This past Thursday in Virginia, a 24 year old autistic man was tazered by James City County police after he was to “become unruly with employees at Wilsons Leather at the Prime Outlets-Williamsburg shopping mall,” according to the Daily Press. It was only after the man was placed under arrest and charged with trespassing and resisting arrest that police learned that he had Asperger’s Syndrome.
Needless to say, incidents like these make training about autism for police and other first responders more than essential. The Daily Press quotes a James City Police spokesman, Mike Spearsman, as saying that the …read more

Whether or not a vaccine or something in a vaccine might be linked to autism is only one controversial topic in discussions about autism causation and treatment. Other controversial treatments include electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) and facilitated communication (FC). A recent comment about ECT notes that the current issue of Psychiatric Times contains a discussion of ECT and autism (though I’ve not yet noted the article on the website; will keep checking).

James T. Todd, Ph.D., of the Eastern Michigan University Department of Psychology recently commented with details about a case involving a 14-year-old non-verbal autistic girl and FC. The girl, who …read more