XBox Kinect for Autism

Business & Technology | As people experiment, they find Kinect is much more than a game | Seattle Times Newspaper

At the Lakeside Center for Autism in Issaquah, three 5-year-olds stand in front of a big screen displaying a river-rafting game. They laugh as they jump or wave their arms, making their on-screen avatars do the same through the use of Kinect motion-sensing technology.

Across the globe, hospitals in Cantabria, Spain, are testing a Kinect application allowing doctors and nurses to wave their arms to pull up patient charts or X-rays.

And Razorfish, a marketing agency that started in Seattle, is experimenting with a retail application using Kinect that would allow shoppers to project their image on a screen to see how various purses they're considering look as they hold them.

Praise be ... Robbie Wood FOUND ALIVE after 6 Days

This just goes to show never give up hope. Amazing that Robbie survived 6 days in these conditions. I don't want to hear those wimps on Survivor whining anymore if Robbie can survive this situation. Also, another case of the child being found within 1 mile of where he was last seen. These seems very common. I would still like to have stats on how far these kids are found from last known location.

UPDATE: Robert Wood Jr. found alive in Hanover | Richmond Times-Dispatch

DOSWELL, Va. --

A Martin Marietta quarry worker found Robert Wood Jr. about 2 p.m. lying down in a creek bed or gully west of the Martin Marietta quarry property, about three-quarters to a mile from where he was last seen, Hanover Sheriff David Hines said during an afternoon news briefing.

Hines said Robert was alert and described his condition as “serious but in good shape.” He was fully clothed.

“There is a God, he listens to prayer and the prayers were answered,” said Hines, adding, “no one on the team ever gave up” looking for him.

Robert, an 8-year-old severely autistic child who cannot speak, disappeared Sunday during a family walk in North Anna Battlefield park.

The worker found Robert in a fetal position but alert about 50 yards from the edge of the quarry.

Hines said the area where Robert was found had been searched before. “It’s been a challenge dealing with a child with special needs who is lost. I can’t tell you he was there (earlier). I don’t think we walked past him.”

“We have 6,000 volunteers to thank – and not just from Hanover County – but from the entire region,” said Hines, who also praised the support the department received from numerous public safety agencies, the military, search and rescue groups and local businesses.

The search, Hines said, was “an effort by an entire region – and possibly a state.”

“Whenever a child goes missing, everyone wants to step up,” he said.

“We’ve spoken with the experts that have been involved in these searches, and they have never been involved a search that had this many volunteers consistently, everyday, and grow everyday,” the chief said.

The investigation into how Robert became separated from his father continues, Hines said.

-- Mark Bowes and Bill McKelway

Apology FAIL: 9-Year-Old Girl With Autism, And Service Dog Denied Store Entrance TWICE

Emily Ainsworth, 9-Year-Old Girl With Autism, And Service Dog Denied Store Entrance Twice

After an Edmonton store apologized for turning away a 9-year-old with autism and her service dog, it kicked her out of the shop when she returned a second time, CBC News reports.

Winners issued a formal apology and a $25 gift certificate to Emily Ainsworth after her mom complained about the store's refusal to let her daughter in. But, when Emily came back to redeem the certificate, she was told that dogs are not welcome, according to the news outlet.

More @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/emily-ainsworth-turned-away-from-store_n_1033318.html

Face It: Study links facial features to Autism

MU study links facial features to autism | The Columbia Daily Tribune - Columbia, Missouri

A new University of Missouri study shows that children with autism have slight differences in facial characteristics — a finding that indicates the disorder develops in the womb.

Kristina Aldridge, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences in MU’s School of Medicine, worked with other researchers at the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders to analyze 64 boys with autism and 41 typically developing boys ages 8 to 12.

They used a camera to capture 3-D images of each child’s head and then mapped 17 points on the faces. When Aldridge compared the two groups, she found statistically significant differences in facial features.

Children with autism have a broader upper face and wider eyes than children without the disability, researchers found. Autistic children also have a shorter middle region of the face, including the cheeks and nose, and a wider mouth.

“What’s important about studying the face in autism is that the brain and face develop in close contact,” Aldridge said.

If something in the brain is changing that will ultimately result in autism, she said, that also should be reflected in facial features.

More @ http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/oct/26/mu-study-links-facial-features-to-autism/

UPDATE: Hundreds answer call to help search for missing autistic boy | The News & Advance

UPDATE: Hundreds answer call to help search for missing autistic boy | The News & Advance

DOSWELL --

At 10:30 a.m., three school buses filled with volunteers left to conduct a search that would start on Verdon Road.

Hanover Sheriff's Office Lt. Kenny B. Epling said the team of 150 searchers would be lined up to walk a 1 1/2-mile-deep area from Verdon Road to the North Anna River. Searchers were told they might be working into the evening.

Canine officers with dogs were also preparing to head out from Kings Dominion.

Earlier in the morning, 250 professional searchers were deployed.

The total number of volunteers was estimated at 2,000, and coordinators hoped to use as many of them as possible. Epling said anyone not trained by 2 p.m. would likely be turned away because there wouldn't be time to get them out in the woods and back before dark.

http://www2.newsadvance.com/news/2011/oct/25/22/tdmain01-search-for-autistic-boy-entering-third-da-ar-1407465/

Boys need Gardasil Vaccine Too says CDC

News from The Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) -- The controversial HPV shot given to girls should also be given to boys, in part to help prevent the spread of the virus through sex, a government medical panel said Tuesday.

