Spectrum: Autism Research News

April is Autism Awareness Month. But Apple is getting kudos for going beyond raising awareness to promoting acceptance (not to mention one of its products).

The tech giant released two short videos on Saturday that show Dylan, a minimally verbal teen with autism, using an iPad to communicate through a synthetic voice.

“All my life I wanted so badly to communicate with people,” Dylan says through his iPad in one of the videos. “Having a voice has changed everything in my life. No more isolation. I can finally speak with the people that love me. I can say what I think and let them know I love them, too.”

In a short article about the videos in Forbes this week, journalist Emily Willingham acknowledges the product-pedaling feel of the videos, but says the benefits of the iPad for people with autism “are immeasurable.”

“The cost of an iPad, for example, is a fraction of what the clunky visual-keyboard-based ‘talkers’ cost, not to mention far more accessible for many people than battling, over and over again, with the insurance company to even acquire a ‘talker,’” Willingham writes.

By pooling data from a number of studies, a meta-analysis can uncover treatments with small but potentially important benefits and risks. But what if some of the studies included in the meta-analysis are biased? As you might expect, this can really distort the results.

A new tool can help scientists block biased studies from their meta-analysis by forcing them to ask basic questions about each study’s design. For instance, did the researchers of a study to be included in the analysis know which participants received a particular treatment? And was the treatment group decided randomly or with some knowledge about the participants?

Researchers tested the tool, called the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool for Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions, using data pooled from 37 studies investigating the risks of two medications: a diabetes drug and an anti-inflammatory.

The tool identified eight studies as having a high risk of bias, according to a study published Tuesday in PLOS Medicine. When the researchers dropped those studies from the meta-analysis, the increased risk of heart attack associated with the diabetes medication was cut by more than half, from 14 percent to 6 percent.

The lopsided ratio of men to women in science is well documented — need we mention that moustache index again? But a commentary published yesterday in Science outlines six steps toward a fairer, more diverse and arguably more effective scientific workforce.

The steps encourage decision-makers at academic institutions to understand the barriers, as well as the benefits, to disrupting the status quo. Authors Beth Mitchneck, Jessi Smith and Melissa Latimer argue that “innovation and global competitiveness are compromised by excluding women and minorities from the professoriate.”

“True transformational change means changing what it means to be an academic and who belongs in the academy,” they write. “Now it’s time to act.”

Meanwhile, one young woman has made it her mission to ensure that female scientists from years past get credit for their contributions.

Emily Temple-Wood, a 21-year-old student at Loyola University in Chicago, has created roughly 330 Wikipedia articles — many of them documenting the contributions of women in science. In a Q&A with Nautilus late last month, Temple-Wood said these women have been “a huge source of inspiration” during her studies in molecular biology.

“One time, one of my professors talked about the geneticist Barbara McClintock’s page, and I was like, ‘Have I heard about Barbara McClintock? I wrote that page.’ That was surreal,” Temple-Wood says in the interview.

Temple-Wood has drawn her share of criticism from Internet trolls. But most people appreciate her effort to set the record straight on women in science.

“It’s weird to get attention for what I do, the sheer geekiness of it,” she says. “But it’s nice, because now I’m getting to spread the word of women scientists, spread the word for people to join and write about them. That’s my lifelong goal, to get people to care about women scientists.”

It’s been almost six months since Sesame Street unveiled Julia, the first muppet with autism. This week, the makers of the show released 13 new videos featuring muppets and children with autism as part of their ongoing autism initiative.

One of the videos shows Julia, whose voice comes from a girl on the spectrum, according to an article published yesterday in The Mighty, an online publication that features stories about people with disabilities. Other videos show children with autism and their parents explaining what they’d like others to know about the condition.

“We want everyone to know that children with [autism] want to play and be included,” Jeanette Betancourt, senior vice president of U.S. Social Impact at Sesame Workshop told The Mighty. “They want love, friendship, understanding, and support just like any child does.”