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Spectrum: Autism Research News

Tag: language

April 2023
Research image showing FOXP1 gene expression in female zebra finch brains.

Lacking autism-linked gene, female birds tune out favorite songs

by  /  21 April 2023

The gene, FOXP1, influences an animal’s motivation to listen to social communication, a new study suggests.

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March 2023
Photograph of a doctor taking notes on a toddler who is playing with their mother.

Journal Club: Meta-analysis oversells popular autism screen

by  /  14 March 2023

The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT) accurately flags autistic toddlers, a new systematic review and meta-analysis suggests, contrary to past evidence that the tool’s validity varies depending on a child’s age and traits. Experts weigh in on the discrepancy.

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January 2023
Three groups of people meet and mix at a crossroads.

Autism research at the crossroads

by  /  25 January 2023

The power struggle between researchers, autistic self-advocates and parents is threatening progress across the field.

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Three groups of people meet and mix at a crossroads.

Divisions over ABA

by  /  25 January 2023

Applied behavior analysis, the most common intervention for children diagnosed with autism, is the subject of an intense debate between practitioners and neurodiversity advocates.

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October 2022
A teacher observes young students as they play with toys at a table.

Social-pragmatic difficulties common with autism, other diagnoses

by  /  4 October 2022

A standard questionnaire can help identify social (pragmatic) communication disorder more readily in school-age children.

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September 2022
Constantina Theofanopoulou strikes a dancer's pose in her lab.

Beyond the bench: Learning new moves with dancer-scientist Constantina Theofanopoulou

by  /  13 September 2022

Theofanopoulou shares how flamenco stepped up the pace of her social-communication research, and what’s behind the ‘no fear’ ethos in her new lab.

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August 2022
Illustration of a woman speaking. What she is saying is represented by shapes in a speech bubble, which appears over a sheet of writing.

Novel protocol captures autism voices across the spectrum

by  /  17 August 2022

Interview techniques that cater to a range of communication abilities can elicit the perspectives of autistic youth with cognitive and verbal challenges.

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Toddler stepping towards parent, in front of window.

What developmental milestones say about autism research: A conversation with Susan Kuo and Elise Robinson

by  /  10 August 2022

Shifts in diagnostic criteria have only added to the condition’s bedeviling heterogeneity, an analysis of smiling, sitting, walking and other early milestones in more than 17,000 autistic children reveals.

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May 2022

Structural brain changes foretell language skills in autistic infants

by ,  /  19 May 2022

Increased white-matter maturation tracks with stronger language abilities later in childhood, but the relationship with cortical thickness is less clear.

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Researchers publish new dataset on minimally verbal autistic people

by  /  18 May 2022

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published the first repository of vocalizations from minimally verbal autistic people. Those with few or no spoken words still produce a range of phonemes, or units of sound, that may serve as developmental markers or intervention targets.

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