Do Fertility Treatments Raise Autism Risk?

BOSTON -- Doctors at 15 autism treatment centers nationwide have collected data that show an association between autism and children conceived through in vitro fertilization, WCVB-TV in Boston reported.
More than 1,400 families of autistic children completed medical questionnaires that asked, among other things, if their child was conceived with assisted reproductive technology, or ART. IVF is the most common type.
Twelve percent of those questioned said yes, a number Dr. Patricia Davis said is 10 times the most recent national average published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, Davis cautions, "I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that we think IVF causes autism. That's not the case. It just leads to so many more questions."

US opens Canton school inquiry

The US Department of Justice has opened an investigation into whether a special needs school in Canton violates federal disability laws by disciplining students with electrical skin shocks.
In a September 2009 letter, the groups said the facility’s use of “painful and dehumanizing behavioral techniques violates all principles of human rights.’’ They seek to end the school’s use of shock therapy, something that several state inquiries have so far failed to do.
Many parents who have children at the Rotenberg center have supported the school, saying it accepted their children when other institutions turned them away or that the shocks are a better alternative to heavy sedation administered at some facilities.
But advocates for the disabled have been sharply critical, spurring a number of efforts to close the school.

Google execs convicted in Italy for Down's video

MILAN (Reuters) - A Milan court convicted three Google Inc executives on Wednesday for violating the privacy of an Italian boy with Down's syndrome by letting a video of him being bullied be posted on the site in 2006.
The complaint was brought by an Italian advocacy group for people with Down's syndrome, Vivi Down, and the boy's father, after four classmates at a Turin school uploaded a clip to Google Video showing them bullying the boy.
"A company's rights cannot prevail over a person's dignity. This sentence sends a clear signal," public prosecutor Alfredo Robledo told reporters outside the Milan courthouse. Down's syndrome is the most common genetic cause of mental retardation, occurring in about 1 out of 700 live births.
The video was filmed with a mobile phone and posted on the site in September 2006.

How Words Can Demean a Person

From "The Record" of New Jersey, a wonderful perspective about the use of the R-word by Barbara Coppens, president of the New Jersey Statewide Self-Advocacy Network.

Using, or criticizing others who use the words "retard" or "retarded" (a.k.a. the R-word) has become a nationwide hot topic, ignited by Ben Stiller’s film, "Tropic Thunder" in the summer of 2008 and fanned most recently by a Valentine’s Day episode of "Family Guy" on Fox Television.
As a person who lives with an intellectual disability, I’m hopeful about the R-word’s newly-found status as a big story, because it is serving to shine a light into the shadows that I and so many of my friends with intellectual and other developmental disabilities have lived in for so long; shadows of shame, stigma and aching humiliation.Come on, you say, can one lousy word do all that… really?
Yes. I’m telling you that it does. And there should be no need for any more explanation than that.

Dolphin Therapy Booming Despite Amid Criticism

If you have a child with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome or autism -- and you have a week or two and a few thousand dollars to spare -- a growing and controversial group of global entrepreneurs claims it can your child feel better by putting him or her in close contact with dolphins.
The strategy is known as dolphin-assisted therapy, and the basic idea is that even brief exposure to these charismatic creatures -- swimming around with them, petting and kissing them, watching them do tricks and hearing their clicking calls in tanks, lagoons or the open ocean -- is so uniquely rewarding that it produces benefits all by itself and/or jump-starts a patient's receptiveness to more-conventional therapy.
The dolphin-therapy business has been booming, fueled in part by the rapid growth in diagnoses of childhood mental disorders such as autism. The practice, however, is fiercely criticized by researchers and marine mammal conservationists. These critics charge that it is no more effective and considerably more expensive than skillful conventional treatment, while potentially harmful to the humans and the animals.

‘Family Guy,’ Palin and the Limits of Laughter

“Family Guy,” the Fox animated comedy series, is either irreverent or crass, depending on your tolerance for unmannerly humor. Viewers come for its pop-cultural free associations and flatulence gags, not necessarily to debate pressing issues of the day.
So it is probably the last program that anyone expected to serve as a catalyst for a continuing fight about the depiction of disabled people on television, and whether they are fair game to participate in and be the subjects of satire. It is a dispute that has drawn in Sarah Palin, the former Republican governor of Alaska and 2008 vice-presidential candidate, who has a son with Down syndrome, and a “Family Guy” voice actress who, like the character she portrayed on the show, also has that disability. Though the two women would seem to be coming from similar perspectives, they have ended up as far apart as possible.

Police Officers Trained on Interacting With People On the Spectrum

Bravo to Boardman's Police for having the vision to educate its department about people with autism. Hopefully this can serve as a model for other communities.

BOARDMAN, Ohio — Family members or caregivers of people with autism can help educate police in the best ways to interact with those who have the disorder.
Detective Michelle Glaros, who is trained in crisis intervention, recently attended training for law-enforcement officers in dealing with autistic people. The session’s instructor is an officer whose son is autistic.