Monday night at 8pm, be sure to tune in for our newest episode of Hope Saves the Day on Autism Radio Tonight's Show is with Host Paul Cimins who Talks about how Sleep plays a critical role in our health. Not getting enough sleep can impair cognition and make it difficult to concentrate. Research has also shown that individuals with chronic sleep loss are at higher risk of long-term health consequences including heart disease and diabetes.

This presents numerous challenges for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Researchers estimate that sleep disorders affect between 40% to 80% of children with ASD. The most common problems are difficulty falling asleep and waking frequently. One longitudinal study has shown that sleep deprivation had a drastic impact on social functioning and behaviour.

We also Talk About a New App called SpeechMatch, people with autism can listen to and see the sound waves of a number of different phrases, each uttered with a different emotion. They try to match their own voice to one of these phrases, using the same type of emotion. Their voice will also show up as a sound wave, and they can see how closely their wave fits with the original, and get a numerical score for how closely they matched that emotion.

Keene State College psychology professor Lawrence Welkowitz and his latest advancement is an iPad app designed to show what speech looks like visually, represented by sound waves.

That, he says, can help people with autism see and match how emotions are conveyed in their speech.

Autism spectrum disorders affect a child’s brain development. People with autism have difficulty interacting socially and communicating with others to varying degrees.

He says that many People with autism “don’t play that social game,”