Author Archives: EBDblog

April is Autism Awareness month. It’s a good time to stop and reflect on how much we have learned from systematic and dogged research over the time since I first became aware of Autism. In the mid 1960s, I was already working with some children who had received that diagnosis, but knowledge about it was [...] Continue reading →

A multi-institution research team has discovered that rare mutations, which probably affect development in the human nervous system, may significantly increase the risk of schizophrenia. The researchers found that adults with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and youth with childhood onset schizophrenia (COS) were 3 to 4 times more likely to have rare structural variants that [...] Continue reading →

The International Society for Autism Research (INSAR), in collaboration with Wiley Interscience, announced the publication of a new journal on Autism, Autism Research. The International Society for Autism Research is an organization of scientists and professionals who want to advance our understanding about Autism, including autism spectrum disorders such as Autism, Apserger Syndrome, and Pervasive [...] Continue reading →

Dick Whelan, who is one of the foundational folks in providing special education for students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, is going to be honored at this year’s meeting of the Council for Exceptional Children. I don’t usually quote e-mail messages from others without their permission, but I’m doing it here. Thanks to Chris Walter-Thomas [...] Continue reading →

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Here in central Virginia, we are fortunate to have many marvelous neighbors and entertainment activities. In a nifty coincidence, two of those are connected. The Virginia Institute of Autism (VIA) is taking advantage of author Jeffrey Cohen visiting C’ville for the Virginia Festival of the Book at the end of March 2008. As illustrated at [...] Continue reading →

At Translating Autism N. L. Lopez-Duran posted a note explaining why he retracted a statement about evidence failing to support a link between vaccination and Autism. In the note, Professor Lopez-Duran explained that he didn’t want to taint his blog with hints of advocacy, hoping to preserve it as a source of information that parents, [...] Continue reading →

In “Juvenile prison system needs reform, lawyers say: Advocates urge a judge to appoint a receiver to take over a system they say remains broken despite long-standing promises to fix it,” Michael Rothfeld reports that lawyers told a judge that long-standing problems with prisons for California youth apparently have failed and more drastic action is [...] Continue reading →

Here’s a description of a highly touted intervention.
[Method X] is recognized worldwide as a general method to reinforce the body’s protective abilities for people of all ages who suffer from various disorders and pre-illness conditions, i.e. practically healthy people.
[Method X] involves the organized interaction between [therapy agent] and person, with optimal conditions to offer [...] Continue reading →

According to Liz Ditz of I Speak of Dreams, Stephen Hinshaw gave the closing keynote speech at the Learning and the Brain conference in San Fransisco (CA , US). Professor Hinshaw, who chairs the Department of Psychology at the University of California—Berkeley and is an eminent psychologist with a list of accolades as long as [...] Continue reading →

In a systematic review of the research about parent training, Jennifer Wyatt Kaminski and colleagues of the US Centers for Disease Control identified factors that contribute to the effectiveness of programs that help parents manage the problematic behavior of their children. Of the 18 factors that they examined, only five proved to be important. Parent [...] Continue reading →