News, Advice, and Tips for Parenting Teenagers

Claire LaZebnik's teenage son has autism. Her experiences raising an autistic child prompted her to team up with Lynn Kern Koegel, co-founder of the Autism Research Center at the Graduate School of Education at UC Santa Barbara, to write a book for parents of children with autism, Asperger's Syndrome and related disorders.

Koegel and LaZebnik have written Growing up on the Spectrum -- A Guide to Life, Love and Learning for Teens and Young Adults with Autism and Asperger's specifically for parents who have kids in this age group &

LaZebnik's son Andrew, a high school student, provides insight that most books on the subject of autism never seem to include -- the point of view from the child living on the spectrum. [Source: Orange County Register]

The "spectrum" refers to the behavioral characteristics associated with autism, and the degrees to which they exist in certain kids. Growing up on the Spectrum guides parents through their children's teen years, and the transition into college, which can be stressful for both the child and the parents.

Labels: asperger, parenting books, autism

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One in every 110 eight-year-old children has autism, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control in conjunction with the University of Alabama. This new rate reflects a 57 percent increase since 2005.

"This is a dramatic increase in the number of kids classified as autistic or documented on the spectrum of similar disorders ," Dr. Beverly Mulvihill, co-author of the study, said. "It is not entirely clear what is causing the rise."

The study confirms previous research that indicates boys are 4.5 times more likely to have autism than girls are.

However, there was some promising news about autism published in the journal Pediatrics. A study from the University of Washington found that after two years of intense intervention, very young children with autism increased their IQs by 17.6 points.

• Researchers enrolled 48 children ages 18 to 30 months old either into a group that got intense therapy called the Early Start Denver Model or into a group with a less intense program.
  
• The Early Start Denver Model requires children to spend 20 hours a week with therapists in their own homes, for parents to undergo training for five or more hours a week, and other services.
  
• After two years, the children in the Denver Model had improved diagnosis, less disruptive behaviors, and higher IQs.

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Mothers of autistic children are under more stress than are mothers of developmentally disabled children, according to a new study from the University of Washington.

Processor Annette Estes compared 51 mothers of children with autism to 22 mothers whose children had developmental delay. All the children in the study were about three years old. Although many of the developmentally delayed children needed high levels of care, the study indicated that the autistic children caused their parents more psychological stress.

"If a child has more needs in getting dressed and in other daily living skills that means the parents are working harder and seemingly would be under stress," Dr. Estes wrote. "But it is not the hard work that is stressing the mothers. Our findings really pointed to the behavioral problems that can occur with autism. Children with autism had significantly higher levels of problem behaviors than children with developmental delays."

This study appeared in the journal Autism.

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Some scientific studies support anecdotal evidence that when autistic children have a fever, they have fewer autistic behaviors. Now scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University believe that this could mean that the symptoms of autism might someday be reversible.

Autism is a developmental disorder that affects one in 150 children in the United States. The characteristics of the disorder are difficulties in communication, repetitive behaviors, and impaired social interactions. Dr. Mark Mehler, author of the new study, believes that autism is caused by impaired regulation of the local coeruleus, a bundle of neurons in the brain that processes sensory signals from the body and, among other things, produces fevers.

"We are talking about a brain region that is not irrevocably altered," Dr. Mehler said. "It gives us hope that with novel therapies we will eventually be able to help people with autism."

Though hopeful about the future of autism treatments, Dr. Mehler warned parents against unrealistic optimism.

"You can't take a complex neuropsychiatric disease that has escaped our understanding for 50 years and in one fell swoop have a therapy that is going to reverse it," he said. "That's folly." Yet, he wrote, he does believe that increases in scientific understanding of autistic brains may result in drug therapies to help autistic people.

Dr. Mehler's study appeared in the journal Brain Research Reviews.

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If a woman's spouse, child, parent, or sibling dies while she is pregnant (or the year before she is pregnant), she has no increased risk for having an autistic child, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics.

