Autism: Six apps to help children learn

With reports of autism among children continuing to rise at a meteoric rate, it's hardly surprising that scores of apps have been developed to help these kids cope, academically and socially.

Many of the apps, used primarily on iPads and other tablets, help children process information as well as social cues through games and instant audio rewards, such as clanging bells and applause.

Others are designed to give parents and teachers tools to recognize behavioural patterns and schedule and coordinate care.

"I'm a big fan of these tablets," noted autistic activist Temple Grandin told reporters.

Debbie Drennan

"Especially with nonverbal individuals, kids can type and the print appears right there on the screen, versus a computer where the keyboard and printed words are further apart. That's a huge advantage."

Debbie Drennan, an assistive technology specialist with Parents Helping Parents in San Jose, Calif., demonstrated some of her favourite apps, for both autistic kids and their parents:

BITSBOARD: Bitsboard helps kids with both literacy and emotional enrichment, using brightly colored flashcards and pop quizzes to teach them vocabulary as well as how to recognize visual cues in photos of people.

The app is "great for anyone on the autism spectrum, because it helps kids learn vocabulary using real objects in a consistent and repetitive way," Drennan said. "So they can touch that picture 100 times and nobody cares."

For social cues, kids can call up "Emotions," then click on people whose faces show anger, disgust or boredom. By familiarizing children with these common expressions, the kids will be more comfortable when they see them in real life and perhaps not look away, as autistic kids often do when confused by social stimuli.

MODEL ME GOING PLACES: This app uses "video modeling," in which a parent-created clip can virtually take an autistic child to a place before they actually go there.

"Having someone on the (autism) spectrum do a new task or go to a new place, like the dentist office, can be very scary for the child," Drennan said.

"This app uses video-modeling or what we call 'front-loading' to show them the place before they go and teach them how they should react once they get there."

On a visit to the "Hairdresser," slides show a young boy and his mom walking into a barbershop, while the audio and on-screen text say things like

"I'm getting a haircut." One slide has the boy saying, "This feels good," a nice warm-up for the first real-time visit to get a haircut.

AURASMA: Using an augmented-reality platform, Aurasma's image-recognition technology allows users to create their own augmented-reality interactions.

Drennan says the software's perfect for helping older autistic children master increased independence from their parents.

She uses the office speaker phone for a demo: Point the iPad at the phone. Record a short video explaining how the device is used. Name the demo. Then snap a photo of the phone for the image-recognition software to recognize.

Now for the fun part: As the child walks around the house, pointing the tablet briefly at an item, the corresponding video tutorial magically pops up.

AUTISM TRACKER LITE: Drennan said one of the greatest challenges for parents of an autistic child with flawed communication skills is knowing what's bugging the child when he or she's having a bad day.

"They can't tell you why they're upset," she said, "but this app helps monitor their behavior and with its feedback can help identify what could be the cause of the stress they're feeling."

Using several tools in the app to describe the child's "Happiness" - "Not at all," "Just a little," or "Somewhat," for example - as well as his activity level and even the weather outside, the Tracker lets a parent chart a kid's behaviour across a period of time.

Often, Drennan said, a pattern will emerge to indicate what might be causing a child to act out. For example, a child may show signs of stress at the beginning of each week, or after a change in diet, or even during certain types of weather.

VISUAL SCHEDULE PLANNER: A fully customizable, cleanly designed audiovisual scheduler and calendar, this app helps the parents of autistic kids who need a clearly defined path through their days.

"This app," Drennan said, "makes everyone's lives easier. It helps both you and the child, because you can add photos to calendars so scheduled activity that day is easy to understand. A photo of an ATM on Monday morning, for example, tells the child that that's when they'll go visit the bank."

The parent shows the child the day's events or what's coming later that week, so the ATM image might be followed by a lunch or shopping icon of some kid.

This way, she said, "the kids can see clearly what's going to happen to them each day, removing a lot of the stress that comes from any sort of confusion."

