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An autistic Florida teen who knocked a school staffer unconscious for threatening to take away his Nintendo Switch has filed a lawsuit against the district, accusing them of failing to meet his needs. Brendan Depa, 18, was just 17 when he was caught on video pummeling a teacher's aide, Joan Naydich, at Matanzas High School after she requested another teacher take away his gaming console. Depa was arrested and charged as an adult with aggravated battery on a school employee, a first-degree felony carrying a potential sentence of 30 years behind bars. The teen filed a request for due process...

Horrifying footage shows a ten-year-old autistic boy being beaten by his teaching aide, who allegedly abused at least three children for months, leaving them with bruises and marks. Kiarra Jones, 29, has been charged with third-degree assault on an at-risk person last week and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on May 3. In the video provided by Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC Attorneys at Law, the firm representing three families, Jones can be seen repeatedly punching the child, who has severe autism and no verbal ability, while they sat together on the school bus. Heartbroken parents of children at the Joshua...

Fractured bones, a knocked-out tooth, deep bruises, and immeasurable heartache. Those are just some of the injuries suffered by at least three students with autism allegedly at the hands of a Littleton Public Schools paraprofessional trusted to care for them. The kids take a dedicated bus provided by the LPS transportation system to get to one of Colorado's most highly regarded private schools for students with autism – The Joshua School. Yet, as some parents discovered and told CBS News Colorado – that bus was a place of torture. -snip That video was shared Tuesday morning, showing Dax aboard that...

In Florida, a private Christian school's decision to cancel Autism Awareness Week after the school's pastor claimed such an event is "idolatry and demonic" has sparked backlash from parents vowing to pull their kids out. Trinity Christian Academy in the Lake Worth Beach area, affiliated with the Pentecostal Assemblies of God denomination, faced backlash after Pastor Matt Baker announced the cancellation of the week's activities in a March 30 email to families. Baker argued that these events led students to prioritize identities over their faith in Jesus Christ. The planned activities, similar to previous years, included themed dress-up days aimed...

Disturbed gut flora during the first years of life is associated with diagnoses such as autism and ADHD later in life, according to a study. The study is part of the ABIS study. More than 16,000 children born in 1997–1999, representing the general population, have been followed from birth into their twenties. Of these, 1,197 children, corresponding to 7.3%, have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, communication disorder or intellectual disability. Children who had repeated ear infections during their first year of life had an increased risk of being diagnosed with a developmental neurological disorder later in life. It...

I have always understood and sympathized with the argument for assisted suicide for people facing terminal disease near the end of life. I think hospice care is the appropriate path, but most people can at least understand the impulse to ease the path for a suffering loved one. But I have also feared that the slippery slope would lead us to this point: assisted suicide for anyone at any time for any reason. And, eventually, outright medical murder, as happens in some Nordic countries where doctors sometimes decide for patients without consent. Canada is at the second stage after legalizing...

'Dignity and right to self-determination' outweigh parent's concerns, judge saysA Calgary judge has issued a ruling that clears the way for a 27-year-old woman to receive medical assistance in dying (MAID) despite her father's attempts through the courts to prevent that from happening. A publication ban protects the identities of the parties and the medical professionals. CBC News will identify the daughter as M.V. and the father as W.V. While Justice Colin Feasby acknowledged the "profound grief" that W.V. would suffer with the death of his child, he ruled the loss of M.V.'s autonomy was more important. "M.V.'s dignity and...

In his first interview since dropping out of the presidential race, DeSantis told Blaze TV’s Steve Deace that the blame is on Iowa caucusgoers who rallied behind front-runner Donald Trump even though many didn’t like him. “They did not want to see Trump nominated again, but they had basically been told that it was inevitable, that it was over,” DeSantis told Deace on Tuesday. DeSantis, who lost to Trump in the Iowa caucuses earlier this month, added that those voters were “checked out” and had “just totally dropped out of the process.” The Florida governor told Deace he’d consider running...

The use of high-protease pancreatic replacement therapy demonstrated improvement in maladaptive behaviors, such as irritability, in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to research. "Children who have ASD often have a number of co-occurring maladaptive behaviors, such as irritability. We wanted to know whether these maladaptive behaviors can be addressed by an intervention with a low risk of side effects," said Deborah A. Pearson, Ph.D. Pearson said many children with ASD are selective about the foods they eat, often preferring carbohydrates like bread and pasta over protein. Some amino acids necessary for building neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and...

A teenage boy accused of punching and kicking his teaching assistant in a row over a Nintendo Switch has appeared in court and charged as an adult - after being arrested for battery three times in 2019. Brendan Depa, now 18 but who was 17 at the time of the alleged beating was led shackled into court in Florida wearing an orange jumpsuit on Monday to face charges of aggravated battery - a felony. He allegedly attacked teaching assistant Joan Naydich, 57, at Matanzas High School on February 21. The savage assault was caught on school surveillance cameras. The 6'6"...