Dr. Jiong Li, working at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, reviewed the records of more than 1.5 million children born between 1978 and 2003, and found no evidence that the 37,000 women who had experienced the death of a significant loved one were more likely to give birth to an autistic child.

Dr. Li said many people believe that undergoing stress during pregnancy affects the unborn child, but it is difficult to come up with methods to measure that factor.

Labels: autism, health risks, pregnancy

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It may be possible to teach autistic children better social skills in classes, according to a study from the University of California in Los Angeles.

Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson and her colleagues conducted twelve weekly 90-minute for high-functioning autistic children. Topics included etiquette, hosting a party, sportsmanship, and handling teasing and arguments. The parents of the children also attended classes to learn how to reinforce the lessons.

"It's hard enough to be a teenager, but it's harder still for adolescents with autism because they typically lack the ability to pick up on all the social cues most of us take for granted," Laugeson said in an April 27 Reuters article. "Things like body language, hand gestures and facial expressions, along with speech inflections like warmth, sarcasm or hostility."

Dr. Laugeson said that the children in the treatment groups experienced "significant" improvements in social skills.

Looking for a way to improve your child's behavior, confidence, and social skills this summer? Talisman Camps & Programs features a number of exceptional summer camps for children with ADHD, Asperger's Syndrome, high-functioning autism, and related conditions.

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Parents of autistic children in Colorado got some good news recently, as the state's legislature has passed a bill that would require health insurance companies to pay for therapy for children with autism.

"This bill will have a tremendous impact on the lives of people with autism and their families. It will also alleviate some of the financial burden on the public education, public health care programs, and social services systems in our state," said Betty Lehman, Executive Director of the Autism Society of Colorado.

Intense behavioral therapy performed in early childhood has shown to benefit autistic children, but it is very expensive. However, studies indicate that such treatment can save more money in the long-run, because the estimated lifelong cost of caring for a person with autism spectrum disorder can run upward of $4.5 million. With the early intervention, treatment costs about two-thirds less.

Once this bill is signed into law, Colorado will become the 11th state requiring insurance companies to cover autism treatment. Autism is one of five conditions that fall under the term autism spectrum disorders.

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A new British study finds that children with Aspergers Syndrome have lower levels of cortisol, a hormone that helps the body deal with stress by increasing blood pressure and blood sugar to adapt to changes in the environment.

People generally wake up with a double amount of cortisol to help them with the stress of a new day. However, researchers at the University of Bath found that Aspies have no such cortisol increase in the morning, yet their levels of the hormone drop off throughout the day as do everyone elses.

"We think this difference in stress hormone levels could be really significant in explaining why children with [Aspergers Syndrome] are less able to react and cope with unexpected change," psychology professor Mark Brosnan of the University of Bath said in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Aspergers Syndrome is often defined as a form of high-functioning autism. Aspies often repeat behaviors and have narrow patterns of thought. Typically, they develop an obsession with a single topic or object.

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Fathers of autistic children do not prefer women with the curvy figure that many men find attractive, according to a study from the University of Bath in Great Britain. Women with curvy figures tend to have optimal levels of sex hormones, while those with thick waists tend to have higher levels of testosterone, which is linked to having a child with autism.

Researchers asked 100 fathers of autistic children to rate pictures of women with athletic frames or curvy figures. Previous research indicated that most men universally prefer the waist-to-hip ratio of 70 per cent, which has been linked to fertility and health. However, the men in this study showed no preference.

"Autism is widely regarded to have genetic origins, which may combine with hormonal influences," said Dr. Mark Brosnan, co-author of the study. "We wanted to investigate the mechanisms by which these genes come together in a parental pairing, whether it is by chance or if it could be due to different preferences in choosing a mate - so-called 'assortative mating.'"

This study appeared in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorder.

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Although children with autism are more likely to be hospitalized for infectious diseases, the diseases do not cause autism, according to a major study from Denmark.

• Researchers analyzed data for 1.4 million children and found that autistic children were more likely to be admitted to hospitals not only for infectious diseases but also for other causes including non-infectious diseases.
• Therefore, the research team concluded that childhood infections are not a cause for autism.
• Many parents believe their children developed autism after a severe fever or other ailment.

