BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – A Bakersfield mom wants to get approval for her 6-year-old daughter with autism to wear a GPS tracking device to school in hopes of preventing wandering, but the school district is fighting her request.

“We don’t sleep much,” mother Darcy Cotton told KBAK. “And it has affected our relationships, our ability to go out into the community, we are always exhausted and constantly living in a state of fear.” For the past few years, Cotton has been sleeping on the couch and losing sleep worrying that her daughter Jaden, a student at Fairfax School District in Bakersfield, will wander. Read more.

The Los Angeles Times won a Pulitzer Prize, American journalism’s top honor, for its coverage of last year’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, Columbia University announced Monday.

The staff won the 2016 breaking news prize for its work chronicling the chaotic, fast-breaking events of Dec. 2, when Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married Redlands couple, opened fire at a holiday potluck at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. Read more.

DUBLIN — Charlene Sigman can remember second grade, when a classmate was “the loudest, most obnoxious kid” and no child wanted to be his friend. “He was off the chain, but he interested me,” she said. “I was the first to sit with him at lunch. I guess I was just like this from Day One.”

Today, Sigman is the force behind School of Imagination, a one-of-a-kind inclusionary preschool and kindergarten program that serves typically developing children and kids with autism, Down syndrome, speech delays and other developmental disabilities. Among the school’s many backers is Oakland A’s catcher Stephen Vogt. Read more.

Large autism research studies are being launched on opposite coasts, one with UC San Diego and another with Boston Children’s Hospital and UNC- Chapel Hill. Read more about both of these studies and how you can participate at the links below:

• World’s Largest Study on Autism and Genes

• Largest Autism Study to take place in San Diego

Getting a good job is hard, even if you have strong social skills like being able to network and make small talk with potential employers during interviews. But for individuals with autism who often have trouble with basic interactions, getting a foot in the door professionally can be even more daunting.

That was the case for Janis Oberman, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome as an adult. She passed in and out of temporary positions for over a decade before landing a full-time job at the German software company SAP.

SAP hired Oberman as a software specialist at the firm’s Palo Alto, California, office two years ago as part of the company’s global initiative to recruit candidates with autism and Asperger’s. Read more.

Doctors know it’s important to talk with their patients about end-of-life care. But they’re finding it tough to start those conversations — and when they do, they’re not sure what to say, according to a national poll released Thursday.

Such discussions are becoming more important as baby boomers reach their golden years. By 2030, an estimated 72 million Americans will be 65 or over, nearly one-fifth of the U.S. population. Medicare now reimburses doctors $86 to discuss end-of-life care in an office visit that covers topics such as hospice, living wills and do-not-resuscitate orders. Known as “advance care planning,” the conversations can also be held in a hospital. Read more.

It’s been almost 20 years since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) required that folic acid, a B vitamin that can prevent a serious birth defect when taken by pregnant women, be added to certain enriched grains like breads and pasta. In the decade after, the rate of these neural tube defects plummeted and is estimated to have prevented 10,000 cases in a decade. Read more.