By Dan Coulter

Being diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome in 1997 was one of the best things that ever happened to my son, Drew. Make no mistake, Asperger Syndrome can be duplicitous. It can give you abilities that make people shake their heads in wonder, and deficits that just make them shake their heads. In elementary school, Drew wowed his teacher and classmates with an encyclopedic knowledge of Greek mythology, but then annoyed them with a compulsion to talk incessantly about Perseus and friends.

By Jonothan Davies

Making Use of My Intelligence

Even if I was still as socially inept as I was 25 years ago, I would still want to be in situations in which I could learn about things that I am capable of learning and things that interest me, and in which I would have the opportunity to make use of my intelligence.

Can this Alberta woman fix the damaged brain?

By John Nicol, CBC News 

If you listen to Claudie Gordon-Pomares, she has the cure for what ails your handicapped child.

A self-described neuroscientist, Gordon-Pomares runs an organization called the Brain Repair Institute of Canada out of a modest home in Okotoks, Alta., and claims she can cure autism and help children with cerebral palsy walk. She also says her technique, which has not been peer-reviewed by any scientific body, can stop seizures and correct other brain-related problems.

Visit cbc.ca to read the complete article.

[added March 3, 2008]

By Susan Senator 

What does last month's news from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- that autism incidence is now 1 in 150-- mean to me, a mother of a 17-year-old severely autistic boy? Unfortunately, almost nothing. Likewise the federal Combating Autism Act signed into law in December. That is because the act and most other autism awareness news focus largely on young autistic children, not older people such as my son. And while I am happy for the families that will benefit from the attention to increasing autism incidence and the influx of early-intervention money that all this new awareness is bringing, there is very little here that will help my son get what he vitally needs: support for independent living.

Visit washingtonpost.com to read the complete article.

[added March 19, 2007]

Wheat-, dairy-free plan proving successful for some

By CHERIE BLACK

When he was 3 years old, Matthew Sebastian was diagnosed with autism.

Four years later, he began having seizures, which are much more common in autistic children than in the broader population. Doctors told his parents that by the time their son reached puberty, his seizures would get worse and he would have to wear a helmet to protect his head.

Visit seattlepi.nwsource.com to read the complete article.

[added March 16, 2007]

A Purdue University professor says the challenges of educating a child diagnosed with various autism disorders are best met by parents with knowledge and a guiding set of principles.

Visit www.medicalnewstoday.com to read the complete article.

[added March 16, 2007]

A Canine Assisted Educational Initiative

By Kari Dunn Buron

I think the ‘Claire Buron Project’, as we have come to call it, began years ago when I read about the positive effects of dog ownership.

I began thinking that if owning a dog could lower a person’s stress level, and if just petting the dog could release pleasurable hormones, then maybe a dog could help calm highly anxious students with autism in a school setting. By profession, I worked with ASD students on a daily basis; I knew their difficulties with language, with socialization, with sensory issues. I witnessed the huge amount of stress and anxiety these students lived within daily. Could canine therapy help them?

by  Donna Williams

Speaking in sounds, movements, through the feel and theme of songs, jingles and advertisments was my first language. Affirmation was a structure that made sense, to use a jingle to affirm a feeling. So someone says, 'we're going' out and I say 'Gilligan's Island' to me this is an affirmation, just they are speaking interpretively and I'm speaking in theme and feel. Statements made sense because I was all self/no other and all other/no self.

by Sue Ferguson

Politicians are failing children, especially those with special needs. IMAGINE THE STRESSES of raising an autistic child. In the most severe cases of autism, children shut out the world around them, behave in ritualistic ways and communicate through shrieks and screams. Now imagine taking on the added financial and personal strain of launching a legal battle against a school board and/or provincial education officials.

By Ingrid M. Loos Miller and Hendricus G. Loos 

Part 1: Can shutdowns hurt your child?

What is a shutdown?

by Kenneth McGraw, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa 

As part of a qualitative methodology course at the University of Ottawa in the Faculty of Education, graduate students were invited to conduct a “pilot research study” employing one of the five traditions of inquiry identified by Creswell (1998).  Struck by the phenomenological approach, I chose an “incident” of interest to me – the case of a boy with Asperger’s syndrome who had used a ventriloquist’s puppet to communicate in an unusual way with his family, friends and – ultimately - himself.

By Tom Beechey

Kaitrin Beechey is a young artist with Asperger Syndrome, living in Cambridge Ontario. Although non-verbal until she was seven years old, Kaitie was always very graphic, captivated by intricate detail, pattern and repetition. These traits dominate her drawings of hidden fantasy worlds that unknowingly surround us. Through her art, Kaitie interprets and records everyday things that most of us overlook.

by Carol Gray and Tony Attwood, M.Sc., Ph.D., MAPS., AFBPsS

Some of this century's best discoveries were creative and determined efforts to answer "What if...?" questions. What if people could fly? What if electrical energy could be harnessed to produce light? What if there was an easily accessible, international communication and information network? The answers have resulted in permanent changes: air travel, light bulbs, the Internet. These discoveries have rendered their less effective counterparts to relative extinction from use: gone is the stagecoach, gas lighting, and multi-volume hardbound encyclopedias. These improvements remind us of our option and ability to experiment, re-mold, re-think, and imagine. In that spirit, this article submits a new question: What if Asperger's Syndrome was defined by its strengths? What changes might occur?.