"We found the same relationship between hospitalization due to many different infections and autism," said Dr. Hjordis Atladottir, lead author of the study at the University of Aarhus.

Autism is characterized by problems in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication, and restricted interests and repetitive behaviors.  It appears to be increasing among American children, with one in every 110 having such a diagnosis.

This study appeared in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
 

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Children with autism have different speech patterns, and they even babble differently as infants. By attaching a recording device to the clothing of infants and very young children, clinicians will soon be able to determine which children have autism.

The device, known as LENA or Learning Environment Analysis, was developed by Infoture, Inc., which became the nonprofit LENA Foundation. LENA devices not only record speech patterns, but they also analyze them to create vocal profiles of children.

"A small number of studies have previously suggested that children with autism have a markedly different vocal signature," said Professor Stephen Warren of the University of Kansas. "Until now we have been held back from using this knowledge in clinical applications from the lack of measurement technology."

The average child is diagnosed with autism at age 5.7 years old, according to Dr. Warren. LENA could produce a diagnosis in children as young as 18 months.
 

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Mothers of children with autism are more likely to work fewer hours or not to have jobs outside their homes, according to a new study from Washington State University in Vancouver.

• Researchers looked at 326 families with children with autism.
• About 60 percent of the mothers did not work outside the home, and the ones that did tended to work fewer hours than average.
• About 25 percent had taken leave of absence, and had refused promotions.
• The majority (60 percent) of the families had financial problems.

The study appeared in Social Science Journal.
 

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Wealthy families are twice as likely to have children with autism, and no one knows why, according to a new study from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Experts have known since the 1940s that affluent parents are more likely to have children with this spectrum, but the prevalent theory was that children from wealthier families were more likely to be diagnosed and to seek medical help. Dr. Maureen Durkin set out to design a study that would determine if that were the case or if something else was going on.

Professor Durkin took census information on socioeconomic status that includes education, profession, and income level and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. She found that children from affluent families were twice as likely to have autism than the poorest children.

"We demonstrated that there is this association," she said. "It is statistically significant, and it is there, but we really cannot show why it is there. There may be a genetic predisposition to both becoming highly successful and to be at risk for autism."

This study was published in PLoS One.
 

Labels: autism, economics

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A study of 28,722 autistic children on Medicaid found that they were diagnosed at an average age of 64.9 months. Most experts in the field prefer that children are diagnosed earlier, so that they can participate in early intervention programs.

Medicaid is a government healthcare program for people whose incomes are below the poverty levels.
 

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The rate of divorce is double the normal rate for couples raising a child with an autism spectrum disorder, according to new study from the University of Wisconsin.

• Researchers studied 391 families participating in the Adolescents and Adult Autism Study, comparing them with families matched on the basis of the age, sex, and birth order of their children, as well as age, ethnicity, and education of the mother.
• Among parents whose children did not have autism, the rate of divorce decreased once their child turned eight years old and became "virtually nonexistent" when the child reached the mid-20s.
• This was untrue of families with a child with autism spectrum in that the risk for divorce remained the same even when the child was over 30 years old.
• The divorce rate was not related to how severe the symptoms of autism were, or if more than one child had the spectrum. However, the mother's age mattered in that younger mothers of children with autism were more likely to divorce.

The study appears in the Journal of Family Psychology.
 

Labels: autism, divorce

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Children with autism do not process sensory information, such as sound, touch, and vision, in the same way children without the disorder do, according to a new study from Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

"If you have all the sights and sounds coming at you but you can put them together in a meaningful way the world can be an overwhelming place," said Dr. Sophie Molphom, a professor of pediatrics and senior author of the study.

• Dr. Molphom and her colleagues compared 17 children with autism syndrome ages six to 16 years old with 17 children without the syndrome, matched for age and nonverbal intelligence.
• The children tried to pay attention to a silent video while unrelated sounds and vibrations occurred in the room.
• The children without autism syndrome were better able to process the various multisensory information coming their way.

The study appears in the journal Autism Research.
 

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