Autistic Daily

nathanborror on Flickr

Autistic children may learn better in smaller classrooms just because it’s easier to read the teacher’s lips.

“Viewing a speaker’s articulatory movements can greatly improve a listener’s ability to understand spoken words, and this is especially the case under noisy environmental conditions,” said Dr. John J. Foxe, Professor of Neuroscience at CCNY.

Speech develops well into adolescence, but autistic children often lag several years behind their non-autistic peers.

In larger classrooms, not only is it almost impossible to read the teacher’s lips, but various noise distractions are amplified, such as side chatter and paper rustling.

via timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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shazari on Flickr

Dr. Harvey Karp has recently blogged at the Huffington Post on the theory that endocrine disrupting chemicals found in plastics contribute to autism.

ECDs have already been named in obesity and genital defects. Now there’s speculation as to whether they cause upsets in hormonal balances, producing changes to the brain which, according to the Extreme Male Brain Theory, over masculinizes it and causes autism.

“This theory, proposed by Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues, speculates that autism is caused by something changing a fetus’ hormonal balance that then leads to over-masculinization of the developing brain,” writes Karp.

“Could that “something” be the slurry of hormone-altering chemicals we’re exposed to every day?”

“The “extreme male theory” has been supported by two interesting bits of evidence: 1) fetuses with slightly elevated levels of testosterone grow up acting extra-male (more interested in things than people, slow language development, etc.); 2) children with autism — boys and girls — show extra-male characteristics (e.g. poor social ability, language delay).”

“Here is where the very interesting link to EDCs comes into play: EDCs often act as weak estrogens and estrogen feminizines the body, but in a fetus’ developing brain estrogen actually has the opposite effect…it causes masculinization.”

Read Harp’s entire article at Huffingtonpost.com.

via ecochildsplay.com

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What is it about Keepon the dancing robot that makes autistic children and teenagers keepon playing with it?

Marek Michalowski, a research and doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University who co-created Keepon with his mentor Hideki Kozima, says it’s all about simplicity and the ease of understanding Keepon.

“The idea behind this robot is that it is so simple that they can easily understand the attention and the emotion that it expresses,” said Michalowski.

Indeed watching Keepon may make some of us a little dizzy, but Michalowksi insists children feel more comfortable with the robot instead of people, thus making it easier for them to laugh, smile, and express a whole host of emotions they couldn’t before. In other words, Keepon gets them in the mood.

“Just because they are diagnosed with autism doesn’t mean that they aren’t intelligent. They’re very intelligent. It is just kind of lost in their own mind, and with the robot, it brings it out and it shows the connection,” said Autism Society CEO Michelle Johnson.

Michalowski has developed his own company, BeatBots, LLC., so Keepon may be coming to a toy store near you soon.

via thebostonchannel.com

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