A three-year-old autistic boy died after being strangled by his seatbelt on a schoolbus this past Sunday, the Jerusalem Post reports. An aide has been arrested:
During a police investigation into the incident, the boy’s mother said that she realized he was unconscious when she boarded the school bus to help him off after it arrived at her house.
Police later began to suspect that the incident was a result of the boy being improperly secured into his seat, a suspicion that led to the arrest of his aide
Many, many thoughts with the boy’s family. Many.

Do we really need a “crusade against autism”?  Autism Speaks co-founder Bob Wright, grandfather of an autistic child, spoke of just such a “crusade” in the inaugural Annual TreeHouse Lecture. Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick (who’s the parent of an autistic child) writes about how such a “crusade” does more harm than good in the October 29th Spiked. Here’s his conclusion:
Many families affected by autism welcome the higher public profile of autism, as reflected in the US election campaign. If this leads to greater resources to enable children with autism to get appropriate schooling and for affected families to get the …read more

Heralding an October 22nd lecture entitled “Are we ambitious enough about autism?” to be delivered by Autism Speaks co-found Bob Wright at the Treehouse charity in the UK Telegraph asks “Should we want to cure autism?”
After raising my son Charlie for these past 11 years, my answer is that (in the words of a friend) curing autism is “neither possible nor desirable.” Autism is lifelong; it’s neither something that you catch or that you can be cured from, and focusing too much on trying to cure autism can distract from the pressing realities of teaching, supporting, taking …read more