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...kind of study - of a comprehensive autism treatment that appears to work well for children as young as 18 months. While none of the children in the study were "cured" of autism, those receiving two years of intensive therapy achieved major leaps in IQ score, big improvements in their use of language and significant gains in their ability to handle the kinds of everyday tasks necessary for a child to function at school and at play...
...years, children in the Denver Model group were way ahead of the control group. Their IQ scores had jumped an average of 17.6 points, to a mean of 78.6, which is just within range of normal intelligence. Much of the gain came in their ability to understand and use language. The control group, by contrast, gained just seven points, remaining in the zone of intellectual disability. Children who received the intervention also improved dramatically in what psychologists call "adaptive behavior" - which includes such everyday behaviors and skills as getting dressed, brushing teeth and participating in family meals. Children...
Thus, for example, rather than teaching children to speak by drilling sounds and words, Denver Model therapists begin with what they call "talking bodies" - the nonverbal communication of smiles, gestures and eye contact that normally precedes speech but which toddlers with autism have missed. While therapists use ABA techniques to chart progress toward specific goals, the therapy itself "looks like play," says Rogers, a co-author of the study. "If you saw it, you would say, 'That's what I do with my own baby.' " (Read "For the First Time, a Census of Autistic Adults...
...safeguard his trove of family pictures. He and his wife have taken photos of each of their three daughters every day since they were born. Every month or so, he backs up the 25,000 photos, 1,000 videos and other files from nearly 25 years of PC use - which take up about 125 gb on his home computer in Manhattan - on an external hard drive that is not connected to his computer in order to keep it safe from viruses. In between these external-drive sessions, he relies on Mozy, which for $5 a month moseys along...
...Houben's method of communication caused controversy? "Facilitated communication," as it's called, is a hotly disputed method. Studies on its use in autistic patients have shown that caregivers - often in an earnest desire to help the patient - are sometimes themselves controlling the typing. Some of the news footage of Houben appears to show him and his therapist typing on his computer screen with his eyes closed. Earlier this week, Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Associated Press that Houben's communication was "Ouija board stuff. It's been discredited time and time again...