William Searing is an Eagle Scout who loves hiking, adventure, art and sports. At age 19, he's in an education program that bridges the gap from high school to getting a job. Wil has autism.
When anything is wrong with your child, your first instinct is to make it better. Diagnose the situation, find the answer to the problem and take your child's pain away. But with autism, that takes quite a lot of doing.
For 8-year-old Ryan Mohar, an elevator isn't just an elevator. He spends hours pressing the buttons and riding up and down, preferring this to the slew of alternatives that his teachers offer -- even candy.
When Bruce Gutlove holds up his vineyard's finest bottle of chardonnay, he sees the clarity, senses the anticipated crisp taste, and savors the hard summer of tending to his grapes.
British prosecutors said Thursday they will not seek charges against accused Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon, which puts him one step closer to being extradited to the United States to face charges.
A special court's Thursday ruling that no proven link exists between autism and certain early childhood vaccines seems to have done little to change the sometimes-passionate opinion fueling the debate.
A special court ruled Thursday that evidence presented in three cases by parents of children with autism did not prove a link between autism and certain early childhood vaccines.
At 13, Michelle Cedillo can't speak, wears a diaper and requires round-the-clock monitoring in case she has a seizure. While her peers go to school or the mall or spend time with friends, the Yuma, Arizona, teenager remains at home, where she entertains herself with picture books and "Sesame Street" and "Blue's Clues" DVDs.
William Searing is an Eagle Scout who loves hiking, adventure, art and sports. At age 19, he's in an education program that bridges the gap from high school to getting a job. Wil has autism.
When anything is wrong with your child, your first instinct is to make it better. Diagnose the situation, find the answer to the problem and take your child's pain away. But with autism, that takes quite a lot of doing.
For 8-year-old Ryan Mohar, an elevator isn't just an elevator. He spends hours pressing the buttons and riding up and down, preferring this to the slew of alternatives that his teachers offer -- even candy.
When Bruce Gutlove holds up his vineyard's finest bottle of chardonnay, he sees the clarity, senses the anticipated crisp taste, and savors the hard summer of tending to his grapes.
British prosecutors said Thursday they will not seek charges against accused Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon, which puts him one step closer to being extradited to the United States to face charges.
A special court's Thursday ruling that no proven link exists between autism and certain early childhood vaccines seems to have done little to change the sometimes-passionate opinion fueling the debate.
A special court ruled Thursday that evidence presented in three cases by parents of children with autism did not prove a link between autism and certain early childhood vaccines.
At 13, Michelle Cedillo can't speak, wears a diaper and requires round-the-clock monitoring in case she has a seizure. While her peers go to school or the mall or spend time with friends, the Yuma, Arizona, teenager remains at home, where she entertains herself with picture books and "Sesame Street" and "Blue's Clues" DVDs.
The Bilson family is like many other families: three kids, a cat, and a small, lovely home with lots of family photos and carved wooden wall signs with sayings like "Live, Laugh, Love."
Children who are born more than three months premature have double the expected rate of autism at age two as full-term children, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of Pediatrics.
The British man accused of hacking into U.S. military computers got a dose of good news Friday when the High Court granted his request for a review of his case, thus postponing his extradition to the United States.
Concerns about health care, food and vaccine safety added to the anxieties Americans felt this year. But it wasn't all doom and gloom -- medical advances in stem cell research have scientists hoping for better transplant surgeries in the future. Here are the top health stories of the year:
A new study published in the January 2008 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry found the prevalence of autism cases in California children continued to rise after most vaccine manufacturers started to remove the mercury-based preservative thimerosal in 1999, suggesting that the chemical was not a primary cause of the disorder. Researchers from the State Public Health Department found that the autism rates in children rose continuously during the study period from 1995 to 2007. The preservative, thimerosal, has not been used in childhood vaccines since 2001, except for some flu shots. The latest findings failed to convince some parents and advocacy groups, who have long blamed mercury, a neurotoxin, for the disorder.
