Research in a forthcoming report from Internal Balance claims to show a link between autism and other membrane sensitivity disorders and electromagnetic radiation stress which may be caused by cellular phones and other wireless technologies.

Read the company’s press release here.

Cure Autism Now (CAN) and Autism Speaks are sponsoring “Interactive Technologies for Autism,” a Special Interest Group at this year’s Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Computer-Human Interaction conference in San Jose, Calif., on April 28. The Special Interest Group will bring together leading researchers, developers and clinicians to impact the development of products that improve the lives of individuals with autism. CAN and Autism Speaks’ Innovative Technology for Autism chair Daniel Gillette and Georgia Institute of Technology doctoral candidate Gillian Hayes have organized the Special Interest Group.

Many people diagnosed with autism have difficulties with social situations and processes, including communication. This can cause significant problems to the person’s ability to function appropriately in traditional educational and workplace environments. The Emotional Social Intelligence Prosthesis (ESP) project, from MIT’s Media Lab, is seeking to find new ways with which technology can be used as an assistive and therapuetic device to foster learning and improve social interaction, communication and emotion reading and understanding abilities in people with autism.

Visit the ESP Project Site.

Tod Machover is an MIT composer/inventor who is using music and technology to treat and heal people suffering from autism, Alzheimer’s Disease and other afflictions. His Hyperscore software program (free to download) allows children and adults with no musical background to compose music.

Watch a video profile on Tod Machover here.

Read more about Tod Machover, his music and his projects here.

Visit his personal web site.

This article from ZDNet may have future implications for autistic children and adults….

“A new game platform apparently makes it possible to manipulate a virtual world with one’s thoughts and emotions. Emotiv Systems unveiled on Wednesday a brain/computer interface system with a helmet and software applications at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The Project Epoc system can move objects based on a gamer’s thoughts, reflect facial expressions and respond to the excitement or calm the gamer displays, the company said.
…
One of Emotiv Systems’ four co-founders is Allan Snyder, director of The Centre for the Mind, a joint venture of the Australian National University and the University of Sydney.”

Kennedy Krieger Institute announced the launch of the Interactive Autism Network (IAN), the first national online autism registry.Parents are filled with questions about autism, and, unfortunately, researchers are still struggling with many of the same questions. IAN brings these two groups together in a way that’s never been done before, through an online registry, to find answers.

Helma van Rijn, graduate student at the Delft University Of Technology in the Netherlands, has developed LINKX, an interactive toy that stimulates the language development of autistic children. The site includes a video (with subtitles) of the prototype of the unit and demonstrations with three children.

Two new studies at Indiana University demonstrate that videos depicting exemplary behaviors can be effective in helping children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders develop social skills and daily living skills.

Lead researcher Scott Bellini said these findings will help to identify video modeling as a worthwhile strategy for educators and child development professionals in a field lacking proven methods of treatment.

Read more.