Clinical Issues and Innovations

Clinicians need the very latest research on all the hot-button topics related to autism—both to work effectively with children and answer their families' most pressing questions. Autism Frontiers is the book no clinician should practice without: it brings together the biggest names in autism research to examine today's most important medical and clinical issues.

This much-needed professional reference gives clinicians in-depth, up-to-date, and readily applicable research and guidance on the topics they'll encounter most: early diagnosis and intervention, language and social reciprocity, overlapping syndromes, complementary and alternative medicine, autism and epilepsy, parent advocacy, and more. Readers will also get

• a NEW Screening Protocol for Autism—Pasquale Accardo's quick, 14-item tool clinicians can use as a starting point in the screening process
  
  
• tables, sample forms, and checklists to help clinicians identify characteristics of autism, elicit information from parents, record clinical impressions of children, and more
  
  
• the latest from the highly respected experts who conduct the most cutting-edge autism research
  
  
• best practice recommendations that help professionals create consistent "medical homes" for children with special needs

A must for every professional who works with children with autism spectrum disorders in a clinical setting—including physicians, psychologists, OTs, PTs, and SLPs—this essential reference will help readers answer their biggest questions about autism so they can give children the best possible care.

Editors and Contributors
Foreword
Mark L. Batshaw
Preface

1. Clinical Overview of the Autism Spectrum
Bruce K. Shapiro, Deepa U. Menon, & Pasquale J. Accardo

2. Autism in the Spectrum of Developmental Disabilities
Thomas M. Lock

3. Classification Issues in the Milder Developmental Disorders: Asperger Syndrome, the Syndrome of Nonverbal Learning Disability, and "Einstein Children"
Isabelle Rapin

4. Developmental Regression, Autism, and Epilepsy
John F. Mantovani

5. A Neurodevelopmental Perspective on Developmental Language Disorders
Bruce K. Shapiro

6. Discourse Skills of Individuals with Higher-Functioning Autism or Asperger Syndrome
Janet E. Turner

7. Autism Spectrum Disorders in the First 3 Years of Life
Rebecca Landa

8. Classroom-Based Interventions for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Andrew L. Egel

9. Student, Parent, and Teacher Perspectives on Barriers to and Facilitators of School Success for Children with Asperger Syndrome
Donald P. Oswald, Martha J. Countinho, Jesse "Woody" Johnson, Jennifer H. Larson, and Carla A. Mazefsky

10. Psychopharmacologic Approaches to Challenging Behaviors in Individuals with Autism
Scott M. Myers

11. Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Autism: Promises Kept?
Thomas D. Challman

12. Can Autism Resolve?
Juhi Pandey, Leandra Wilson, Alyssa Verbalis, & Deborah Fein

13. Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Conceptualization
Pasquale J. Accardo

Index