CARE CIRCLES: This app can be a godsend for those watching after autistic children. They create an account, then regularly update it by entering notes on medications, doctor-visit reports, even behavioural observations, sharing it all with their team of care providers.

"This way, everyone can share, in real-time, what's going on with the child," Drennan said. "So you know, for example, that he didn't have a snack at school or didn't go to the library that day like you thought he would. Everyone knows everything and there are no surprises, which decreases confusion and anxiety among everyone."

Dyslexia vs Human Rights - William Bisset and Gabrielle Mathiesen - Video

An interview carried out by New Zealand news programme to highlight the issues of people with Dyslexia and the lack of support at government levels.

Gifted Dyslexic: Samuel Joseph talks about his Davis dyslexia correction programme

A testimonial from Samuel Joseph, nine years after his Davis dyslexia correction programme, provided by Gifted Dyslexic.

US New Jersey State Passes new Dyslexia Laws

Several states have recently passed new laws aimed at helping address the needs of dyslexic children.

At the end of June, the New Jersey legislature passed laws defining dyslexia and requiring that all teachers receive additional training in reading instruction.

A third law establishing a pilot program for dyslexia intervention is still pending.

A similar bill has recently been introduced in Pennsylvania. Also, a more comprehensive law was passed and signed into law in Arkansas in April 2013.

Federal law requires that all public school districts provide special education services to children who are experiencing difficulties and cannot keep up due to dyslexia or other learning differences.

Unfortunately, parents in many other states in the US often encounter barriers in school systems that do not provide screening or services specifically geared to dyslexia.



The New Jersey law adopts the following definition of dyslexia:

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.”

The definitions included in the new Arkansas law and the Pennsylvania bill are similar.

For information about all state laws concerning dyslexia, and regularly updated information about new legislation, visit the Dyslegia Legislative Tracking Site.

Asthma and Allergies: Five things you need to hear from you child

The allergist's office might not be a child's favorite place to visit, but it is a place where they should be able to say how their asthma makes them feel.

While children might rely on parents to tell their doctor about how they are feeling, according to a study released today, children should do most of the talking.

The study, published in the July issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), found that children with asthma report having a better quality of life in regards to activity limitation, than their parents think they have.

"Our research shows that physicians should ask parents and children about the effects asthma is having on the child's daily life," said lead study author Margaret Burks, MD.

"Parents can often think symptoms are better or worse than what the child is really experiencing, especially if they are not with their children all day."

Seventy-nine pediatric asthma patients and their parents were enrolled in the study. While researchers noted useful information comes from caregivers' responses, it's important for the allergist to ask both the parents and children about symptoms, activity limitations and adherence to medications to better understand and treat the child's condition.

"Asthma is a serious condition that results in more than 10.5 million missed schools days for children annually," said James Sublett, MD, chair of the ACAAI public relations committee.

"It is important for children to tell their allergist about their symptoms so the best treatment can be provided and over-treating doesn't occur."

To help parents and their children understand the five most important topics they should discuss with their allergist, ACAAI has put together the following list.

1. Asthma prevents me from playing sports and taking part in other activities—If your child cannot play sports or participate in gym class and recess activities, it's important they tell their allergist. This can be an indication their asthma isn't properly controlled. If they can participate in activities, it is also important they tell their allergist, to show their condition is being well managed.
2. When I am outside or at home my asthma symptoms become worse—An estimated 60 to 80 percent of children with asthma also have an allergy. If nearly inescapable allergens, such as pollen, mold, dust and pet dander are triggering your child's asthma symptoms, an allergist may include immunotherapy (allergy shots) as part of a treatment plan.
3. I often feel sad or different from other kids because I have asthma—Nearly half of children with asthma report feeling depressed or left out of activities due to their condition. Anyone with asthma should be able to feel good and be active. No one should accept less.
4. There have been times I have missed school because of my condition—Asthma is the most common chronic illness in childhood and is a leading caused in missed school days. Research shows children under the care of a board-certified allergist see a 77 percent reduction in lost time from school.
5. My asthma disappeared—It is important your child carry and use their inhaler as prescribed, even if symptoms aren't bothersome. While asthma symptoms are controllable with the proper treatment, there isn't a cure for asthma and it likely won't disappear. An asthma attack can strike at any time.

