My first installment of NOTECARDS.

 Trigger Warning: Discussion of cures

Two sources today! 

Gernsbacher, Morton Ann. "How to Spot Bias in Research." APS Observer 19.6 (2006): n. pag. APS.  

           Association for Psychological Science, Nov. 2006. Web. 11 Sept. 2012.

1. In one study, the ability of autistic people to better recall which words they had and had not heard was chalked up to representing words “in an aberrant manner,” which seems odd unless you think about the preconceived expectations regarding autistic people. This is an example of study bias, as is the later assumption that the autistic participants in a second study which found no such difference must have also had other impairments.
2. Gernsbacher recommends removing all group labels from a study in order to test for bias. If the interpretations cease to make sense upon removing the labels, then the study is biased.

Chez, Michael, MD. Autologous Cord Blood Stem Cells for Autism. ClinicalTrials.gov. Sutter Health,    

          20 Aug. 2012. Web. 5 Sept. 2012. <http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01638819>.

1. The purpose of this study is to "evaluate the efficacy of one infusion of stem cells from autologous umbilical cord blood in patients with autism over six months after infusion as measured by changes in expressive and receptive language." It aims to do so by demonstrating improvements in behavior and learning, along with levels of several serum values. Improvements in behavior and learning will use measures of receptive and expressive one word vocabulary tests and a developmental disorders behavior index.
2. This study uses the banked cord blood of the children participating for the infusions 
3. The sample size is 30 children of mixed genders ranging in age from 2 to 7. They must be diagnosed with autistic disorder, not Aspergers Syndrome or PDD-NOS, and they must not have epilepsy, cerebral palsy, fragile X, muscular dystrophy, or known genetic markers that overlap with autistic spectrum disorders.