July 10, 2023
- According to a new study featured in the journal Pediatrics, children with disabilities are often ignored and devalued by doctors and other healthcare providers, which can potentially lead to substandard care. This research was based on interviews with parents of kids with complex medical needs. Parents reported their children were treated differently and provided limited accommodations when seeking medical treatment. Overall, they believed the main reasons for the discrimination their children experienced were rooted in limited knowledge about caring for juveniles with complex medical needs, coupled with a disinterest in providing care to children seen as unworthy and negative assumptions about a child’s disability and quality of life.
- Recent research has investigated differences in autism symptoms between infants and toddlers with low familial likelihood of autism (LL) and those with elevated familial likelihood of autism (EL) due to the presence of an autistic sibling. The new study included children with autism symptoms recruited from the community, allowing for the inclusion of infants as young as 12 months. The findings suggest that EL infants and toddlers with autism symptoms had stronger nonverbal and verbal cognitive abilities than LL children with autism symptoms. Additionally, contrary to previous studies, the study found that EL infants and toddlers had milder autism symptoms than LL children. The study also highlighted novel insights into the prevalence of language delay among EL and LL children with autism symptoms, suggesting that EL status may be protective against disruptions to expressive language development but not necessarily receptive language development.
- Researchers have discovered an increased risk of neuropsychiatric disorders in children born with fetal inflammatory syndrome (FIRS) compared to those without FIRS. Specifically, the authors found that there is an increased incidence of ASD, ADHD, conduct disorder, PTSD, and any psychiatric disorder in these children, which was significant even after adjusting for maternal history of psychiatric disorders, maternal substance use during pregnancy, and maternal lifetime history of suicide attempts.
- Don’t miss TACA’s newest webinar, “When You Suspect Immune Driven Encephalopathy: How a Parent Can Take Action.” This presentation will cover how encephalopathies come in different varieties with various causes and how a parent can take action to get both a diagnosis and an appropriate treatment plan. Listen to a team of providers give you a step-by-step approach to diagnosing and treating immune-driven encephalitis, including lab work, imaging, and other diagnostics; involvement of the microbiome; ENT issues to consider; medical issues versus psychiatric issues, advanced immunomodulation techniques and more!
