I don't want to bring somebody into my personal life too quick. I like the separate life. My family, my kids, my home is up there and then I come to London, step off that train, I can work, have fun, I can sleep in and I don't need to worry about everything.
Nyla was a non-verbal seven-year-old girl who had been diagnosed with autism. During the course of the excursion she passed through a gap in the fence and approached woodland close to Owston Golf Course.
If the application of behavioral techniques does not produce large enough effects for practical value, then the application has failed. Practical value is whatever you define as meaningful for your child's life.
Special needs summer camps are specialized programs designed for children and young adults with a range of disabilities, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, Down syndrome, and other developmental or physical challenges.
The federal autism committee now has a striking absence of scientific expertise, said Craig Snyder, policy lead at the Autism Science Foundation, during the rival group's meeting on Thursday.
He told me about a man, who I'll call B, who had completed nearly all the requirements for a radiology specialization at the University of Montreal. This man was the best student in his class. He had spent fifteen years training. He could read twice as many radiological scans as a non-autistic colleague. He was also a professional-level guitarist. Mottron called him "the Glenn Gould of radiology," Glenn Gould being a brilliant, classical pianist.
In the academic job market, campus visits are framed as opportunities to showcase scholarship, teaching and collegiality. In practice, however, they often function as multiday social auditions where candidates are expected to move seamlessly from formal presentations to dinners, hallway conversations and spontaneous small talk, all while conveying confidence and intellectual brilliance. For most, these rituals are exhausting but manageable. For autistic scholars, they can be insurmountable barriers.
At first, and for many, this new doll seemed to be an amazing idea. After all, she potentially can open discussions with neurotypical children about their neurodivergent peers that may act a bit differently than they do. That's positive, right? So, if that's the case, why did this doll evoke such a deep feeling inside of me, not one of elation, but rather one of disappointment and frustration?
"As an autistic person, it was particularly difficult to understand what the officers wanted me to do," Rahman said. "I personally experience audio sorting challenges as an autistic person. This makes it so that voices near and far are prioritized in the same way, making it difficult for me to figure out who is talking to me. Because of this, I tend to rely on reading lips. You can imagine how difficult it was for me to try to read lips when ICE officers are completely masked."
But play is not a reward. It is a biological, psychological, and social need (Brown, 2009; National Institute for Play, n.d.). Across the lifespan, play supports emotional regulation, sensory integration, creativity, connection, and meaning. For autistic and neurodivergent people, play can be one of the most accessible and authentic pathways to well-being when we give permission for it to exist on their terms.
I have an 8-year-old son who is autistic and non-speaking. He is in a special education class in our city's public school system. Our system is notoriously underfunded, but I've always felt that the teachers and therapists really care about the kids. I think he is getting what he needs out of school, and he is always happy to go (and happy to come home). But I'm not getting what I need.
At a press conference in late 2025, federal officials made some big claims about leucovorin, a prescription drug usually reserved for people on cancer chemotherapy. "We're going to change the label to make it available [to children with autism spectrum disorder]," said Dr. Marty Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. "Hundreds of thousands of kids, in my opinion, will benefit." The FDA still hasn't made that label change. Since Makary's remarks, though, more than 25,000 people have joined a Facebook group called Leucovorin for Autism. Most members appear to be parents seeking the drug for their autistic children.
This systematic review and meta-analysis found no evidence that maternal paracetamol use during pregnancy increases the risk of autism spectrum disorder, ADHD or intellectual disability among children, says the study, which is published in the Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Women's Health. It has been undertaken by a team of seven researchers from across Europe, led by Asma Khalil, a professor of obstetrics and maternal fetal medicine at City St George's, University of London, who is also a consultant obstetrician at St George's hospital in London.
The doll, which was created with input from the autistic community, comes with several accessories that "represent common ways autistic people may experience, process, and communicate about the world around them," Mattel's press release states. These accessories include a pink finger-clip fidget spinner to reduce stress and improve focus, noise-cancelling headphones to reduce sensory overload, and an electronic tablet with Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) apps to help non-verbal autistic people interact with others.
I remember the moment this photo was taken: five years ago, on my partner Claire's birthday, in a National Trust for Scotland garden six miles east of Edinburgh. We were standing on a wooden deck, an ideal spot for pond-dipping with the kids and a lesser-known viewing platform for trainspotters. This is where my autistic son, then six, loved (and still loves) to jump in tandem with the ScotRail trains toggling back and forth in the middle distance.
