Autism-Europe joins the European Year of Citizens 2013 Alliance

Each year, the European Union chooses a specific issue on which it raises awareness and promotes the exchange of experience and debate in Europe. ‘The European Year of Citizens 2013’ (EYC 2013) is dedicated to the rights that come with EU citizenship. In that context, Autism-Europe has become an official member of the European Year of Citizens 2013 Alliance. The Alliance aims to initiate a Europe-wide debate on issues related to the exercise of European citizens’ rights and citizens’ participation in the democratic life of the European Union. Within this alliance, Autism-Europe will raise the voice of people with autism, whose rights are currently not upheld in Europe to the same extent as those of other citizens.

Book: The First Idea - How symbols, language and intelligence evolved from our primate ancestors to modern humans

symbols By Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D. and Stuart G. Shanker, D.Phil. Published by Da Capo Press, 2004. From the back cover: In the childhood of every human being and at the dawn of human history there is an amazing and, until now, unexplained leap from simple, genetically programmed behaviour to the complexities of language, symbolic thinking, and culture.

The First Idea explores this missing link and offers brilliant new insights into two longstanding questions: How did human beings first create symbols, and how did these abilities evolve and get transmitted across generations over millions of years?

On Amazon here.

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The New Definition of Autism

News from The Autism Society (USA): When a rewrite of psychiatry's diagnostic guide is released in San Francisco later this month, it will include a revised definition of autism, expanding it into a full spectrum disorder that can range from mild to heartbreakingly severe. This new and already controversial fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) will add the term 'autism spectrum disorder', which is currently used by many experts.

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Autism: Early intervention found cost effective through school years

From Science Codex: The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM), a comprehensive behavioral early intervention program that is appropriate for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as young as 12 months, has been found to reduce the need for ASD therapies and special education services through the school years following their early intervention.

The investigation evaluated cost of the early intervention, both ESDM and typically available 'community' early intervention services, both in combination with traditional autism-specific related services including other forms of ABA, speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy.