News Related to Autism

1. Parent's Mental Illness and Kid's Autism
   

   May 5, 2008 -- Children born to a parent with schizophrenia or certain other mental illnesses may have an increased risk for autism, new research suggests. Parents of children diagnosed with autism were roughly twice as likely to have been hospitalized for a psychiatric disorder such as schizophreni

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2. Study Suggests Preemie, Autism Link
   

   April 2, 2008 -- Very premature birth may be a major risk factor for autism, but more study is needed to confirm the association, researchers say. One out of four very-low-birth-weight babies -- weighing as little as 1 pound at birth and no more than 3.3 pounds -- showed signs of autistic behavior w

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3. Parents of Autistic Kids Take Income Hit
   

   April 2, 2008 -- Parents of children with autism earn 14% less than parents who don't have autistic kids. That news appears in April's edition of Pediatrics. The finding is based on 11,000 U.S. children in kindergarten through eighth grade. The group included 131 children diagnosed with an autism sp

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4. Gov't: Girl’s Autism-Like Symptoms Linked to Vaccines
   

   March 6, 2008 -- Federal officials say a Georgia girl is entitled to compensation from a federal vaccine injury fund because she developed autism-like symptoms after receiving childhood vaccines in 2000. Hannah's father, Jon, tells WebMD he was not surprised by the compensation decision. "When you a

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5. Dad in Autism-Vaccine Case Speaks Out
   

   March 6, 2008 -- Neurologist Jon Poling, MD, PhD, is not surprised that the federal government decided to grant compensation from a federal vaccine injury fund because his daughter Hannah, now 9, had developed autism-like symptoms after receiving childhood vaccines. He knew the case was a good one.

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6. 'Baldi' Helps Kids With Autism
   

   Feb. 15, 2008 (Boston) -- Children generally love to play with computers, but many children with autism prefer interacting with a computer to conversing with a person. Many scientists have been working on ways to take advantage of that to help autistic kids learn. A virtual talking head, or "embodie

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7. Measles Vaccine: No Autism Link
   

   Feb. 4, 2008 -- The measles vaccine doesn't cause long-lasting measles infection or raise abnormal immune responses in kids with autism, a new study confirms. A 1998 study of 12 children suggested that their autism might be linked to measles vaccine -- given as part of the routine measles-mumps-rube

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8. Mercury in Vaccines Leaves Blood Fast
   

   Jan 30, 2008 -- Ethyl mercury from the vaccine preservative thimerosal leaves the blood 10 times faster than methyl mercury, on which current risk assessments are based. Only trace levels of thimerosal can be found in U.S. vaccines, except in multi-dose vials of flu vaccine (single-dose flu vaccine

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9. Psychoanalysis Helps Kids With Autism
   

   Jan. 25, 2008 -- From the strict dairy-free and wheat-free diet that actress Jenny McCarthy details in her best-selling book, Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism, to mercury detoxification and other types of speech and behavior therapies, there is little that parents of children

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10. Autism Gene Glitch Traced to Moms
    

    Jan. 10, 2008 -- Glitches in a gene called CNTNAP2 appear to be linked to autism, and at least one of those mutations may be handed down by mothers. That news appears in today's online edition of The American Journal of Human Genetics. In the journal, three teams of scientists identify CNTNAP2 as a

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