When Katie Shutters's 13-month-old daughter, Averie, was born, she followed the recommended vaccine schedule for two months. Then she did some research and decided to hold off on additional shots until Averie turned 9 months old. "I liked the idea of my breast milk giving her the immunities she needs and allowing her body to work for her instead of some medicine," says the stay-at-home mom from Indianapolis, Indiana. "She isn't in daycare, and we don't travel overseas. I had concerns about injecting her for no reason."
Seeking to make the world of autism a little smaller, members of the international diplomatic community gathered Friday at the United Nations World Focus on Autism.
The Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine causes neither autism nor gastrointestinal disorders, a study reported Wednesday, disputing a theory that has persisted for a decade.
It's called the "love hormone," and it's been shown to mitigate symptoms of social disorders like autism. Now some manufacturers are touting it as a shyness remedy
Testimony resumed Monday in a long-running case involving thousands of children with autism that their parents contend was triggered by an early childhood vaccination.
This week, the world has come together to focus on a major public health issue that affects thousands of children and their families around the world -- autism.
This week, the world has come together to focus on a major public health issue that affects thousands of children and their families around the world -- autism.
The parents of a 9-year-old girl with autism said Thursday that their assertion that her illness was caused by childhood vaccines has been vindicated by the federal government's decision to compensate them.
When her son Justin was a newborn, Shannon Kinninger looked up from the kitchen where she was washing dishes, and saw a large, heavy toy fall on his head. Justin didn't cry.
It remains one of the greatest mysteries of medicine. Although autism will be diagnosed in more than 25,000 U.S. children this year, more than new pediatric cases of AIDS, diabetes and cancer combined, scientists and doctors still know very little about the neurological disorder.
When -- after many visits to doctors and hospitals --- Tian Huiping's son was finally diagnosed with autism, the only advice she was given was to make use of a loophole in China's "one-child" policy that allows parents with disabled children to have one more.
Ryan Unumb just turned 7 years old. He has about 100 words in his vocabulary, even if they are difficult to understand. He's potty trained. He loves playing with water. He follows instructions, he asks for food when he's hungry, and he gives lots of kisses.
When meeting Jeff Donohoo, it's not immediately apparent he is a 36-year-old man living with autism. In fact, unless you get him talking about the Atlanta Braves -- one of his true passions in life -- he is a very quiet person.
Walk into Naughty Auties, a virtual resource center for those with autism, and you'll find palm trees swaying against a striking ocean sunset. Were it not for the pixelated graphics on the computer screen in front of you, you would swear you were looking at a tropical hideaway.
Tito Mukhopadhyay shuffles to the front door of his home in Austin, Texas. He's coming home from school, something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
I didn't know what was going on with my son Evan. One day he was a completely healthy 2-year-old and the next he kept having life-threatening seizures.
Record the CNN Special Investigations Unit Classroom Edition: Autism is a World when it airs commercial-free on Monday, March 31, 2008 from approximately 4:00-- 5:00 a.m. ET on CNN. (A short feature begins at 4:00 a.m. and precedes the program.)
A rare genetic variation dramatically raises the risk of developing autism, a large study showed, opening new research targets for better understanding the disorder and for treating it
Amanda Baggs, a 26-year-old woman with autism, became a bit of an Internet sensation after she posted videos she made about how someone with autism experiences reality.
When I walk into her apartment, Amanda Baggs makes no eye contact. She doesn't come to the door or raise her hand to greet visitors. In fact, I'm having a hard time discerning whether she even knows I'm there. I say hello and introduce myself, but she remains silent, sitting at her desk, staring out the window, rocking slightly back and forth.
In 1986, when Robert Wright went from running GE's finance division to running NBC, David Letterman joked that his new boss was going to order up a miniseries on the toaster oven. Twenty-one years ...
Treatment of autism, sadly, is a rapidly growing market. The incurable developmental disorder--which affects skills such as communication, social interaction, and perception of others' emotions--al...
The brother of a minister on trial for suffocating an autistic child during an exorcism told jurors Thursday that it was God who "took" the child, not the defendant's intense ritual.
Returning from a shopping trip one Thursday last August, Karen McGovern, 55, found her six-foot, 193-pound son Billy angrily chasing his male home aide around the backyard of the family's Oklahoma ...
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