Episodes
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What does an expert say about the risk of autism after infections?
This week we talk to Dr. Renee Gardner from the Karolinska Institute who utilizes large datasets to understand the link between pregnancy exposures and later diagnoses in children – including the diagnosis of autism. She has identified several rare infections during pregnancy that have a strong...
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Clinical Trials – what you need to know about outcome measures
How do you know an intervention is working? It starts with making sure you are measuring the right thing. This week, Drs. Mary Wojnaroski from Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Natasha Ludwig from the Kennedy Krieger Institute who work on the Inchstone Project to talk about outcome measures…
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Wildfires, air pollution, autism and the EPA response
Air pollution, specifically one part of air pollution called PM 2.5 (named for the size of the crud in the air pollution) has been linked to autism. It’s also been tied to cancer, heart disease, asthma, obesity, and premature births. Air pollution typically comes from industrial sources and car...
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The 2025 Year in Review
This year was a VERY eventful year for autism. If you want to hear a highlight of the good news, the great science that was discovered and the ideas developed to help families with autism, listen to this podcast or read the summary here: https://autismsciencefoundation.org/2025-year-in-review/.…
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The importance of cognitive ability in autism traits, and how to measure it in those with IDD
Everyone knows cognitive ability is critical for understanding autism, however, how does it affect developmental trajectories of autism traits, and can it be accurately measured in those with severe intellectual disabilities? We discuss. Plus, more evidence that tylenol doees not cause autism....
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What we learn from linking data
The NIH has launched the new Autism Data Science Initiative: https://dpcpsi.nih.gov/autism-data-science-initiative/funding-opportunities#section1, which brings questions about why linking different data sets is important. It can be done without including personal identifying information, and it...
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Profound Autism: The first meaningful autism subgroup
Instead of grouping together people with autism based on traditional severity scores, what if groupings were done based on functional outcome? Would this help better understand the broad spectrum of autism and why some people with autism are so different than others? Researchers at the University...
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Suicide, self-harm and genetics in autism
This week’s podcast covers two new papers of interest to the autism community. First, another study showing increase in self harm and suicide in those with autism – no new news there – but a new discovery this week showed a vulnerability of females with a diagnosis. The study also explores the...
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attention attention…this is the INSAR 2023 summary
Last week in Stockholm, Sweden, 2200 researchers and scientists working to understand and help those on the spectrum, met to share their most recent findings and exchange ideas. What were the main takeaways as ASF saw them? We cover why some autistic people don’t want genetics to be studied, how…
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Sperm
The title gets you, right? Well, on this week’s #ASFpodcast we report on a new study that examines epigenetic profiles of sperm and how they related to child outcomes. Do some of the marks on bio-dad’s sperm match to those found in kids with ASD? what about genes related to autism? Also, can...
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What’s Quality of Life Got To Do With it?
This week’s #ASFpodcast highlights a new study from Dr. Elizabeth Kaplan-Kahn, who is improving a measure of Quality of Life for autistic individuals who are minimally verbal or have cognitive disabilities. These individuals may have different outcomes as other autistics, but their responses are...
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Genetics does not equal eugenics
Sometimes when the autism community hears the words “genetics research”, it conjures up images of using genetics to eliminate people with autism. In fact, that’s not the goal of genetics research, nor is it even possible. Recently, several new studies were publish which illustrate how genetics…
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