The launch of a groundbreaking new ‘satellite school’ for local children with autism has been welcomed enthusiastically by South Lanarkshire families.

Daldorch House School’s satellite school in St Leonards, East Kilbride, is the result of an innovative collaboration between The National Autistic Society’s Daldorch House School and South Lanarkshire Council. It will provide a broad and structured curriculum, enabling young people with autism to develop their learning and a range of daily living skills within their local community.

This new, state of the art care and education service is for young people aged 5-19 with autism and very complex needs. It is a ‘satellite’ of the main Daldorch House School in Catrine, East Ayrshire, the only independent, 52-week residential and day specialist school in Scotland specifically for children and young people with autism and others who would benefit from the SPELL approach*.

Getting an autism diagnosis could be more difficult in 2013 when a revised diagnostic definition goes into effect. The proposed changes may affect the proportion of individuals who qualify for a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, according to preliminary data presented by Yale School of Medicine researchers at a meeting of the Icelandic Medical Association.

The proposed changes to the diagnostic definition would be published in the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)."

"Given the potential implications of these findings for service eligibility, our findings offer important information for consideration by the task force finalizing DSM-5 diagnostic criteria," said Yale Child Study Center (CSC) director Fred Volkmar, M.D., who conducted the study with CSC colleagues Brian Reichow and James McPartland

Blinking is largely an involuntary process that helps keep the eyes hydrated and protected. During that split second that your eyes are closed, you are temporarily blinded. And throughout a typical day, adults spend about 44 minutes with their eyes closed.

The current study got started when Sarah Shultz, a graduate student at the Yale Child Study Center, noticed that kids blink less often when watching videos. She and her colleagues wondered: Would kids with autism, who have impairments in social communications, including reading facial expressions and interacting with others, show the same blink timing?

In the study, researchers had 93 typically developing children and children with an autism spectrum disorder, all aged 2, watch short videos of two children in a wagon who get into an argument over whether the wagon door should be open or shut. Using eye-tracking technology, the researchers tracked when and how often the kids blinked.

Researchers found that both the kids with autism and typically developing kids blinked less during the video.

However, typical kids blinked less during the emotional exchange between the kids, while the autistic kids blinked less when there were moving parts, such as the wagon door being slammed.

In the largest study of brain development in preschoolers with autism to date, a study by UC Davis MIND Institute researchers has found that 3-year-old boys with regressive autism, but not early onset autism, have larger brains than their healthy counterparts.

"The finding that boys with regressive autism show a different form of neuropathology than boys with early onset autism is novel," Nordahl said. "Moreover, when we evaluated girls with autism separately from boys, we found that no girls — regardless of whether they had early onset or regressive autism — had abnormal brain growth."

The study is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.

Our coverage in January showed how Wakefield manufactured the appearance of a link between the vaccine and regressive autism while employed by lawyers trying to build a case against the MMR vaccine,4 and while negotiating extraordinary commercial schemes that would succeed only if confidence in the vaccine was damaged.5 The articles, by investigative journalist Brian Deer, also showed that the conflicts of interest were not confined to Wakefield. They drew in his then employer, the Royal Free hospital and medical school. Now part of University College London, the Royal Free issued public statements of support for national immunisation policy while privately holding business meetings with Wakefield over purported diagnostic kits, single vaccines, and autism products meant to be sold on the back of the vaccine crisis.

By Fiona Godlee, editor in chief BMJ

A new 3 year project by Action Group is starting in Edinburgh and West Lothian. Their aim is to work with young people (over 16s)  from black and minority ethnic background who have learning disabilities or other support needs, as they go through ‘transitions’ associated with leaving school and college, and growing up. They can advise young people and their families on many issues including; benefit entitlements and claiming, housing, education and training, work, respite and leisure opportunities. Through a combination of group and individual work, with young people, their carers and families, they aim to help young people make plans for their future and support them in making it happen.

As this is a new project the Action Group are keen to meet with young people and their families who may be interested in the service, as well as professionals working in this area. They would be grateful for your feedback if you would like more information or know of someone you would like to refer.

If you have any questions at all or would like to speak to Action Group in more detail about the project they would be happy to talk with you

Please email: Grace  gracerobertson@Actiongroup.org.ukor

or Saher saherali@actiongroup.org.uk or you can call their office on 0131 475 2315.

As this is a new project they are keen to meet with young people and their families who may be interested in the service, as well as professionals working in this area. They would be grateful for your feedback if you would like more information or know of someone you would like to refer.

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For more information regarding activities, trips and events. Please go to www.number6.org.uk to see updates.

We may be a step closer in understanding what causes autism, say University of Missouri researchers after finding differences between the facial characteristics of children who have autism and those who don’t.

Kristina Aldridge, lead author and assistant professor of anatomy at the University of Missouri, began looking at facial characteristics of autistic children after another researcher, Judith Miles, professor emerita in the School of Medicine and the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, mentioned, “There is just something about their faces. They are beautiful, but there is just something about them.”

“Children with other disorders such as Down syndrome and fetal alcohol syndrome have very distinct facial features. Autism is much less striking,” she says. “You can’t pick them out in a crowd of kids, but you can pick them out mathematically.”

When researchers took three-dimensional images of the children, they discovered autistic children have a broader upper face with wider eyes, a shorter middle region of the face including the cheeks and nose and a broader or wider mouth and philtrum -- the area below the nose and above the top lip.

Aldridge analyzed 64 boys with autism and 41 typically developing boys ages 8 to 12 using the 3-D images of each boys’ head. She also mapped out 17 points on the face, such as the corner of the eye and the divot in the upper lip. When the overall geometry of the face was calculated and the two groups were compared, she noticed statistical differences in autistic children’s faces.

The benefits of virtual worlds can be used to help autistic children develop social skills beyond their anticipated levels, suggest early findings from new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Researchers on the Echoes Project have developed an interactive environment which uses multi-touch screen technology where virtual characters on the screener act to children’s actions in real time.

During sessions in the virtual environment, primary school children experiment with different social scenarios, allowing the researchers to compare their reactions with those they display in real-world situations.

"Discussions of the data with teachers suggest a fascinating possibility," said project leader Dr Kaska Porayska-Pomsta. "Learning environments such as Echoes may allow some children to exceed their potential, behaving and achieving in ways that even teachers who knew them well could not have anticipated."

"A teacher observing a child interacting in such a virtual environment may gain access to a range of behaviours from individual children that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to observe in a classroom," she added.

Early indications of this research are that over a number of sessions some children demonstrate a better quality of interaction within the virtual environment and an increased ability to manage their own behaviour, enabling them to concentrate on following a virtual character's gaze or to focus on a pointing gesture, thus developing the skills vital for good communication and effective learning.

Dr Kaœka Porayska-Pomsta