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Autism and ‘optimal outcomes’… to rethink what we mean by “optimal outcomes” For years, we’ve been using this term to describe a relatively small group of people with autism who, with therapy and support, experience such a marked decrease in autism symptoms that they no longer meet the criteria we use to diagnose the … re-defining “optimal outcome” as the best possible outcome based on each child’s personal characteristics and available supports . We find this as a much more suitable concept for developing autism services and setting goals for each child, …

Girls, genes and autism… , at the University of Washington, in Seattle. I want to start by saying "thank you" to the Autism Speaks community for its support of my research. My Weatherstone Fellowship launched my scientific career by helping fund my first big study – into … and I wanted to use a relatively new gene-sequencing technique – called exome sequencing – to sequence  all  the genes in a group of girls and women on the autism spectrum.  [Editor’s note: Standard genetic testing involves the sequencing of only a … disrupted the normal formation of synapses – the vital connections that link brain cells with each other. This finding supported earlier evidence that problems with brain connectivity are a root cause of autism. In addition, we found many …

ATN@Work: Personalizing hospital care for children with autism… the lead author of an Autism Treatment Network study that helped develop a model program for tailoring in-patient care to support kids with autism At Mass General Hospital for Children, Dr. Sarabeth Broder-Fingert  discusses a patient’s … Right after that eye-opening experience, I thought there must be other hospitals that have developed ways to support children and families affected by autism when they come into the hospital. So I set out to find these programs and … would then go in the child’s hospital file for every member of their care team to see. One caveat, the clinicians in the group cautioned, was that if the document was more than, say three page, it might not get used. So we needed to create a …