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As autism diagnoses keep increasing, so too do the number of blogs about autism. Self-advocates, parents with autism who have kids with autism, and non-autistic parents all bring their own viewpoints, and all need to be heard. Babble's 2013 Top 30 Autism Blogs brings you voices from a range of viewpoints: some familiar, some fresh. We're excited that this year's picks include several blogs that are new to our list, including Asperkids, Stimeyland, Just a Lil Blog, The Third Glance, and The Domestic Goddess.

Whether they’re looking to find practical advice on therapies, filter out misinformation, or just vent about a rough day, many parents of children with autism have found support in the Facebook community. Babble’s trusted panel has once again been tasked with narrowing down this year’s Top 30 Autism Facebook Fan Pages. This list includes pages created by advocacy organizations, autism professionals, bloggers (some of whom also appear on our Top 30 Autism Blogs), and much more. We’re confident you’ll see some of your favorites here (if not, be sure to nominate them in the comments for consideration on next year’s list!), but we also hope you’ll find new sources of information and advice. — Barbara Spindel

We spoke to Uta Frith, author of Autism: A Very Short Introduction and asked her about diagnosis, the perceived links between autism and genius, and how autism is portrayed in culture. Autism was not identified before the 1940s. Weren’t there any autistic people before this? Autism was not a new phenomenon starting in the middle of the 20th century, but it needed people like Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger to point out the striking constellation of poor social communication and stereotypic behaviours for others to see it too. Clinicians used the terms ‘infantile’ or ‘early childhood autism’ and located it among the neglected population of children who were born ‘mentally deficient’. Gradually clinicians became aware that most of this neglected population showed similar problems in varying degrees, and that specialist services were needed to educate children who could not communicate appropriately. They embraced the idea of the autism spectrum. So, just as there has been an increase in the autism spectrum diagnosis, there has been a corresponding decrease in the diagnosis of mental retardation.

Introduction by Steve Silberman: Six years ago, the United Nations declared April 2 to be World Autism Awareness Day. For most of the 20th Century, autism was rarely talked about in public, because the psychiatric establishment — led by a psychologist and popular author named Bruno Bettelheim, considered the preeminent authority on the subject in the 1960s — blamed the condition on the emotional trauma of being raised by a cold, unloving mother. The “refrigerator mother” theory was utterly discredited long ago as an elaborate fraud, and autism is now understood to be a life-long disability caused by complex interactions between genes and the environment. Autistic people and their families are still subject to stigma, however, in part because many of the organizations that view Autism Awareness Day as a fundraising opportunity use fear-mongering language like Autism Speaks’ oft-repeated refrain that “more children are diagnosed with autism each year than with juvenile diabetes, AIDS or cancer, combined.”

Steve Silberman, investigative reporter for Wired and other national magazines, declared Thinking Person's Guide to Autism his Book of the Year (!): Covering a wide range of nuts-and-bolts subjects — from strategizing toilet training and and planning fun family outings, to helping your kid cope with bullying, to identifying the issues that a skilled speech-language therapist can work on with your child, to spotting and avoiding “autism cults,” to navigating byzantine special-needs bureaucracies and providing your child with appropriate assistive technology, to fighting for your kid’s right to an individualized education — the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism is bracingly free of dogma, heavy-handed agendas, and pseudoscientific woo. What distinguishes it from, say, the fine guide for parents recently made freely downloadable by the National Autism Center, is the heart, soul, fierce intelligence, and subversive wit of the authors and editors, which shines on every page. Offering observations from parents, professionals, and autistics themselves, the book is a welcome dose of optimism and uncommonly good sense.

On 25 April 2013, Matthew State reviewed the genetic discoveries made over the past several years in autism research and addressed challenges in the path forward — from reliable gene discovery to an actionable understanding of the disorder’s molecular underpinnings. The talk is part of SFARI’s Autism: Emerging Concepts lecture series. You can watch a complete video recording of the event above. Use the comments section below to discuss the lecture and pose follow-up questions.

This morning, I read an article online at Education Week titled, "Where Are the Autism Teaching Competencies?" (1)  This commentary calls attention to the fact that only a few states have set forth autism competencies for teachers. What is most interesting is that a few states, both Virginia and California, have successfully this accomplished this task. Yet the majority of states haven't figured create or adapt currently existing autism teaching competencies.

The folks at AT&T and Autism Speaks hosted an app idea contest that was judged by the people who know autism best, the autism community. Autism Speaks Facebook fans and community members submitted ideas for apps that might make life with autism better organized, more social or just plain easier or more fun.

