I've just read an article in the Guardian, discussing a presentation by Baron-Cohen and entitled, Autistic traits linked to testosterone in mother's womb.

It's more on the 'extreme male brain theory, and the findings link increased testosterone found in amniotic fluid samples taken via amniocentesis to an increase in 'autistic traits' in the children. The children were not autistic, just good systematisers, according to BC's classification.

He's quoted in the Guardian as saying;

"Children with autism seem to have a very strong exaggeration of the male profile because they have very strong interests in systems like numbers but have difficulties with empathy," said Prof Baron-Cohen. Previous tests of the kids at 12, 18 and 48 months old have shown that those with higher foetal testosterone were less sociable.

The article ends with another BC quote;

"There is a very live debate about whether autism should simply be recognised as an atypical pattern of development like left handedness which doesn't necessarily need treatment," said Prof Baron-Cohen, "It just needs to be recognised as different and maybe supported educationally but not cured or eradicated."

Then there's a link to a discussion: Should we cure autism? A familiar voice makes a familiar argument. I've posted as 'Nought'.

Edited by author 09-12-2007 05:46 AM
"The awesome power of MRI safety videos" http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/09/the_awesome_power_of.html Mind Hacks provides lessons in what can go seriously wrong with magnetic resonance imaging, including a link to a video which

"contains the classic sequence, part of virtually every MRI safety video, where technicians release a steel wrench near the magnet, which then flies through the air and obliterates a number of destructible objects in its path."

There's also a link to a NYT article http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...1A1575BC0A9679C8B63 about how a 6yr old boy was killed while he was undergoing MRI:

"A poorly trained staff, technical malfunctions and lapses in communication among workers contributed to the death of a 6-year-old boy last month who was struck by an oxygen canister drawn into a magnetic resonance imaging machine at Westchester Medical Center, according to a report by the hospital released today."

This was something I knew about. But I had no idea MRI machines could blow up:

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

The video also talks about other sorts of possible MR hazards, largely involving the liquid helium and nitrogen boiling off and freezing, poisoning or pressurising the surroundings.

An explosion of an MRI magnetic when the gasses boiled off too quickly was caught on video by a TV news crew which creates quite a spectacular effect.

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

I haven't watched the MRI Explosion video yet. It's here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R7KsfosV-o The video description says,

"Interesting news clip of an MRI scanner deinstallation where upon the Magnet blew up (due to pressure of liquid helium or nitrogen evaporation)."

But... Mind Hacks goes on to reassure us:

"However, do bear in mind that these incidents are few and far between. Having an MRI is significantly safer than crossing the road."

All past issues of the American Journal of Psychiatry from #1, July 1844, are archived online at http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/archive.

The first article with 'autism' or 'autistic' in the title is 'Irrelevant and Metaphorical Language in Early Infantile Autism', by Leo Kanner, September 1946, pp.242-246.

The article 'Schizophrenia in a four-year old boy' by H. Robert Blank et al., in the May 1944 issue pp.805-810, most probably refers to an autistic boy.

Edited by author 09-13-2007 02:40 AM
Sharon, I see that "Nought" (hooray for Nought!) got her two cents in just before the vaccine/autism gang hijacked the discussion (oh, and thanks for the really great photos--I mean these http://thefamilyvoyage.blogspot.com/2007/0...at-caterpillar.html ).

A Cambridge colleague of Prof Baron-Cohen's, Kate Plaisted, recently published a paper that investigates and fails to support the extreme male brain thing. Here's the abstract (it's here http://www.springerlink.com/content/87486q2238l53346/ ):

-------------------------------------------------------- ------------------
Visuo-spatial Processing in Autism—Testing the Predictions of Extreme Male Brain Theory
Christine M. Falter, Kate C. Plaisted and Greg Davis

Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK

Received: 5 April 2007 Accepted: 2 July 2007 Published online: 4 August 2007

Abstract: It has been hypothesised that autism is an extreme version of the male brain, caused by high levels of prenatal testosterone (Baron-Cohen 1999). To test this proposal, associations were assessed between three visuo-spatial tasks and prenatal testosterone, indexed in second-to-fourth digit length ratios (2D:4D). The study included children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD (N = 28), and chronological as well as mental age matched typically-developing children (N = 31). While the group with ASD outperformed the control group at Mental Rotation and Figure-Disembedding, these group differences were not related to differences in prenatal testosterone level. Previous findings of an association between Targeting and 2D:4D were replicated in typically-developing children and children with ASD. The implications of these results for the extreme male brain (EMB) theory of autism are discussed.

---------------------------------------------------------- ----------------

Hi Philip,

I'm a big fan any journal that makes its full archives available. Though not many journals go back to 1844 like the AJP (where I've spent quite a bit of time wandering around the archives). You've reminded me about a 1963 AJP paper (not by Kanner) which has some interesting problems but is full of small gems (I'm reading it again and it still makes me grin). The abstract is here http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/conten...&resourcetype=HWCIT

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------
Am J Psychiatry 120:250-254, September 1963

MANAGEMENT OF THE CHILD WITH EARLY INFANTILE AUTISM
JEROME L. SCHULMAN M.D.
 
The Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago, Ill.

We have reviewed the theoretical orientation, diagnostic criteria and management of early infantile autism at Children's Memorial Hospital. Brief reports of 8 cases were included, primarily to demonstrate the progress that may occur. We believe that many cases of early infantile autism spontaneously and gradually emerge from their difficulties and that the treatment tasks are those of encouraging and removing obstacles from this emergence.

