For the first time, the nation’s largest autism advocacy organization has revamped its agenda and one notable objective is no more.

Autism Speaks’ board of directors voted in late September to modify the organization’s mission statement, marking the first such change since the nonprofit was established in 2005.

The new iteration is shorter and strikes a markedly different tone. Gone are terms like “struggle,” “hardship” and “crisis.” Also absent is any mention of seeking a cure for the developmental disorder.

NICHOLETTE ZELIADT

A class assignment turned into something more for one family after their son wrote a touching poem and gave a peek into life with autism. 

Benjamin Giroux, a 10-year-old boy who is on the spectrum, wrote a poem titled “I Am” as an assignment for his fifth grade class. His father, Sonny Giroux, explained to The Huffington Post that every line of the poem already included two words like "I am" and "I wonder" as a prompt for the students to complete. In his poem, Benjamin wrote that he is “odd” and “new” and that he feels “like a castaway.”

Although there is no cure for autism, various interventions can help diminish the symptoms, sometimes profoundly. Since both social and communication differences are part of the diagnosis, behavioral and speech language therapy are typically the foundation of intervention. But one challenge in planning, and a stress for parents, is that no single educational plan works for all children.

Ron Fournier is the author of the upcoming Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent’s Expectations.

"Love your child for who he is, not who you want him to be”

Moments after my son was diagnosed with autism, my wife confronted me in the doctor’s parking lot. “It’s time to step up,” Lori said. Be a better father. She told me to take a series of road trips with Tyler—to bond with our 12-year-old boy and teach him to navigate a world that isn’t wired like him.

Turns out, Tyler did the teaching.

As the population of people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder keeps growing, so does the number of people with that diagnosis who aren't finding employment.

Though many young adults on the spectrum are considered high functioning, recent research shows 40 percent don't find work — a higher jobless rate than people with other developmental disabilities experience.

By Christina A. Samuels

After years of steady decline, the nationwide count of school-age students covered under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has shown an upswing since the 2011-12 school year based on the most recently available federal data, driven by rapid growth in such disability categories as autism.

The count of students ages 6-21 with disabilities fell to a low of 5.67 million in fall 2011, but had risen to 5.83 million by fall 2014, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

Sarah C. Bauer, Jessica Winegar, Sandra Waxman

Behaviors that are considered red flags in the U.S. and Western Europe are considered normal, even desirable, in other parts of the world

How do we determine who has autism, and is this the same around the world?

BY ANN GRISWOLD  /  1 APRIL 2016

Roughly 7 percent of children with autism eventually lose their diagnosis, swapping social problems and language difficulties for more typical skills and behaviors. But it is unclear whether this transition is associated with a return to typical brain function or reflects a compensatory process.

Terms like “low-functioning” are short on nuance and long on stigma.

It’s clear that Alex and John each function well in certain areas of life and struggle in others; each has an idiosyncratic patchwork of skills and challenges. Their stories illustrate a problem that has plagued autism research for decades: What, exactly, do the terms high- and low-functioning mean and to whom do they apply?