Effective asthma control begins with the right diagnosis early in the disease by a board-certified allergist. Delays can lead to permanent lung damage. To learn more about asthma and to locate an allergist in your area, visit http://www.AllergyAndAsthmaRelief.org.

Dyslexia Help Website - Success Starts Here?

Credit: Dyslexia Help

A step-by-step approach to dyslexia
As you are probably most aware, a large number of bright, intelligent, and talented men and women, through no fault of their own, experience difficulty learning to read and write.

This is known as dyslexia. Given its complexity, dyslexia can feel overwhelming and frustrating.

At this website, our goal is to give you a step-by-step approach to help you understand what dyslexia is (and what it is not), develop an action plan, begin to get help, and become your own best advocate.

We understand that it can be challenging. Therefore, we provide you with guidance, guidelines, and such tools as an extensive glossary to help you understand all of the terms, assistive software programs, and study 'tips' that focus on organization and time management.

There are also many success stories on this site that are very motivating and inspirational. Let's begin your journey. Success starts here!

Visit Dyslexia Help here

Autism: Biological basis for sensory processing disorders in children

The image shows areas of the brain that can be affected by sensory processing disorders. 

Using an advanced form of MRI, researchers at UCSF have identified abnormalities in the brain structure of children with SPD primarily in the back of the brain.

Sensory processing disorders (SPD) are more prevalent in children than autism and as common as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, yet it receives far less attention partly because it's never been recognized as a distinct disease.

In a groundbreaking new study from UC San Francisco, researchers have found that children affected with SPD have quantifiable differences in brain structure, for the first time showing a biological basis for the disease that sets it apart from other neurodevelopmental disorders.

One of the reasons SPD has been overlooked until now is that it often occurs in children who also have ADHD or autism, and the disorders have not been listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) used by psychiatrists and psychologists.

"Until now, SPD hasn't had a known biological underpinning," said senior author Pratik Mukherjee, MD, PhD, a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging and bioengineering at UCSF.

"Our findings point the way to establishing a biological basis for the disease that can be easily measured and used as a diagnostic tool," Mukherjee said.

The work is published in the open access online journal NeuroImage:Clinical -  'Abnormal white matter microstructure in children with sensory processing disorders'

'Out of Sync' Kids
Sensory processing disorders affect 5 to 16 percent of school-aged children.

Children with SPD struggle with how to process stimulation, which can cause a wide range of symptoms including hypersensitivity to sound, sight and touch, poor fine motor skills and easy distractibility.

Some SPD children cannot tolerate the sound of a vacuum, while others can't hold a pencil or struggle with social interaction.

Furthermore, a sound that one day is an irritant can the next day be sought out. The disease can be baffling for parents and has been a source of much controversy for clinicians, according to the researchers.

"Most people don't know how to support these kids because they don't fall into a traditional clinical group," said Elysa Marco, MD, who led the study along with postdoctoral fellow Julia Owen, PhD.

Marco is a cognitive and behavioral child neurologist at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, ranked among the nation's best and one of California's top-ranked centers for neurology and other specialties.

These brain images, taken with DTI, show water diffusion within the white matter of children with sensory processing disorders. 

Row FA: The blue areas show white matter where water diffusion was less directional than in typical children, indicating impaired white matter microstructure. 

Row MD: The red areas show white matter where the overall rate of water diffusion was higher than in typical children, also indicating abnormal white matter.

Row RD: The red areas show white matter where SPD children have higher rates of water diffusion perpendicular to the axonal fibers, indicating a loss of integrity of the fiber bundles comprising the white matter tracts.

