Fevers Offer Clues to Autism

Radio host infuriates parents after blaming them for spoiling kids

(NEWSER) - Right-wing mouth Michael Savage isn't backing down from his remarks characterizing autistic kids as nothing more than "brats," outraging thousands of parents, the New York Times reports. The radio host said in a broadcast last week that autism was a "fraud" and 99% of cases were created by poor parenting. Dozens of parents demonstrated outside his studio yesterday, and an insurance company has canceled advertising on his program. More»

In first test, it's correct 85% of the time

(NEWSER) - The sounds made by a young child learning to speak can signal whether the child is autistic, a new study found. Researchers attempting a first pass at designing a voice-analysis software to identify autism found that their creation worked better than they could've imagined: the program identified autistic children correctly in 85% of cases, AOL News reports. Early detection is crucial because intensive therapy can start sooner. More»

Marijuana helps autistic, allergic child with debilitating pain

(NEWSER) - Almost as soon as Marie Myung-Ok Lee began giving daily doses of marijuana to her 9-year-old son J, she noticed a big change: He returned from school with his whole shirt on. J is autistic, has an inflammatory bowel condition, and has had two serious spinal cord surgeries. Before pot, he was in near constant pain, and he used to eat things that weren’t food—like his shirt. Every day. More»

(NEWSER) - Autistic children do something that most medical research on the subject rarely addresses: They grow up, Karl Taro Greenfeld writes in Time. The brother of autistic, 42-year-old Noah, Greenfeld recounts the struggles of shuffling a low-functioning autistic between state facilities, visiting him, worrying about him, and watching him degenerate into self-inflicted violence as doctors filled him with a drug cocktail. More»

(NEWSER) - Marie Myung-Ok Lee gives marijuana to her 9-year-old autistic son and has no intention of stopping, she writes for doubleX, a new Slate spinoff for women. It’s working to calm him and curb his aggressive behaviors, writes Lee, who had her own misgivings initially. “I was already the weirdo mom who packed lunches with organic kale and kimchi,” she writes. “Now, I’d be the mom who shunned the standard operating procedure and gave her kid pot instead.” More»