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My Nonverbal Autistic Son Began Speaking at Age 8 After Taking Wonder Drug — He’d Understood Everything for Years and Had Complaints
Nathaniel Schumann had notes — years’ worth of them. Having spent much of his childhood barely able to mutter more than a few words at a time, the young boy began speaking in full sentences at age 8. His first order of business? Setting the record straight.
“He had a laundry list of everything that upset him throughout the years,” his mother, Dr. Kathleen Schnier, told The Post with a laugh. From disappointing dinners and denied desserts to long-held grudges against his older sister, it was clear Nathaniel had been waiting a long time to be heard. “He was retaining absolutely everything,” Kathleen, 54, said. “People weren’t having him be part of the conversation or just assuming he wasn’t understanding it. But it was all there.”
Now 13, Nathaniel is one of a growing number of young people with autism who have found their voice with the help of leucovorin — a cheap, generic drug that’s opening up new channels of communication, one overdue complaint at a time.
Trump Administration Boosts Spending on School Meals to Improve Child Nutrition
The Washington Times reported:
As children return to school across the U.S., the Trump administration is spending $25 million on farm-to-school grants and $70 million for schools to upgrade their cafeterias to cook nutritious meals.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held an event Monday to announce the new spending, which they say will complement a soon-to-be-finalized federal rule overhauling school meal standards. “We believe that a healthier future is within reach for all American children,” Ms. Rollins said.
Mr. Kennedy said the new nutrition guidelines for school meals will reduce kids’ intake of added sugars and highly processed foods, “move children from refined grains towards whole grains [and] put high-quality protein back in the center of the plate.”
“But we also have to give schools a practical, affordable way to meet those standards,” he said. “Many of these schools have closed their kitchens years ago and do not have the facilities to actually cook on campus.”
Abbott to Pay $670 Million to Settle Some Preterm Infant Formula Cases
Abbott said on Aug 20 it reached a $670 million settlement to partially resolve the ongoing litigation over alleged harms linked to its specialty formulas for preterm infants.
The settlement was agreed to by three law firms representing about 2,000 people with claims against Abbott, including one Illinois mother who won a $495 million judgment in 2024 after a jury concluded that Abbott’s formula caused her daughter to develop necrotizing enterocolitis, a dangerous bowel disease.
Abbott agreed to drop its efforts to appeal that verdict, which had been upheld by a Missouri appeals court in May 2026. Abbott did not admit liability in Thursday’s settlement, saying it remains confident in the safety of its infant formula products. The company said in a statement that the deal is a step toward “substantially resolving the overall litigation.”
Abbott, which makes Similac formulas, said about 1,700 lawsuits have been filed against it and Mead Johnson, a unit of Reckitt, which manufactures Enfamil formulas. Some of the lawsuits name both companies as defendants and some are filed on behalf of multiple plaintiffs.
Abbott said it still faces claims from as many as 12,700 people alleging harms related to its or Mead Johnson’s formulas, though it said that total includes duplicate filings, claims involving infants who developed NEC before receiving formula, and claims naming both manufacturers without specifying whose formula was used. Abbott said it is working to eliminate duplicate and unsupported claims.
Screen Time at Ages 1 and 6 May Matter More Than Parents Realize
Screens are now a routine part of life for many young children, raising growing questions about how early exposure could influence development over time. New longitudinal research that tracked children from age 1 through age 8 found that greater screen viewing, especially during infancy and around the time children begin school, was associated with lower academic performance at age 9 and weaker working memory at age 10.5.
The results suggest that when children are exposed to screens could matter just as much as how much time they spend using them.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend avoiding screen use before 18-24 months and limiting it to less than one hour per day for children ages 2 to 5. Many children, however, spend more time with screens than those guidelines advise.
Your Child Plays Football. How Can You Minimize Risk of C.T.E.?
Two things are true: Football has a hold on American culture, and tackle football is not good for brains. Navigating that contradiction can be especially tricky for parents of children who play the game. Twenty years into the era of C.T.E. awareness, parents know enough to be worried but perhaps not enough to avoid the risks entirely.
Some lean into the positives of the game — among them, the joy and excitement it brings to families, the sense of community it builds, the multigenerational traditions it holds, and the lessons about teamwork and work ethic — and hope that, fingers crossed, C.T.E. is not looming inside the brain.
It’s a risk-reward calculation, one that the children might not be old enough to consider.
C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is a progressive neurological disease caused by repeated hits to the head. That means it is largely preventable.
Losing a Parent Doubles Rates of Mental Health Problems Among Children
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Children who lose a parent develop mental health problems at twice the rate of kids with an intact family, a new study reports. Losing a parent to death, imprisonment or separation all dramatically increase risk of mental health problems among kids and teens, researchers reported recently in the Australian Journal of Psychology.
Overall, about 22% of children who lose a parent for any reason develop a diagnosable disorder, compared to 11% of children with both parents, the study found. Mental disorders were highest among kids whose biological parent died. More than 1 in 4 suffered from depression, anxiety, ADHD or other problems. Likewise, 1 in 5 children who lost a parent to separation or divorce had a mental disorder, researchers found.
“Parental loss is more common than many people realize and it has a clear and measurable impact on children’s mental health,” lead researcher Lauren Breen said in a news release.
Australia’s Teens Flock Back to Tiktok Despite World-First Social Media Ban
The Los Angeles Times reported:
Eight months after implementing a ban on users under 16 accessing social media services like TikTok, Australia finds its younger users are returning in droves, according to new data from Qustodio.
Some 26% of children between the ages of 13 and 15 were on TikTok as of last month, just one percentage point below the rate prior to Australia’s groundbreaking rules coming into effect, the parental control software maker said. The rate for children between the ages of 10 and 12 is higher now than before the ban, according to the data.
Australia’s government has been at the forefront of legislating to prevent underage users from accessing services like Instagram and Facebook from Meta Platforms Inc. and TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance Ltd. Many argue the services are harmful to young users’ mental health and other countries are following Australia’s example, including New Zealand announcing plans this week.
