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Spectrum: Autism Research News

Tag: language

January 2023
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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February 2022
Woman going over homework with distracted child.

Early language loss in autistic children not tied to later communication problems

by  /  28 February 2022

Many autistic children experience language regression for about three months in early childhood, but this lapse does not appear to foretell future communication issues.

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December 2021

Birdsong-related DNA sequences tied to autism-linked genes

by  /  6 December 2021

Genes that appear to play a role in some birds’ ability to learn songs are frequently mutated in autistic people.

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November 2021

Remembering child psychiatrist Michael Rutter

by  /  1 November 2021

Sir Michael Rutter, widely hailed as the ‘father of child psychiatry,’ was part of the team that first showed autism has a genetic component. He died 23 October at age 88.

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