Latest MIND Institute Stories

LAS VEGAS, Sept. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading autism experts from around the nation will hold seminars and workshops at the biannual ARI Conference, scheduled for Thursday, October 13 through Sunday, October 16 at the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. As autism reaches epidemic proportions in the United States, science is challenging the traditional view of autism as a static, lifelong disorder. The Fall 2011 ARI Conference is a resource for parents, families, caregivers,...

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- The risk that an infant with an older sibling with autism will also develop the disorder, previously estimated at between 3 and 10 percent, is substantially higher at approximately 19 percent, according to this study. While the study found a combined estimated risk for all participants of nearly19 percent, it found an even more elevated risk of recurrence of over 26 percent for male infants, and over 32 percent for infants with more than one older sibling with autism.The...

A new study has found that if a child has autism, the risk of a younger sibling also developing the disorder is higher than previously thought. Researchers from the University of California, Davis studied 664 infants up to the age of three during the study. They found the average risk was 18 percent for siblings who have other siblings with autism.  Previous research says the average risk was 3 to 10 percent.The study involved infants from 20 different places across the U.S. and Canada who...

Genetics alone cannot account for the high rates of autism among fraternal, or non-identical, twinsAutism Speaks, the world's largest autism science and advocacy organization, joined in announcing significant findings from the largest known study of twins with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This work, conducted by a consortium of renowned researchers and using material from Autism Speaks Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE) was published online today in the Archives of General...

Women who do not take them early are nearly twice as likely to have children with autismWomen who reported not taking a daily prenatal vitamin immediately before and during the first month of pregnancy were nearly twice as likely to have a child with an autism spectrum disorder as women who did take the supplements "” and the associated risk rose to seven times as great when combined with a high-risk genetic make-up, a study by researchers at the UC Davis MIND Institute has...

An examination of the birth records of the more than 7million children born in the state of California during the 1990s and early 2000s has found a clear link between the month in which a child is conceived and the risk of that child later receiving a diagnosis of autism.Among the children included in the study, those conceived during winter had a significantly greater risk of autism, the study found. The risk of having a child with an autism spectrum disorder grew progressively throughout...

6-part series airs during Autism Awareness Month April 18 - 26, 2011 ARLINGTON, Va., March 29, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Autism - it's a developmental disorder that has become increasingly prevalent, affecting 1 out of 110 American children. Despite years of study, little is known about its cause and access to treatment varies. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of American families hungry for answers struggle to care for the unique needs of children with the disorder. Among them,...

Study demonstrates connection between autism and traffic pollutionLiving near a freeway may be associated with increased risk of autism, according to a study published by a team of researchers from Children's Hospital Los Angeles, the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) and the UC Davis MIND Institute.The paper will appear online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives this week."Children born to mothers living within 309 meters of a freeway...

--Will Pool Efforts in Autism, ADHD, Other Disabilities-- PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Recognizing both medical progress and unmet needs in the field of developmental disabilities, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia will house the Network Coordinating Center for a newly established collaborative organization, the Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics Research Network. Launched this year with a three-year, $200,000 per year grant from the federal government's Maternal...

Potential new targeted treatment improves language, cognition, parents sayOne of the antibiotics most commonly prescribed to treat adolescent acne can increase attention spans and communication and decrease anxiety in patients with fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited cause of mental impairment, according to a new survey study that is the first published on parents' reports of their children's responses to treatment with the medication.Led by researchers at the UC Davis MIND...