"Sometimes they are called the 'out of sync' kids. Their language is good, but they seem to have trouble with just about everything else, especially emotional regulation and distraction. In the real world, they're just less able to process information efficiently, and they get left out and bullied," said Marco, who treats affected children in her cognitive and behavioral neurology clinic.

"If we can better understand these kids who are falling through the cracks, we will not only help a whole lot of families, but we will better understand sensory processing in general. This work is laying the foundation for expanding our research and clinical evaluation of children with a wide range of neurodevelopmental challenges – stretching beyond autism and ADHD," she said.

Imaging the brain's white matter
In the study, researchers used an advanced form of MRI called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which measures the microscopic movement of water molecules within the brain in order to give information about the brain's white matter tracts.

DTI shows the direction of the white matter fibers and the integrity of the white matter. The brain's white matter is essential for perceiving, thinking and learning.

The study examined 16 boys, between the ages of eight and 11, with SPD but without a diagnosis of autism or prematurity, and compared the results with 24 typically developing boys who were matched for age, gender, right- or left-handedness and IQ.

The patients' and control subjects' behaviours were first characterized using a parent report measure of sensory behavior called the Sensory Profile.

The imaging detected abnormal white matter tracts in the SPD subjects, primarily involving areas in the back of the brain, that serve as connections for the auditory, visual and somatosensory (tactile) systems involved in sensory processing, including their connections between the left and right halves of the brain.

"These are tracts that are emblematic of someone with problems with sensory processing," said Mukherjee.

"More frontal anterior white matter tracts are typically involved in children with only ADHD or autistic spectrum disorders. The abnormalities we found are focused in a different region of the brain, indicating SPD may be neuroanatomically distinct."

The researchers found a strong correlation between the micro-structural abnormalities in the white matter of the posterior cerebral tracts focused on sensory processing and the auditory, multisensory and inattention scores reported by parents in the Sensory Profile.

The strongest correlation was for auditory processing, with other correlations observed for multi-sensory integration, vision, tactile and inattention.

The abnormal microstructure of sensory white matter tracts shown by DTI in kids with SPD likely alters the timing of sensory transmission so that processing of sensory stimuli and integrating information across multiple senses becomes difficult or impossible.

"We are just at the beginning, because people didn't believe this existed," said Marco. "This is absolutely the first structural imaging comparison of kids with research diagnosed sensory processing disorder and typically developing kids. It shows it is a brain-based disorder and gives us a way to evaluate them in clinic."

Future studies need to be done, she said, to research the many children affected by sensory processing differences who have a known genetic disorder or brain injury related to prematurity.

The study's co-authors are Shivani Desai, BS, Emily Fourie, BS, Julia Harris, BS, and Susanna Hill, BS, all of UCSF, and Anne Arnett, MA, of the University of Denver.

Sibling Rivalry: Children are stressed when fathers play favourites

Research by Megan Gilligan, a Purdue doctoral student in sociology, and Jill Suitor, a professor of sociology, found that sibling Baby Boomers are likely to be more stressed by their fathers' favouring one over another than by their mothers' doing so. 

Credit: Purdue University photo /Mark Simons

"It didn't matter who fathers favored. When favouritism was perceived there was tension among siblings, especially daughters," said Megan Gilligan, a Purdue doctoral student in sociology who is lead author on the article.

"Often the role of fathers is overlooked in these older relationships, but what we found shows dads do matter."

This research, which is published in the July issue of the Journal of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, looked at 137 later-life families with both parents still alive when the data was collected in 2008.

The average age of the 341 siblings was 49, and they were asked about tension among each other and the perceived favouritism by their parents.

The parents were in their 70s and 80s, and the fathers were an average of three years older than the mothers.

"The importance of fathers' favouritism may come from these older adults noticing many of their friends' fathers no longer living, so they may value their dads even more than before; they realise their time together is limited," said Jill Suitor, a professor of sociology and article co-author.