Click here to register for this event What: The Center for Autism and Related Disorder will host a CARD Montana Autism Conference on Saturday, November 19, 2011 at the University of Montana. The one-day conference will take place from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm in the University Center Theater, located at 32 Campus Drive in Missoula. The conference is free and designed especially for parents, caregivers, students and practitioners. Attendees will learn about applied behavior analysis (ABA) and how it can be used to effectively to treat individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), as well as strategic and effective treatment programs for children with ASDs. Attendees also have the opportunity to meet Joe Mohs, who has recovered from autism and is living proof that recovery is possible. Where: University Center Theater 32 Campus Drive Missoula, MT When: Saturday, November 19, 2011 8:30 am to 5:00 pm Mountain Contact: For questions, contact Marcia Kmetz at drkmetz@hotmail.com.

Parenting or teaching a child with autism spectrum disorder is both challenging and rewarding. The adults in the lives of children with autism have to organize their home or classroom environment to make it a pleasant place where these kids can thrive. Caregivers have to understand the characteristics of kids on the spectrum and know what the children are trying to communicate by their unexpected or different behaviors.  Knowing all this is a tall order and there is no better place to start than with a good book.

I became a typical father in 1979.  It was a dream come true—those magical first smiles, first steps, first words. Then in 1981, my son stopped talking, stopped playing normally, and began flapping his arms.  From those first red flags of autism until now, I have not stopped experiencing autism and the family—the central theme of my life and work—counseling, teaching, and writing about the impact of autism on families.

The task of this week’s meeting of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) in Rockville, Md. was to approve an update to the IACC’s Strategic Plan for Autism Research. Most of the updated sections had been approved at earlier meetings, but the committee still had to grapple with the introduction, which contained several sticky phrases. The committee is a diverse group of people ranging from a parent who believes that autism is the result of injury caused by toxins in our environment to an adult on the spectrum who views autism as a natural part of our human diversity. Given the wide range of perspectives, words matter a lot.

Last week the Chicago Tribune printed a long piece on biological treatments for autism by Trine Tsouderos and Patricia Callahan, and an excellent piece it was. They clearly understand what the real story is – a subculture of fringe doctors and others who are essentially doing unethical experiments and children with autism. They are exploiting desperate parents (who then sometimes contribute to the exploitation of the next desperate parents) who are seeking any possible help for their children. Of course the desire of parents of autistic children to do everything they can to help them is perfectly understandable. But there is a quagmire out there – an insidious trap waiting to ensnare the vulnerable, in the guise of professionals offering help. So-called DAN (for Defeat Autism Now) doctors and others are offering a slew of experimental and often highly implausible treatments for autism.

April 2, 2013 is the sixth annual World Autism Awareness Day. To be aware of autism, you have to know what it looks like first.

In honor of World Autism Awareness Day, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) has released its Summary of Advances for 2010. Twenty articles that were published in 2010 were selected across each of the five areas of focus on the IACC strategic plan. Autism Speaks’ Chief Science Officer, Geri Dawson, Ph.D.,  is a member of the committee and was pleased to see advances across the range of autism research and said, “It is encouraging to see the diversity of scientific advances that were made in 2010.“ Dawson noted, “studies that were deemed especially noteworthy included environmental research, genetic discoveries, new early intervention approaches, and assessment of medical conditions such as GI problems and mitochondrial dysfunction.”

Toilet training is teaching an entire new skill. Teaching new skills to children with autism spectrum disorders works best when the steps to the task are organized into simple pieces. Teaching must also be consistent at all times and become predictable to the child in terms of rewards and consequences. In order for toilet training to be successful, the child must move from depending on reminders (timed trips to the bathroom) to recognizing the signs of a full bladder and taking the necessary actions him/herself.

Even though autism is now widely discussed in the media and society at large, the public and some experts alike are still stymied be a couple of the big, basic questions about the disorder: What is autism, and how do we identify—and count—it? A close look shows that the unknowns involved in both of these questions suffice to explain the reported autism boom. The disorder hasn’t actually become much more common—we’ve just developed better and more accurate ways of looking for it.

Our society is confronting many serious, chronic medical issues, including AIDS, diabetes, obesity, cancer, Alzheimer's, MS, heart disease, and autism. What do all those conditions have in common? Every one is something you live with for a long period of time; in some cases all your life. Furthermore, every one has one or more strong advocacy organizations who speak for people affected by the condition.

Many praised the series for taking such a comprehensive look at autism. But not everyone was pleased with MacNeil’s reporting on the issue. In blog posts, comments and e-mails to PBS, self-advocates are chiding the veteran reporter, saying that their perspective was left out. What’s more, they are criticizing MacNeil for comments they say suggest that those with the disorder lack empathy and can be violent. “There’s always a problem when you talk about autism and do not include autistic people in the discussion,” says Ari Ne’eman, president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, who suggests that the series featured “dehumanizing rhetoric” and language insinuating that people with autism are “violent and that we’re a burden on society.”

Since 2011, the Twitter party with the hashtag #youmightbeanautismparentif has been alive and kicking.  Every comment offers a little snapshot of the inner lives of families who love someone with autism.  At times the conversation is poignant, but in the last few weeks it’s been mostly humorous.  Here are 16 recent highlights from the party that never ends.