After being diagnosed with autism, Alex was enrolled in the school district’s autism program, but his parents were looking for other ways to break him out of his shell, his mother said.

Then she learned of Surfers Healing, a nonprofit foundation that runs free day camps for children with autism that allows them to ride a surfboard with a professional.

Israel “Izzy” and Danielle Paskowitz have run a for-profit surfing camp for 37 years. They started the Surfers Healing foundation and camp in 1999, after seeing the effect surfing had on their autistic son, Isaiah.

About 60 autistic children from the Las Vegas Valley are scheduled to attend the camp in San Diego on Aug. 5.

Many autistic children suffer from sensory overload. Simple sensations could overwhelm them, but for some reason, being on the water helped Isaiah to focus, Izzy Paskowitz said.

Cameron Diaz loves surfing — because it makes her feel “in touch” with God.

The My Sister’s Keeper star is a mad wave rider having learned to surf while shooting Charlie’s Angels.

And Cameron says she has to keep up her beach fun to satisfy her spiritual as well as thrill-seeking needs.

“It’s funny everyone sees me as a surfer girl because I grew up in California but as a child I never surfed because I had no one to teach me and I didn¹t even have a surf board,” says Cameron. “I love it now though. It’s very spiritual for me. It’s like being directly in touch with God. It’s so healing and amazing.”

Santa Cruz — A family in Soquel has collaborated to develop an Apple iPhone application that determines how fast the wind is blowing.

The Wind Meter application the Dillers developed uses the microphone on the iPhone to convert the volume of the wind into an accurate measure of the wind speed.

“I thought if stronger wind makes a louder noise on a video camera mic, why not pick that same noise on the iPhone microphone and put it to good use?” said Jon Diller, who presented the idea to the rest of his family.

Diller was initially interested in developing a wind application because of his need to determine the wind speed for his kite surfing hobby.

“When you go kite surfing knowing the wind speed is important because it tells you how big of a sail you should use,” he said. “And there are so many sports where it’s important to know how hard the wind is blowing.”