Jan. 14, 2014 Like watching a foreign movie that was badly dubbed, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have trouble integrating simultaneous information from their eyes and their ears, according to a Vanderbilt study published today in The Journal of Neuroscience. The study, led by Mark Wallace, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, is the first to illustrate the link and strongly suggests that deficits in the sensory building blocks for language and communication can ultimately hamper social and communication skills in children with autism. "There is a huge amount of effort and energy going into the treatment of children with autism, virtually none of it is based on a strong empirical foundation tied to sensory function," Wallace said. "If we can fix this deficit in early sensory function then maybe we can see benefits in language and communication and social interactions." And the findings could have much broader applications because sensory functioning is also changed in developmental disabilities such as dyslexia and schizophrenia, Wallace said. In the study, Vanderbilt researchers compared 32 typically developing children ages 6-18 years old with 32 high-functioning children with autism, matching the groups in virtually every possible way including IQ. Study participants worked … Continue reading →

January 15, 2014 [ Watch The Video: Senses Of Sight And Sound Separated In Kids With Autism ] Brett Smith for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online A group of autism researchers from Vanderbilt University have found that children with the condition experience the world as if they are watching a badly-dubbed foreign movie, in which auditory and visual stimuli are out of sync. According to the teams report in The Journal of Neuroscience, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulty combining information coming in simultaneously from both their eyes and their ears. The groundbreaking work could pave the way for new approaches to treating the developmental disorder, the researchers said. There is a huge amount of effort and energy going into the treatment of children with autism, virtually none of it is based on a strong empirical foundation tied to sensory function, said study author Mark Wallace, director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute. If we can fix this deficit in early sensory function then maybe we can see benefits in language and communication and social interactions. He added that the study could have implications for the study of other conditions in which sensory functioning is changed, such as dyslexia and … Continue reading →

There is a killer at work in South Florida. Between 2010 and 2012, stroke killed almost 5,000 people in Miami-Dade and Broward counties combined. Nationally, the damage is just as devastating. Almost 800,000 people suffer a stroke each year, causing more than 130,000 deaths, making stroke the fourth-leading cause of mortality. The good news is that death rates are declining falling more than 30 percent from 1995 to 2005 largely because of campaigns that educate on risk factors, stroke symptoms and the optimal treatment window. The war on stroke has also been waged on other fronts. Since FDA approval of the clot-busting tissue plasminogen activator, scientific advancements have introduced NeuroInterventional techniques and devices that have expanded the treatment window from three hours to eight. Stroke-care delivery has improved, with emergency transport guidelines and certifications that define specific personnel, equipment and treatment criteria that hospitals must meet to be deemed a primary or comprehensive stroke center. South Florida has risen to the challenge. In Miami-Dade and Broward counties there are seven comprehensive and primary stroke centers like the Baptist Hospital Stroke Program in which I practice. Our firefighters, doctors and local hospitals have formed the FOAM-D Stroke Consortium, one of the … Continue reading →

CORPUS CHRISTI (Kiii News) - Time is critical when it comes to getting medical care for someone suffering from a stroke, but relatives of Councilwoman Priscilla Leal say she was forced to wait seven hours to get the help she needed. Leal's daughter, Dina Chavez, said it was not because the treatment wasn't available, but instead, it was a matter of hospital protocol. Chavez said that the family waited two hours for a decision on whether her mother would be transferred to from Doctor's Regional Medical Center, where she was taken after she suffered a severe stroke last Friday, to Christus Spohn Hospital Shoreline. She said that the only neurological interventionist, a highly specialized stroke doctor, did not have privileges at Doctor's Regional, and would require an accepting physician at Spohn Shoreline before Leal could be transferred there. In an email sent to 3News, Chavez wrote that she wants to "clear up some misconceptions and inaccuracies." She added that, in the initial moments after her mother was taken to Doctor's Regional, the family was told that "she would need to be cared for by a neurological interventionist" for the type of stroke she suffered. The email goes on to say … Continue reading →