Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Reading Fiction Improves Social Skills

A group of Toronto researchers discover that "readers of narrative fiction scored higher on tests of empathy and social acumen than those who read non-fiction texts. And follow-up research showed that reading fiction may help fine-tune these skills: People assigned to read a New Yorker short story did better on social reasoning tests than those who read an essay from the same magazine.

Full article here.

Friday, July 11, 2008

New Study Pinpoints 6 Autism Genes

"Research on large Middle Eastern families has helped scientists pinpoint six new genes implicated in autism, a new study published Thursday said.
The research "strongly supports the emerging idea that autism stems from disruptions in the brain's ability to form new connections in response to experience -- consistent with autism's onset during the first year of life when many of these connections are normally made," a team led by researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and members of the Autism Consortium said."
Full article here.