New research is showing just how effective early treatment can be for children with autism. Utah has one of the highest autism rates in the nation. Experts say many resources are available for families with children who have autism. However, many doctors and scientists tend to agree that a reliable autism diagnosis cant be made until the toddler is 2 years old, when most treatment starts. Now, new research shows that treatment starting at a much younger age is yielding promising results. Recent studies have documented subtle signs of the autism spectrum disorder, including erratic eye motion, among infants as young as 2 months. Other studies have shown that and other behavioral differences become more noticeable between 6 months to 1 year of age. Researchers at UC Davis set out on a study to find if early treatment could help. They found that guided social interaction between a mother and her baby can decrease autism symptoms by age 4. Infants who took part in the training program also scored higher than non-participants who were later diagnosed with autism. See the original post here: New study finds early treatment showing promise in children with autism … Continue reading →

When prospective parents have trouble conceiving and decide to seek medical help, they typically experience more than a little anxiety and have a host of questions: What are the potential risks to the mother and the baby? What kinds of diseases or other problems are associated with assisted reproduction? And, is one of those problems autism? As many as one in every 50 children age 6 to 17 is identified as having autism spectrum disorder, which impairs social interaction and communication. The increasing prevalence of autism has boosted the desire to pinpoint causes, and everything from parents' ages to vaccination has come under scrutiny by researchers looking for a link. Over the past five years, several studies have focused on infertility treatment, partly because of the coincidental rise in both the diagnosis of autism and the use of assisted reproduction, says Sean Ackerman, M.D., a child psychiatry fellow at Fletcher Allen Health Care and clinical instructor in psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. "People are always looking for that silver bullet with autism," he said. Ackerman and his team found no such link when they studied previously collected DNA data from almost 2,000 children with autism to … Continue reading →