HEALTH

CDC SEEKS EARLIER DETECTION OF AUTISM

ATLANTA – Because half of all children with autism or similar developmental disorders aren’t diagnosed until age 4 to 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday launched a campaign to make doctors and parents aware of the need of early diagnosis. Children can be diagnosed as early as 18 months old.

The CDC is working to fill doctors’ offices around the country with posters and checklists that describe developmental milestones for each age. The agency also created for parents a height chart with similar information.

The health agency places autism in a category called autism spectrum disorders. People with such disorders may have problems with social, emotional, and communication skills. The disorders can begin in early childhood and last throughout life. About 24,000 of the 4 million children born each year eventually will be diagnosed with autism or other developmental disorders. The agency estimated that up to half a million Americans under age 21 have an autism spectrum disorder, the CDC said.

The agency says it’s a pressing issue because more children than ever before fall into the category of autism or autism-related disorders, primarily because medical officials and the government widened the definition of autism in the early 1990s.

– Associated Press

WEST

CALIFORNIA STORMS BLAMED FOR THREE DEATHS

LOS ANGELES – Mudslides trapped people in their homes yesterday and forced others to flee as Southern California was soaked by yet another of the powerful storms that have pounded the region this winter. At least three deaths were blamed on the weather and part of the area’s commuter rail service was halted.

Rescuers pulled three people from about 10 feet of mud that flowed into a town house in Hacienda Heights, a suburb east of Los Angeles. One woman was flown to a hospital while the other two escaped with only minor injuries, said Los Angeles County Fire Captain Mark Savage. That same mudslide had forced the evacuation of 30 people from five units at the complex, Captain Savage said.

The latest batch of rain, snow, and hail started battering the region Sunday, part of a series of storms that arrived Friday and was expected to continue into today.

Since Thursday, downtown Los Angeles had gotten more than 6.5 inches of rain. The city’s total since July 1,the start of the region’s “water year,” has reached 31.40 inches, making it already the fifth wettest on record, said weather service forecaster Bruce Rockwell. The record, 38.18 inches, was set in 1883-84.

Early yesterday, a mudslide killed one man in a house in the city’s Woodland Hills area in the San Fernando Valley, coroner’s office officials said. In Orange County, a 16-year-old girl was killed by boulders that crashed into her family’s apartment in a rural area east of Irvine, said Joseph Luckey, supervising deputy coroner. And in Los Angeles’s Sun Valley area, a repair worker died late Sunday when he fell into a 30-foot-deep sinkhole created by the storm, said Fire Department spokeswoman Melissa Kelley.

– Associated Press