After a few weeks of spending time with my wife and youngest daughter, I am back at Cortical Chauvinism writing blogs. I may hit a snag in the writing process due to international travel. As of this January I was due to travel to China for 2 months as a State Scholar. Due to numerous obligations I was able to cut down on travel time to 10 days.

I am happy to say that the blog has acquired some popularity and has grown steadily. We had 44,476 reads the first year, 62,238 reads on our second year and 108,075 reads this past year. This means that last year we surpassed the sum of our initial combined 2 years of blogging. I have written 334 posts since we started and receive close to 300 views per day. The most visited day of the week is Monday, when I publish my English blog, and 3:00 PM the most popular time for viewing them.

I translate many of the blogs to Spanish, some being reprinted in AutismoDiario. The number of hits in AutismoDiario far exceed those on my own blog.

For the last year the 10 most widely read blogs (English) were:

1) The hidden difficulties of autistic children in school
2) Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and autism
3) The neurodiversity movement lack of trust
4) Key players in autism:IV. The brainstem
5) Jonathan Mitchell on Neurotribes
6) Visualizing neurodiversity: breathing for treatment
7) A perspective on psychological theories and autism
8) A little known fact: very late onset autism
9) Dysexia, attention deficit hyperactivity isorder and autism
10) Neurotribe or diatribe?

For the last year the 10 most widely read blogs (Spanish):

1) La definicion del autismo
2) Caracteristica neuroanatomicas y neuropatologicas del autismo
3) La rara enfermedad de Urbach-Wiethe y el autismo
4) El sindrome de savant adquirido
5) Los defectos mitocondriales en el autismo
6) La dieta cetogenica: consideraciones metabolicas
7) El syndrome de Dravet: Lecciones sobre el autismo regresivo
8) La epidemiologia del autismo
9) La terapia craneosacral o como sacar provesho de padres desesperados
10) Dolores de cabeza y la falta de equilibrio en los trastornos del espectro autista: la malformacion de Chiari

There was little overlap between the most widely read English and Spanish blogs. I help teach a Master’s course on autism from University of La Rioja (Spain) and some of my college students may follow the blog thus biasing the results. Although I am satisfied with the growth in readership (presently having 1,407 followers) I am befuddled when trying to predict which blogs are going to be widely read and which won’t. Given both my personal and academic interests I have tried to convey my opinion in regards to the potential dangers in misusing prenatal ultrasound and on the possible benefit of using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in autism. These blogs are not among the most widely read at Cortical Chauvinism. Similarly, some of the blogs that I had the most fun writing received very little attention, e.g. mirror mirror on the wall (a blog about mirror neurons and autism).

I am looking forwards to what this new year may bring and to meeting many of you personally.

Best regards,

Manuel