Previous research by Suitor, Gilligan and Karl Pillemer, professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University, showed that if mothers favoured a child, it caused sibling tension.

However, that work focused only on mothers' favouritism. By looking at both living parents in this recent article, the researchers were able to evaluate the consequences of favouritism from both parents.

This research is based on the survey data from the Within-Family Difference Study, led by Suitor and Pillemer to evaluate the role favoritism plays in adult family relationships.

The data for the 13-year project were collected in the Boston metropolitan area. The project is funded by the US National Institute on Aging.

"The implications of these findings will be important to practitioners," Pillemer said. "We often think of the family as a single unit, and this reminds us that individual parent and child relationships differ and each family is very complex. Favouritism from the father could mean something different than favouritism from the mother. We suggest that clinicians who work with families on later-life issues be aware of this complexity and look for such types of individual relationships as they advise families on care giving, legal and financial issues."

The difference in this research could be the result of the role fathers played in this older generation.

"Fathers are important figures in families, and the father-child relationship is sometimes more tenuous than the mother-child tie," Suitor said.

"Mothers are often more open and affectionate with their children, whereas fathers have sometimes been found to be more critical, leading offspring to be more concerned when fathers favour some children over others."

This also could play a role in why daughters experience more tension with their siblings when fathers favour them.

"The gender difference may occur because fathers, as other studies have shown, often invest more in their sons, thus, the favouritism shown toward daughters may violate these norms and result in greater sibling tension," Gilligan said.

"For these reasons, when adult children perceive their fathers as engaging in favouritism, there may be greater concern about competition for his affection and support, resulting in higher levels of sibling tension."

Gilligan and Suitor also said that these values and norms may have changed since the Baby Boomer generation.

Suitor, Pillemer and Gilligan plan to extend the present project to include interviewing the Baby Boomers about their own adult children.

More information: Differential Effects of Perceptions of Mothers' and Fathers' Favoritism on Sibling Tension in Adulthood, Megan Gilligan, J. Jill Suitor, Seoyoun Kim, and Karl Pillemer, Journal of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 2013.

ABSTRACT
Objectives. We examine the differential effects of perceived maternal and paternal favouritism in adulthood on sibling tensions in adulthood.

Method. Data used in the analysis were collected from 341 adult children nested within 137 later-life families as part of the Within-Family Differences Study.

Results. Adult children's perceptions that their fathers currently favored any offspring in the family predicted reports of tension with their siblings, whereas perceptions of mothers' favouritism did not. Fathers' favouritism was a stronger predictor of daughters' than sons' reports of sibling tension.

Discussion. These findings contribute to a growing body of research demonstrating the consequences of parental favouritism in adulthood. Equally important, they demonstrate that perceptions of fathers' current favouritism plays an even greater role in shaping their adult children's sibling relations than do mothers' favouritism.

Autism: Clues may come from the gut

This is an infographic about intestinal flora and autism. Credit: Infographic by Jason Drees: The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University Bacterial flora inhabiting the human gut have become one of the hottest topics in biological research. 

Implicated in a range of important activities including digestion, fine-tuning body weight, regulating immune response, and producing neurotransmitters affect that brain and behavior, these tiny workers form diverse communities. 

Hundreds of species inhabit the gut, and although most are beneficial, some can be very dangerous.

In new research appearing in the journal PLOS ONE, a team led by Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown, a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, present the first comprehensive bacterial analysis focusing on commensal or beneficial bacteria in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

After publishing earlier research exploring crucial links between intestinal microflora and gastric bypass, Krajmlanik-Brown convinced James Adams— director of the ASU Autism/Asperger's Research Program—that similar high throughput techniques could be used to mine the microbiome of patients with autism. (Previously, Adams had been studying the relationship between the gut microbiome and autism using traditional culturing techniques.)

"One of the reasons we started addressing this topic is the fact that autistic children have a lot of GI problems that can last into adulthood," Krajmalnik-Brown says. "Studies have shown that when we manage these problems, their behavior improves dramatically."

