If Charlie’d had a younger sibling, would we have decided to participate in studies like this one at the University of Washington, as noted in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Autism researchers at the University of Washington are seeking parents who will allow them to do brain scans of their infants. …………. The UW scientists are looking for 84 six-month-old infants from California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Nevada and Alaska who have an older sibling who has been diagnosed with autism. They also need 34 infants with typically developing older brothers or sisters. Each child will be scanned three times over two years. Certainly I would have considered having a sibling of Charlie’s participate in such... [Read more]

So you know how we made sure to have a very lowkey Thanksgiving and also to keep things real simple and understated for Charlie’s birthday, a holiday involving days off from school and an event that has been known to cause Charlie some serious consternation? In 2008, both of these days passed well and quietly for us, largely because we strove to make them Super No Big Deal in the biggest way. So you think I’d have applied the same tried and true formula to Christmas and New Year’s. Granted, since we take a 3000 mile airplane trip from New Jersey to California, and (as we traveled on Christmas Eve day, due to Charlie’s having his last day of school on December 23rd) no sooner had we landed and gotten to my parents’... [Read more]

Discussion was dominated by two stories, that of 13-year-old Adam Race, against whose parents a priest filed a restraining order, and of 5-year-old Alex Barton, who was voted out of his kindergarden class by his classmates, at the suggestion of his teacher, Wendy Portillo. These two incidents sparked some very heated and often acrimonious exchanges and remind me of why there’s a need to think about autistic persons and the community, in faith communities and all others. Also: It was reported that there had been 72 cases of measles so far in the US, the highest number since 2001—-and the number would only go up, while misinformation about vaccines continued. Sometimes it seems that everything, if not anything, could be said to cause... [Read more]

Saw those 4 letters on the license plate of an older SUV while driving around Berkeley on Tuesday—–no kidding! [Read more]

9-year-old Nicholas Benavides died Monday morning in a fire at his house in Corpus Christi, Texas, today’s Caller Times reports. Nicholas was autistic and, according to his grandmother, Maria Benavides, was “’shy, but also friendly and always smiling.’” On Monday, Nicholas’ siblings, ages 11 and 4, were at their maternal grandparents’ home and Nicholas’ mother was at work. Benavides said her son, the boy’s father, told her he was doing laundry in a room at the rear of the house. Fire Chief Richard Hooks said it hasn’t been determined if the boy was alone in the house. Fire officials were interviewing the boy’s father late Monday. When Corpus Christi firefighters arrived at 10:37... [Read more]