The expensive vaccine, which protects females against cervical cancer, hasn't been popular. And doctors admit it will be a tough sell to parents of 11- and 12-year-old males, too.

Could Airway Abnormality Point to Autism? - US News and World Report

Could Airway Abnormality Point to Autism? - US News and World Report

MONDAY, Oct. 24 (HealthDay News) -- A researcher has found an abnormality in the airways of children with autism that she says may be the first anatomical marker for the neurodevelopmental disorder.

While examining children with autism who came in for a persistent cough, Dr. Barbara Stewart used a bronchoscope -- which can see down into the windpipe and the airways that branch into the lungs -- and noticed something different about those branches.

In a typical lung, the windpipe, or trachea, branches into two main stems. From there, airways branch off the stems much like tree branches in a random, asymmetrical pattern, said Stewart, a pediatric pulmonologist at Nemours Children's Clinic in Pensacola, Fla.

But in the autistic children, those branches were instead doubled up and symmetrical. And the branches were smaller -- whereas in a normal lung you might have one large branch jutting off, in the autistic child, she'd see two, smaller branches instead.

Stewart went back and looked at the bronchoscopy results of 49 children with autism spectrum disorder and more than 300 kids without the condition. She found that all of the kids with autism had what she calls symmetrical "doublets" in their airways, while none of the normally developing kids did.

"I don't know what the significance of that is ... But it looks like they have more of everything," Stewart said, adding that all of the autistic children had normal lung function and the anatomical difference may or may not explain the cough.

Test anthrax vaccine’s effectiveness in children?

The parents or children would have to benefit directly or indirectly in some way, may be time to whip out the $40 Target gift cards to lure out the guinea pigs. Does any one think the results would ever be anything other than "yep, it's safe."

Possible study of anthrax vaccine’s effectiveness in children stirs debate - The Washington Post

“There is a lot of skepticism on the part of the public about vaccines in general,” Lurie said. “If you had a situation where a vaccine has never been given to a child, it’s pretty hard to think what you could say to people about its safety and efficacy.”

But testing drugs and vaccines in children is problematic. Parents generally are allowed to let their children participate in studies only if they would face minimal risk or would be likely to benefit directly or indirectly in some way.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/possible-study-of-anthrax-vaccines-effectiveness-in-children-stirs-debate/2011/10/13/gIQAFWLdDM_print.html

Apps for Autism (iPad): 60 Minutes (Video and Transcript)

Apps for Autism (iPad): 60 Minutes

Apps for autism on 60 Minutes TONIGHT

Preview: Apps for autism - 60 Minutes - CBS News

Einstein Scientists Propose New Theory of Autism | Einstein News

Einstein Scientists Propose New Theory of Autism | Einstein News

Researchers link low birth weight to autism risk | National Nursing News

Researchers link low birth weight to autism risk | National Nursing News

Autism researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing have found a link between low birth weight and autism diagnoses, reporting that premature infants are five times more likely to have autism than children born at normal weights.

Watching an Autistic Child Regress - NYTimes.com

Watching an Autistic Child Regress - NYTimes.com

Terrible pain too often accompanies mother-love (and father-love for that matter). I could not let Megan Liberman’s post from Monday on Emily Rapp’sNotes From a Dragon Mom inch down the screen without flagging another — admittedly far less hopeless — reflection on maternal loss that I read some days ago in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

It’s called Little Boy Lost, and in it Amy Leal, a Syracuse University Romantic scholar, writes unforgettably of the horror of having watched her now-nonverbal 2-year-old son, Julian, lose his just-acquired language skills to autism.

Julian had, she relates, been receiving early-intervention services for three months when he suddenly had a “frightening regression” and “the light in his eyes began to go out.”

More @ http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/watching-an-autistic-child-regress/

Dispelling a Popular Myth about Marriage

Dispelling a Popular Myth about Marriage

The Autism Doctor

The Autism Doctor has been added to The Autism Retort.

The Lion King On Broadway King of the Autism Jungle! - AGE OF AUTISM

The Lion King On Broadway King of the Autism Jungle! - AGE OF AUTISM

Every parent of a child with autism has that ‘box’ in their head. You know the box I mean, the one that you put all your dreams, hopes and expectations after your child was diagnosed with autism. This weekend thanks to the Theater Development Foundation (TDF), I was able to dust off my box, and pull one back out to share with my 7 year old son Liam: a Broadway show. Now, to some this probably sounds silly and possibly trite; but to me, a girl who grew up on the stage and went to school in New York for theater -it was one of the hardest ones to give up. So, when I heard that the TDF was pairing up with “The Lion King” to do the first ever “Autism Friendly” Broadway show, I jumped online and got tickets.

More @ http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/10/the-lion-king-on-broadway-king-of-the-autism-jungle.html

Autistic Man’s ‘Acting Odd’ Lands Him In Jail « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

Autistic Man’s ‘Acting Odd’ Lands Him In Jail « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

“I told them I had autism and he told me basically I was a liar.”

“I asked them repeatedly, was he violent? Did he ever threaten? No, they all told me no he was just odd,” Lux said.

Full @ http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/10/03/autistic-mans-acting-odd-lands-him-in-jail/