hennyethan-9559796

Tuned Into Acceptance: An Autistic Teen and His YouTube Channel

TPGA is observing Autism Acceptance Month by featuring accounts from autistic people about the differences accommodations (or lack thereof) make in their lives. Today’s story is from Henny Kupferstein, about how her own autistic insights helped her guide her friend Ethan into creating videos that demonstrate his autistic perspectives, as well as accommodations that work for him. Henny Kupferstein www.hennyk.com Ethan loves watching the Super Nanny show. When he re-enacts the scenes of whining children, he is testing if other caregivers will respond in the expected manner as in the show. While behaviorists call this ‘scripting,’ interweaving his reality with the show allows him to predict how people might respond, based on what happened on TV. When others refuse to play along and insert themselves into the story, the ambiguity triggers a stress response in the face of the unknown. Ethan’s iPhone offers a unique glimpse into the way he…

IMFAR 2011: Onset Patterns in Autism: Correspondence Between Home Video and Parent Report

Any omissions or errors are my own contributions. -SR S. Ozonoff, UC Davis MIND Institute Abstract: http://imfar.confex.com/imfar/2011/webprogram/Paper7878.html The study was a collaborative effort between UC Davis’s MIND Institute and the University of Colorado. We usually think of autism onset in terms of two categories: Autism symptoms that appear early in life, before 1st birthday, or A child who loses previously acquired skills after the first birthday Ozonoff’s study used home videos that were coded using objective methods to see when symptoms were first apparent, and how they unfolded over time. The study looked at two questions: Are two categories sufficient to describe onset? How do home video and parent reports correspond? For the home video method, parents gave the researchers all home video in which child appeared, from age 6 months through the second birthday. The researchers focused on four social/communication behaviors: Eye contact Social smiles Joint attention Language In…