Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

THESE are the sports stories we need. Bayleigh Teepa-Tarau incredibly won a 9-hole tournament playing in basketball shoes. The attention of the New Zealand golf world is now on a 12-year-old boy with almost no experience, who borrowed clubs, and competed in basketball shoes. Bayleigh Teepa-Tarau won the nine-hole competition at the AIMS Games, a…

By the slice: Staining organoids reveals early differentiation in the forebrain, including the development of plexus- and plate-like structures. Essentially opposite paths in fetal brain development may explain two major subtypes of autism. In one of these subtypes, an unusually high number of excitatory neurons in a key brain region leads to large heads, or…

Last night was one of those special nights. I was outside in the backyard pushing your younger siblings on the swings when I heard you come outside. You wandered to a deck chair and sat down. Then to the stairs leading down the deck. I think you found a fly. It must have landed on…

This morning my son Cooper had his first day of 7th grade. He was ready early. I dressed him. I packed his lunch. I put his speech device in his bag. And I wrote his name on his things. He posed for a picture in front of the fireplace holding two train guidebooks and a…

I’ve been reading about ASD symptoms in women and gradually remembering making adjustments to some of them when I was young that I hardly notice now. But so many of the symptoms seem so ordinary in the context of my family circumstances and childhood I’m a little puzzled, like surely those are very common quirks?…

Health passports were developed to help patients better communicate their needs with medical staff by allowing people to record details about their disability or health condition. They are sometimes known as a communication passport, healthcare passport or a hospital passport and can be digital or on paper. Autism health passports were specifically designed with the…

BUFFALO, N.Y. — New research suggests a hearing test may one day help diagnose newborns with autism, a condition so daunting to pinpoint that it typically takes years. Researchers at two universities and the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities pored through results of nearly 200,000 hearing tests on newborns and as…

There are many controversies about autism, and we’re not close to resolving them. Many people hold strong beliefs on both sides of each controversy. Here are some key controversies: Whichever version you may believe, the real question is how can we know what’s true? Before continuing, I need to address something. People use “autism” to…

I frequently get asked what are good reading programs for autism or how to teach reading to students with autism spectrum disorder. I did a post a while back on the challenges and thoughts about teaching reading to students with autism, and many of you asked for ideas about tools to support reading in your…