The first rigorous study of behavior treatment in autistic children as young as 18 months found two years of therapy can vastly improve symptoms, often resulting in a milder diagnosis. ...more

November 30, 2009

CHICAGO (AP) — Unique brain wave patterns, spotted for the first time in autistic children, may help explain why they have so much trouble communicating. ...more

December 1, 2008

Shawna Needham is willing to travel all the way from Ruskin to Palm Harbor twice a week to have her 4-year-old son, Ryken, cared for by a local chiropractor who uses an alternative approach to treating autism and its related ailments. ...more

November 29, 2008

The largest alternative medicine study the government has ever launched has stopped enrolling people while officials investigate whether participants were fully informed of the risks and are being adequately protected, The Associated Press has learned. ...more

September 26, 2008

New research suggests that some cases of autism arise from defects in genes that can be turned on or off by mental activity, a finding that sheds light on the devastating condition and might eventually lead to strategies to treat it. ...more

July 11, 2008

Let's face it: This isn't the sort of summer when you decide to finally take that trip to Italy. This is the sort of summer when you spend your vacation reading a good book in the backyard. Take a trip with your mind. Save some cash. You get the picture. Here are some new choices this week. ...more

June 29, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Charlie Crist signed a bill today that will require insurers to cover costly therapies for thousands of autistic children in Florida. ...more

May 20, 2008

Low-cost health insurance options were expanded, and thousands of autistic children received coverage of costly therapies. A school voucher program for poor kids grew by $30 million, but a controversial plan to build commuter rail in Central Florida ran out of steam. ...more

May 3, 2008

House legislation that initially pitted the needs of developmentally disabled children against those of the poor now contains reforms that advocates for poor children were seeking all along. ...more

May 2, 2008

Adults led groups of children from table to table to try their tiny hands at a variety of paper crafts. They glued cotton balls to bunnies' backs, dipped butterflies on Popsicle sticks into pans of glitter and pasted petals onto smiley-faced flowers. ...more

February 24, 2008