Health : 7 Rookie Mistakes to Avoid When Training for a Race

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7 Rookie Mistakes to Avoid When Training for a Race Posted: 09 May 2011 12:15 PM PDT This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Health Buzz: Autism Rates May Be Higher Than Thought Posted: 09 May 2011 07:27 AM PDT Study: Autism More Common Than Current Estimates Autism rates may be significantly higher than previously thought, new research suggests. In the first large-scale study of its kind, researchers screened more than 55,000 South Korean children ages 7 to 12 and found that autism spectrum disorders—which range from severe symptoms to the milder Asperger's syndrome—affected as many as 1 in 38, or 2.64 percent of the kids. That finding, published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry, contrasts with the current U.S. estimate that 1 in 110 children, or less than 1 percent, are affected. Past autism research has focused on records from special education classes and mental-health agencies, leaving out children whose parents and schools never sought a diagnosis. The new report suggests that when a broad population is more rigorously studied, many more children may be affected than previously suspected, the researchers said. "There's no reason to think that South Korea has more children with autism than anyplace else in the world," study coauthor Bennett Leventhal, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University Medical Center, told NPR. "If you really go look carefully among all children everywhere, you find that things are far more common than you previously expected." Autism Screening Tops Obama's Medical To-Do List Grandparents Can Join the Hunt for Causes of Autism 4 Promising Autism Treatments, From Vitamin B12 to Alzheimer's Drug Namenda Medicine hasn't come up with a cure for autism, the often-devastating developmental disorder that now affects 1 in 150 children, and one big reason is that doctors don't yet know what causes it. Parents frustrated by the lack of options often turn to the Internet for help, where dozens of medical and behavioral treatments are promoted. Unfortunately, most of the treatments out there have not been tested to find out if they work, making it tough for parents to figure out what might help. Those that have been rigorously tested so far have failed to measure up. That includes secretin, a hormone affecting liver and pancreas function that was popular until a 2003 trial found it did nothing to alleviate symptoms. Yet treatments for autism do exist. Those proven to work include structured behavioral interventions that teach children social and language skills, as well as medications that reduce disabling symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and gastrointestinal disorders. Increasingly, researchers are looking at autism as a "state" that could be changed rather than a "trait," according to Martha Herbert, a pediatric neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. And researchers are starting to rigorously test other potential treatments, including methyl vitamin B12 and an Alzheimer's drug known as Namenda. [Read more: 4 Promising Autism Treatments, From Vitamin B12 to Alzheimer's Drug Namenda.] Contrary to Myth, Autism Doesn't Doom Parents to Divorce To Help Cure Autism, Share Your DNA DVD Helps Autistic Kids Learn to Read Emotions In Transporters, an animated DVD for children with autism, Jenny the trolley furrows her brow with worry when she's stuck on the track. That frown turns to a smile when her friends—all vehicles with smiling human faces—come to help her. Simple stuff, you might think, but not so simple for children with autism, who often have difficulty recognizing emotional expressions. This DVD represents a new direction for autism therapy: a simple, inexpensive teaching tool that parents can use to supplement more intensive behavioral therapies that are the first line of treatment. "It's a way of smuggling social skills teaching in the back door," says Simon Baron-Cohen, an autism researcher who developed the DVD and who directs the Autism Research Center at Cambridge University. Children with autism tend to like things that are predictable, and machines going down a track are that. Baron-Cohen figured that children with autism would be more comfortable watching the cartoon vehicles on a DVD than attending a social skills training group. Children with autism who watched the DVD 15 minutes a day for one month improved their ability to connect facial expressions with emotions, compared with a second group of children who didn't watch the video. In fact, the DVD watchers caught up with a third group of children in the same age range of 5 to 8 who don't have autism, according to a study published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. "We're not claiming any sort of miracle cure," says Baron-Cohen. "But it does show that if there's any sort of opportunity to practice, you can improve." [Read more: DVD Helps Autistic Kids Learn to Read Emotions.] How 1 Autistic Young Man Runs a Business Teenagers With Autism: Want a Job? This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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