Following up on these tantalizing hints, the group hypothesized the existence of distinctive features in the intestinal microflora found in autistic subjects compared to typical children.

The current study confirmed these suspicions, and found that children with autism had significantly fewer types of gut bacteria, probably making them more vulnerable to pathogenic bacteria.

Autistic subjects also had significantly lower amounts of three critical bacteria, Prevotella, Coprococcus, and Veillonellaceae.

Krajmalnik-Brown, along with the paper's lead authors Dae-Wook Kang and Jin Gyoon Park, suggest that knowledge gleaned through such research may ultimately be used both as a quantitative e diagnostic tool to pinpoint autism and as a guide to developing effective treatments for ASD-associated GI problems.

The work also offers hope for new prevention and treatment methods for ASD itself, which has been on a mysterious and rapid ascent around the world.

A disquieting puzzle
Autism is defined as a spectrum disorder, due to the broad range of symptoms involved and the influence of both genetic and environmental factors, features often confounding efforts at accurate diagnosis.

The diseases' prevalence in children exceeds juvenile diabetes, childhood cancer and pediatric AIDS combined. Controversy surrounds the apparent explosive rise in autism cases.

Heightened awareness of autism spectrum disorders and more diligent efforts at diagnosis must account for some of the increase, yet many researchers believe a genuine epidemic is occurring.

In addition to hereditary components, Western-style diets and overuse of antibiotics at an early age may be contributing to the problem by lowering the diversity of the gut microflora.

In terms of severe developmental ailments affecting children and young adults, autism is one of the most common, striking about 1 in 50 children.

The disorder—often pitiless and perplexing—is characterized by an array of physical and behavioral symptoms including anxiety, depression, extreme rigidity, poor social functioning and an overall lack of independence.

To date, studies of the gut microbiome in autistic subjects have focused primarily on pathogenic bacteria, some of which have been implicated in alterations to brain function.

One example involves gram-negative bacteria containing lipopolysaccharides in their cell walls, which can induce inflammation of the brain and lead to the accumulation of high levels of mercury in the cerebrum.

A new approach
Krajmalnik-Brown and lead author Dae-Wook Kang are researchers in the Biodesign Institute's Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology, which is devoted to the use of microbial communities for the benefit of human and environmental health.

Their new study is the first to approach autism from a different angle, by examining the possible role of so-called commensal or beneficial bacteria.

Up to a quadrillion (1014) bacteria inhabit the human intestine, contributing to digestion, producing vitamins and promoting GI health. Genes associated with human intestinal flora are 100 times as plentiful as the body's human genes, forming what some have referred to as a second genome.

Various environmental factors can destabilize the natural microbiome of the gut, including antibiotics and specific diets.

In the current study, a cohort of 20 healthy and 20 autistic subjects between 3 and 16 years of age were selected and their gut microflora from fecal samples analyzed by means of a technique known as pyrosequencing.

Pyrosequencing is a high-throughput method, allowing many DNA samples to be combined as well as many sequences per sample to be analyzed.

Lower diversity of gut microbes was positively correlated with the presence of autistic symptoms in the study.

The authors stress that bacterial richness and diversity are essential for maintaining a robust and adaptable bacterial community capable of fighting off environmental challenges.

"We believe that a diverse gut is a healthy gut," Krajmalnik-Brown says.

The new study detected decreased microbial diversity in the 20 autistic subjects whose fecal samples were analyzed.

Specifically, three bacterial genera—Prevotella, Coprococcus and Veillonellaceae—were diminished in subjects with autism, when compared with samples from normal children. (Surprisingly, these microbial changes did not seem directly correlated with the severity of GI symptoms.)

The three genera represent important groups of carbohydrate-degrading and/or fermenting microbes. Such bacteria could be critical for healthy microbial-gut interactions or play a supportive role for a wide network of different microorganisms in the gut.

The latter would explain the decreased diversity observed in autistic samples.

