Help needed for autistic children in Puerto Rico: Please contact Maria.
And a mother recently wrote about her 7-year-old daughter in a post on autism being underdiagnosed in girls and women:
i have a 7 year old daughter that i know is autistic. she has every sign. she is seeing therepists and has seen diff doctors since the age of 3. she dont like clothing touching her skin, she struggles to fit in with other children, she used to keep washing her hands, obsesed with routine and would get very anxiouse and upset if things was different. ……………….there are so many things …read more

30-year-old Maria (not her real name) has a 6-year-old son who has autism—-and Maria faces deportation to Mexico. At 13, she came from there to the US on a visitor’s visa and attended public schools, got married, got divorced, has two children, and works full-time at a child-care center. The May 4th Austin America-Statesman reports:
Like millions of people in the United States, she is unauthorized to live and work here. A federal immigration officer discovered that secret in the Travis County Jail, where Maria had been booked on a misdemeanor assault charge after she was involved in a dispute with …read more

Monday. The The Archives of General Psychiatry publishes Continuing Increases in Autism Reported to California’s Developmental Services System: Mercury in Retrograde. The trial of Karen McCarron begins.

Tuesday. A new documentary, Today’s Man is shown and discussion ensues.

Wednesday. Three articles about CNTNAP2 as an autism-susceptibility gene are published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday. A lot of discussion ensues.

Today’s Man: A Documentary about Nicky GottliebA new documentary about 28-year-old Nicky Gottlieb, who has Asperger’s syndrome; the film was made by his sister, New York director Lizzie Gottlieb.
Thimerosal Exposure Declines, Autism Rates IncreaseFrom a study published in the Archives …read more

Two articles in the news today both point out discrepancies in services and support for autistic children who are from poorer and minority families.
Are poorer school districts less likely to accept an autism diagnosis, in view of the greatest cost to the district of educating an autistic child? An editorial in today’s Newsday makes this point:
Advocates for people with autism argue that some districts, especially those in relatively poor areas, often refuse to accept the diagnosis, shunting autistic children into a general impairment category instead. This is evidenced most starkly in what appears to be a discrepancy between the …read more