behavior – ASF Weekly Science Podcasts

This week’s podcast summarizes some highlights in scientific research and includes a recognition of Rare Disease Week and actions taken by the FDA to ease the criteria for evaluating genetic therapies for rare genetic disorders, the best study to date on the mortality in autism, genetic prediction of outcome in individuals with a diagnosis, and … Continue reading "Rare Disease Week, th...

You may have heard terms in early intervention like “NDBI” or “Early Start Denver Model” and wondered if there was a difference in efficacy behind all these flavors of toddler interventions. On this week’s podcast, we speak to Dr. Giacomo Vivanti from @DrexelAutism, who combined data from 4 of these interventions across 700 children to … Continue reading "The di...

This week, a new study suggests a causal link not between Tylenol, but to COVID, which can cause a fever. There is clearly more research needed, but the findings are consistent with research on the link between maternal illness and autism. Also, it’s well known that genetics plays a role in how symptoms of autism … Continue reading "Can COVID cause autism?"

This week, Drs. Casey Burrows from @UMN and Shuting Zheng from @UTexas discuss a new paper looking at sex differences in autism features from 20-40 months of age. A new analysis done with data from the Baby Siblings Research Consortium concludes that, early in life, girls with autism show differences in some autism features (like … Continue reading "This one’s for the girls"

This week’s podcast includes summaries from two new scientific studies (with comments from one of the studies’ authors @SimonsFoundation and @princetonPPH) about that tackle grouping and labeling the differences across the spectrum into meaningful subtypes. Both provide scientific evidence, including behavioral and biological data, that support the use of different labels. This is more...

While it may not seem like it, the COVID-19 pandemic brought some advances in care and understanding for people on the spectrum. One example is the development and validity of remotely administered assessments that families can participate in from home rather than travel to a clinic. These tools were built out of necessity, and are … Continue reading "Online autism assessments as a perk of t...

New research points to a previously understudied but fascinating mechanism by which environmental factors may lead to autism: it’s called the “GABA/glutamate switch” which is a critical period in development when certain cells turn from turning on cell activity to turning them off. These environmental factors may delay this process leading to long term effects … Continue re...

This week, more on genetics as an influence to an autism diagnosis with a twist: can genetics lead to a specific treatment for core symptoms – across the board? How do you measure such broad symptoms? Our Rett Syndrome family friends and colleagues developed a novel outcome measure to capture what was most important to … Continue reading "Breakthrough for those with rare genetic disord...

As health care and outcomes for very premature infants has improved, scientists are able to track their longer term behavioral development, and that includes risk of developmental disorders like autism. On this week’s #ASFpodcast, Dr. Jessica Bradshaw discusses her recent research examining biological predictors like body temperature and heart rate and how they are linked … Continue re...

This podcast has not covered transition from adolescence to adulthood in the past, probably because there has not been a lot of research in this area. Luckily, recently there has been a surge of investigations and scientifically – supported interventions and recommendations for individuals who are transitioning to adulthood. This podcast reviews the latest in … Continue reading "The Tr...