more about Professor Robins, KASPAR, and the Aurora Project. The clinical trial of methylphenidate with children with Autism on which James T. Mccracken worked, was a part of the Research Units on Pediatric Psychopharmacology (RUPP) Autism Network, a National Institute of Mental Health funded multi-site consortium; read “Ritalin May Help Control Hyperactivity in Autistic Children” by Tom Harrison.

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    Savant skills among Autistics

    Published on 13 April 2009 in Autism, News, Research and The press. 0 Comments Tags: .

    Patricia Howlin and colleagues (including Sir Michael Rutter) reported the results of a study of savant skills among individuals with Autism. They found that, although some individuals with Autism have savant skills, it might not be as common as the popular press says.

    Of course, the rare cases really astound us. Treffert and Christensen (2005) recounted the case of Kim Peek, who “read Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October in one hour and 25 minutes. Four months later, when asked, he gave the name of the Russian radio operator in the book, referring to the page describing the character and quoting several passages verbatim.”

    I’m still working with my library to obtain a complete copy of the Howlin et al. paper. Here’s the abstract, though.

    Most investigations of savant skills in autism are based on individual case reports. The present study investigated rates and types of savant skills in 137 individuals with autism (mean age 24 years). Intellectual ability ranged from severe intellectual impairment to superior functioning. Savant skills were judged from parental reports and specified as ‘an outstanding skill/knowledge clearly above participant’s general level of ability and above the population norm’. A comparable definition of exceptional cognitive skills was applied to Wechsler test scores—requiring a subtest score at least 1 standard deviation above general population norms and 2 standard deviations above the participant’s own mean subtest score. Thirty-nine participants (28.5%) met criteria for either a savant skill or an exceptional cognitive skill: 15 for an outstanding cognitive skill (most commonly block design); 16 for a savant skill based on parental report (mostly mathematical/calculating abilities); 8 met criteria for both a cognitive and parental rated savant skill. One-third of males showed some form of outstanding ability compared with 19 per cent of females. No individual with a non-verbal IQ below 50 met criteria for a savant skill and, contrary to some earlier hypotheses, there was no indication that individuals with higher rates of stereotyped behaviours/interests were more likely to demonstrate savant skills.

    This is only one of many interesting articles in this issue of Transactions. There’s a list of the articles (and references for the works I’ve cited) after the fold.
    Continue reading ‘Savant skills among Autistics’

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    Mind those miraculous remedies

    Published on 10 April 2009 in Autism, Families, News, Research, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments

    Michael Fitzpatrick posted an edited version of a lecture entitled “It’s time to stop this ‘miracle cure’ madness” that he gave to Royal Society of Medicine in London (UK) on 23 March 2009.

    For parents the priority must be to put the interests of the child first. Children with autism should not be subjected to testing and treatment that is not supported by good evidence of efficacy and safety – especially if it lacks any scientific rationale. Parents should be more critical of the claims made for biomedical interventions and more questioning of the qualifications, experience and expertise of those offering them. Parents’ organisations should be wary of promoting the commercial interests of alternative practitioners and their associated laboratories and corporate suppliers of diets, pills and potions.

    Link for the posted version of the talk.

    Flash of the electrons to Liz Ditz.

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    Adult stakeholders

    Published on 28 March 2009 in Families, News, Policy and Research. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

    The US Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) is seeking citizens’ recommendations about a research agenda. Although this initiative aims at addressing issues for adults in the community, which differs from the focus of EBD Blog (educational issues related to children and youth and their families), I want to mention it here so that readers who may have interests in health, employment, and similar topics will get the news.

    This year for the first time, the federally mandated Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) is utilizing an innovative Web-based approach to collect online disability research comments to assist in developing a federal disability and rehabilitation 2010 research agenda. This technology-driven approach gives the public a three-week timeframe from March 27th through April 17th to submit their recommendations. Additionally, registered participants will be invited to review all comments submitted and vote on their top 10 concerns in each topic area during the one-week period from April 22nd through April 29th. Public comments from stakeholders are the focal point of the disability research recommendations in the ICDR Annual Report to the President and Congress.

    ICDR stakeholders page.

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    Does Rossignol et al. show HBOT’s effective?

    Published on 21 March 2009 in Autism, Families, Musings, News, Research and The press. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

    “Hyperbaric treatment for children with autism: a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial” by Daniel A. Rossignol, Lanier W. Rossignol, Scott Smith, Cindy Schneider, Sally Logerquist, Anju Usman, Jim Neubrander, Eric M. Madren, Gregg Hintz, Barry Grushkin, Elizabeth A. Mumper appeared as an on-line publication 13 March 2009 and will appear in print in BMC Pediatrics. The article URL is http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2431/9/21

    The recently published study by Rossignol and colleagues about hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) for Autism has generated lots of commentary and is sure to lead to more. Because it is a treatment study and employs more careful methods than are common in many of the therapies promoted these days, I sat up and said, “Hmm. I ought to read this one.”

    So I did. And I found it to be, indeed, a cut above much of the ersatz research that’s passed off as evidence in the Autism arena. But, I found some concerns, too.

    Those concerns led me to poke about a bit on the Internet to see whether there were any others who were raising questions. There are. And I still have some more poking to do. But, I thought I ought to record my concerns. Thus this post.

    Continue reading ‘Does Rossignol et al. show HBOT’s effective?’

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    Gorski: “bad year for antivaccinationists”

    Published on 23 February 2009 in Autism, Causes, Families, News, Policy, Prevention, Research, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

    Over on Science-Based Medicine, Dr. David Gorski has an extended entry entitled “2009: Shaping up to be a really bad year for antivaccinationists.” Dr. Gorski, who has repeatedly written on the topic of putative causes of Autism, connects lots of dots in this piece.

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