Neuroscientists from the University of Maryland have come a step closer to understanding how disorders such as autism and schizophrenia develop in children, opening the door for potential new treatments. Inflammation in the brain during early childhood has been previously linked to autism and schizophrenia. But the mechanisms behind this link have been unclear. Now Maryland researchers have identified how this inflammation can affect human brain cells and their development, offering a potential mechanism for this association. Their results were published on October 12 in the journal Science Translational Medicine. In their research, the team conducted a post-mortem analysis of...

Bodycam footage shows the moments Florida police handcuffed a 9-year-old at Stenstrom Elementary School in February. Oviedo police detained the fourth-grade student for 13 minutes after he wouldn’t stop throwing an aggressive tantrum in the school’s mail room. The child’s family is now suing the city and the school resource officers involved in handcuffing their son. The Law&Crime Network’s Elizabeth Millner breaks it down. VIDEO ONLY ON LINK

Pregnant or breastfeeding women who consume diet soda or other foods and drinks containing aspartame could experience higher rates of autism diagnoses in their sons, a new study has revealed. Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) found that among boys who had been diagnosed with autism, their mothers were three times as likely to report drinking at least one diet soda — or consuming an equivalent amount of five tabletop packets of aspartame — per day. "Our study does not prove causality — it does not prove that maternal intake...

Police have been accused of heavy handedness after an autistic teenage girl was arrested by seven officers after saying 'a female officer looked like her lesbian nana'. The 16-year-old, who also suffers from scoliosis, had been driven to her home in Leeds, West Yorkshire, by officers after midnight when she allegedly made the comment. She was later dragged away screaming in the early hours of Monday morning having been served a 'homophobic public order offence'. The incident was recorded by the girl's mother who uploaded the footage to TikTok. The mother posted: 'This is what police do when dealing with...

For $1, New Hampshire voters were invited to drink beer with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Saturday in Concord. But barely more than two dozen people showed up at the New Hampshire Home Builders Association, which slashed the ticket price for the general public from $50 late in the week in order to build the crowd. And there were signs that the campaign’s focus on retail politics — on showing that DeSantis can connect with people outside his bubble — eluded the candidate at times. A 15-year-old at the Oskaloosa coffee shop asked about military service restrictions on people with...

Maternal labor epidural analgesia (LEA) was associated with an increased risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among offspring, according to a study. Chunyuan Qiu, M.D. and colleagues examined the independent associations of LEA and oxytocin during labor and delivery with ASD using data from 205,994 singleton births with vaginal deliveries in a single integrated health care system from 2008 to 2017. Children were followed through Dec. 31, 2021. Within the cohort, 153,880 and 117,808 children (74.7 and 57.2 percent, respectively) were exposed to maternal LEA and to oxytocin during labor and delivery. The researchers found that during follow-up, 5,146 (2.5...

Researchers have identified a microbial signature for autism spectrum disorder, a critical finding that offers clarity about how the gut microbiome influences this neurological syndrome.The data-driven study published by 43 researchers challenges the idea that autism is a primarily genetic condition and suggests that environmental factors may be behind the sharp rise in the debilitating condition.The trillions of microbes (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microorganisms) that populate the gut microbiome are the basis of that microbial signature. Other research has found that having more microbes and greater diversity is associated with health and lower disease risk. Among other tasks, gut...

BELEN, N.M. (KRQE) — A 6-year-old boy’s lemonade stand was burglarized last week in Belen, New Mexico, while he was trying to raise money for a good cause. After news spread about the theft, the community stepped up and rallied around him. Connor Brock had a goal: raise $250 to donate to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as part of their “Lemonade Stand in July” challenge. His parents were also raising money for Connor’s benefit: “Connor has autism level two, and we’ve used the lemonade stand not only to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital but also to teach Connor responsibility,...

None—video Synopsis. A toddler is playing and a stranger, 19 year old man with autism, randomly comes up and sloppily kisses him all over his mouth. The boy tells his parents who get in an argument with the 19 year olds parents defending the Pedo. The police quickly get involved with surprising results.

People who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth are three to six times as likely to be autistic as cisgender people are, according to the largest study yet to examine the connection1. Gender-diverse people are also more likely to report autism traits and to suspect they have undiagnosed autism. Researchers often use ‘gender diverse’ as an umbrella term to describe people whose gender identities — such as transgender, nonbinary or gender-queer — differ from the sex they were assigned at birth. Cisgender, or cis, refers to people whose gender identity and assigned sex match. The...