Bacteria: in sickness and in health
Among the fully classified genera in the study, Prevotella was the most conspicuously reduced in autistic subjects.

Prevotella is believed to play a key role in the composition of the human gut microbiome. For this reason, the group undertook a sub-genus investigation of autistic subjects.

They found that a species known as Prevotella copri occurred only in very low levels in the autistic samples.

The species is a common component in normal children exhibiting more diverse and robust microbial communities.

"We think of Prevotella as a healthy, good thing to have," Krajmalnik-Brown notes. (Michael Polan's recent New York Times Magazine story on the microbiome points to the fact that he is proud that his gut microbiome is rich in Prevotella regarding it as a possible sign of a healthy non-Western diet.)

Jin Gyoon Park (the other lead author), who works in the Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics, under Joshua LaBaer's direction, conducted a rigorous bioinformatic and statistical analysis of the intestinal microflora.

He believes that the microbiome can be mined in future work to find diagnostic biomarkers for autism and many other diseases.

Quantitative diagnoses of this sort have so far been lacking for autism, a disease for which subjective behavior indices are typically used to identify the disorder.

In describing the next steps for the research group, Kang and Park point to more detailed, gene-level analyses aimed at probing bacterial function and further illuminating relationships between human health and the complexities of the microbiome.

Additionally, the group will use the current results as a guide for new treatment studies for autism aimed at modifying bacterial composition in the gut.

More Information: Reduced Incidence of Prevotella and Other Fermenters in Intestinal Microflora of Autistic Children: Citation: Kang D-W, Park JG, Ilhan ZE, Wallstrom G, LaBaer J, et al. (2013) Reduced Incidence of Prevotella and Other Fermenters in Intestinal Microflora of Autistic Children. PLoS ONE 8(7): e68322. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0068322

Autism: Mother bugs cuddly toy to capture abuse by care home staff

A mother has caught care home staff shouting abuse at her autistic son, after she bugged his teddy bear.

Christine Anne Mayor, of Wales, UK, hid a small recording device inside her 15-year-old son's cuddly toy and captured the carers making 'unacceptable' remarks to the vulnerable teenager.

The tape reveals voices shouting and swearing at Kyle Thomas, calling him at 'dirty boy'.

On the tape, voices can be heard shouting 'dirty boy' at Kyle Thomas, as well as a series of expletives.

Following a lengthy investigation and formal hearing by Rhondda Cynon Taf council's Children's Services, four employees have been given formal warnings but have remained in their posts.

Single mother Christine said her severely autistic son had been visiting the Nantgwyn centre for four years, spending on spent around four nights a month at the Aberdare home to allow his mother brief respite.

But Ms Mayor said she decided to take matters into her own hands when she heard her child using abusive language.

She said: 'Kyle cannot talk properly and he suffers with Echolalia, which means he repeats a lot of things people say.

'I knew he was getting these words from somewhere, so I decided to take matters into my own hands in October last year.

'I bought a recording device and put it inside the head of Kyle's Waybuloo toy.' 

'When I brought it home and listened to the recording, I nearly had a heart attack.'

'What I heard was completely inappropriate language and I was not happy with the tone of their voices. I felt that the way they spoke to him was really horrible.'

A lengthy transcript of the recording was made and the matter was initially handled by South Wales Police before being handed over to social services.

She said: 'As my son cannot talk properly, he couldn't tell me what was wrong - I felt like I needed to be his voice.

'He would curl up into the brace position whenever we tried to drop him off at the home, and he'd always back away from the door. It could have been happening for years.

'I put my trust in these people and they've let me down.'

Ms Mayor is now looking to complain to the ombudsman about the four staff members being reinstated.

A council spokesman said: 'Rhondda Cynon Taf council can confirm that it received a complaint from an individual in relation to a residential children's facility within the county borough.

'Following receipt of this complaint, a full investigation was conducted and appropriate action concluded in line with council policy.'