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Technology is fascinating. And I know you can find pretty much anything on the Internet, but the fact that this dad found the directions to create what he did is pretty darn amazing.

On Monday night, the dads who gathered at the Mason sports bar were ready for some football. Oh, were they ready.

One said it had been three years since he had watched "Monday Night Football." Another said he hadn't allowed himself such an evening out in 13 years.Besides a fondness for football, the men shared another bond: They are fathers of children with autism.

Yes, both Hoyts — father and son — are about to be honored in April with a life-sized bronze statue at the starting line of the Boston Marathon. The statue captures them doing what they’ve done together nearly 1,100 times since the early 1980s: run in marathons, 5Ks, Ironman events and other triathlons as “Team Hoyt.”

Fathers who read to their infants with autism and take active roles in caregiving activities not only promote healthy development in their children, they boost moms' mental health too, new research suggests. Mothers of children with autism reported fewer depressive symptoms when their children were 4 years old if the child's father engaged in literacy and responsive caregiving activities - such as soothing children when they were upset or taking the child to the doctor - when the child was 9 months old, according to a new study conducted at the University of Illinois.

The approach that parents take with their children who have developmental disabilities is directly tied to how cooperative and independent they become, new research suggests. In an analysis of existing studies looking at the influence of parenting on children with special needs, researchers found that when moms and dads employed so-called positive parenting, their kids exhibited greater independence, better language skills, stronger emotional expression and social interaction as well as improved temperament.

Three-year-old Kasan Allison idolizes his older brothers, Keenan and Kylan, likes to play games with his dad, Dave, and is always on the go, a toy tractor or his best bud, Mickey Mouse, in hand. When he’s unsure about something, he reaches for his mom, Amie, and he loves macaroni and cheese.Almost from the day Kasan was born, his parents recognized differences in his development. He did not lift his head, roll over, start crawling when his older brothers had.The Allisons didn’t know it at the time, but Kasan has XXXXY, commonly called 49 Chromosome Syndrome, and the chromosomal abnormality affects not only his life, but his family’s too.

You just invested in a shiny new iPad for you child with special needs. Next, you lay out some more money to purchase a few communication apps, install them and your child is off and running with a $500 piece of equipment. Minutes later  you see the iPad less bounce its way down those beautiful wooden stairs of yours… And then you woke up from your nightmare. You were smart enough to purchase a protective case for the iPad. Your child gets to develop communication and social skills while dad becomes an Angry Birds champion. Make sure you don’t have an iPad nightmare… here are 13 great cases that will protect your iPad investment!

13 iPad cases for your child with special needs | Friendship Circle -- Special Needs Blog 13 iPad cases for your child with special needs | Friendship Circle -- Special Needs Blog tags: iPad You just invested in a shiny new iPad for you child with special needs. Next, you lay out some more money to purchase a few communication apps, install them and your child is off and running with a $500 piece of equipment. Minutes later  you see the iPad less bounce its way down those beautiful wooden stairs of yours… And then you woke up from your nightmare. You were smart enough to purchase a protective case for the iPad. Your child gets to develop communication and social skills while dad becomes an Angry Birds champion. Make sure you don’t have an iPad nightmare… here are 13 great cases that will protect your iPad investment!

The average guy finds it hard to sit still and listen.  We jump to problem solving especially when we lack the words to express what we are experiencing.  Yet we yearn for connection with our children. On July 7, I moderated “Guy Talk: Fathers Roundtable” at www.autismbrainstorm.org with 7 guys who spoke openly about their struggles to be present with their children.

Just six treatment sessions designed to help moms of kids with developmental disabilities manage their stress can go a long way toward reducing depression and anxiety, researchers say. Parents of children with developmental disabilities often experience greater stress than moms and dads of typically-developing kids. Nonetheless, most interventions target the needs of their children with disabilities exclusively. Now, researchers say more attention ought to be paid to the unique needs of these parents. In a trial of two treatment programs, Elisabeth Dykens of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development and her colleagues found that weekly sessions with trained peer mentors could help moms conquer their stress and, in turn, interact more constructively with their children with disabilities.

My name is Carly Fleischmann and as long as I can remember I’ve been diagnosed with autism. I am not able to talk out of my mouth, however I have found another way to communicate by spelling on my computer. (and yes that is me typing on the computer by myself) I used to think I was the only kid with autism who communicates by spelling but last year I met a group of kids that communicate the same way. In fact some are even faster at typing then I am. Last year a story about my life was shown on ABC news, CNN and CTV here in Canada. After my story was played I kept on getting lots of emails from moms, dads, kids and people from different countries asking me all sorts of questions about autism. I think people get a lot of their information from so-called experts but I think what happens is that experts can’t give an explanation to certain questions. How can you explain something you have not lived or if you don’t know what it’s like to have it? If a horse is sick, you don’t ask a fish what’s wrong with the horse. You go right to the horse’s mouth.

Teachers at one of Denver's poorest schools have discovered a key to improving student achievement that's as easy as stepping out the door. High-performing schools in affluent neighborhoods are usually buzzing with parents — moms and dads volunteering, chauffeuring or helping out in classrooms. But at schools in high-poverty neighborhoods, the opposite tends to occur — many of them have little to no parental engagement. Indeed, teachers rarely see a parent in the building unless a kid is in trouble. That's why Fairview Elementary teachers are going to the families. Every year, educators try to visit the homes of every child in the school — getting to know the families and discovering more about their students.

DENVER - Chase was just 18 months old when he started speaking his first words and sentences to a stunned mom and dad.

"It started with him just loving books, picking up books and playing with them," Brett Perry, Chase's father, said. "Then he went into this fascination with numbers and letters." Before they knew it, Chase was doing more than just looking at the letters. He was reading full words out loud, and then full sentences out loud. Mind you he wasn't even 2 years old.

Parents of children with autism are more likely to exhibit traits of the developmental disorder themselves, new research suggests. In a study looking at data on moms and dads of 256 children with autism and nearly 1,400 without, researchers found that parents of those on the spectrum tended to score higher on a questionnaire known as the Social Responsiveness Scale.