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

"Remedy or abuse? Controversy resurfaces over use of shock treatment at Canton school" http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/...or_abuse/?page=full Boston Globe article about the JRC, in the wake of the Mother Jones "School of Shock" feature. Not much new that I could spot, except for Matthew Israel outdoing himself by emitting his justification for shocking kids for pretty much any behaviour, and also this part:

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

The Mother Jones article described an environment where teachers were fearful of being attacked and of losing their jobs for not shocking students enough.

Gregory Miller, who worked as a Rotenberg Center teacher's assistant from 2003 to 2006, told the Globe that most teachers found the work unbearable. As a result, there was a high turnover rate, he said.

"You could just hear echoes of screams coming down the halls, all day long," said Miller, who will testify in favor of Joyce's bills. "The stress levels were incredible because every time someone jumped up from being shocked, everyone would scream as a reaction and in turn they would be shocked. It's dangerous to think of the level of stress caused by that constant fear."

---------------------------------------------------------- ----------------

Thank you for that abstract from the AJP. I think it's great that a journal makes all its archives available online, though the full articles in AJP are available only on subscription.

I want to go through all the AJP archived journals to see the titles of the articles. I want to look at the subjects covered and the terminology used. I've searched through the issues for 1844 and 1845, and 1943-1946. I want to discover the first use of the terms 'schizophrenia' and 'childhood schizophrenia', 'mongol' or 'mongoloid', 'Downs syndrome' and 'Aspergers syndrome', and when 'lunatic' stopped being used.

Here are the results of my quick search on http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org. Number found: Asperger syndrome 9,941, autism 768, autistic 731, childhood psychosis 13,606, childhood schizopohrenia 14,622, early infantile autism 18,444, infantile autism 1,858, schizophrenia 10,985.

Edited by author 09-13-2007 04:42 PM
"Virtual interpreter turns speech into sign language" CBC story http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/09/13/tech-deaf-avatar.html about an IBM program called "Say It Sign It" (SiSi) that provides British Sign Language interpretation of speech. Here's how the story ends:

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

SiSi first converts the spoken word into text using speech recognition software and then converts those words into sign language, which are then displayed by an onscreen avatar. The use of a character, instead of text as used in close captioning, allows deaf users to see the words in a visual manner more familiar to them.

Guido Gybels, the director of new technologies at the Royal National Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People (RNID), welcomed the system as a good first step to bringing services and products to a disenfranchised segment of the population.

"There is clearly still a long way to go before such prototypes become fully capable, off-the-shelf products, but it is encouraging to see that mainstream research is contributing to this objective of a more inclusive society," he said in a statement.

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

Mind Hacks earns some tiaras... In a list of this week's "spike activity" http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/09/20070914_spike_act.html , Mind Hacks includes this highlight:

"Charity Autism Speaks created the traumatic 'Autism Every Day' advert. Some people with autism reply with the sardonic 'Neurotypicalism Every Day' video."

And there's a link to Autism Diva http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/2007/08/the...-that-way-sigh.html

Autism Speaks now has their very own video section at YouTube. No, I'm not going to link to it. And Autism Speaks, the empire, is getting their own TV channel or something (I guess now that they don't run NBC any more...), so they can play "Autism Every Day" and their "epidemic" PSAs over and over until we all disappear.

I asked the London disability chiefs about making the Olympic Games 'autism friendly'. This is the reply:

in terms of Olympics, input re access for autistic people would be very welcome as we are trying to raise the standards drastically in terms of all kinds of access and inclusive design as there will be huge expectations, so if you can think any links we can make with people, who might want to share their thinking on these issues, please forward the info!

ideas anyone?

Hi Dinah,

About an autistic-friendly Olympics, two things off the top of my head.

How about seeking out autistics interested or involved in various sports (so they've attended and/or participated in events). Then they could be asked about how to make things autistic friendly at an Olympic scale.

And how about making sure that Olympic security people have some notion about the atypical ways in which autistics might present or express ourselves. Then autistics who want to attend would be less likely to be detained, arrested, or otherwise harmed because they're acting and reacting in unexpected ways.

I'd sure like those "London disability chiefs" to help make IMFAR 2008 autistic-friendly.

INSAR (which organizes IMFAR) is supposed to be interested in increasing the diversity of those involved in autism research and who attend IMFAR, but (at least so far) they do not recognize and are not interested in autistics as part of this diversity. Because IMFAR is sponsored by Autism Speaks and others similar, this isn't surprising.

Edited by author 09-14-2007 08:43 PM
Re: AUtistic-friendly Olympics....off the top of my head also.

Considering the crowds and all the activity, a quiet room that could be easily accessed-like a section of curtained off cubicle rooms (like some breast-feeding stations I have seen at fairs)

Maps, clear way finding stations and pocket sized maps that match the way finding station map....available ahead of the games for those that will prefer to memorize it.

I wonder if there are any autistic athletes in The Olympics- I bet there are many.

A letter from Research Autism and Autism Speaks, in response to a beyond-the-pale Times horror story (except that the Times presented it as a wonderful story) about a family using shamans (and what all) to "cure" their autistic son http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/d.../article2461319.ece

This is the last part of the letter, along with who signed it:

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

The article refers to activities (whipping and force feeding) “that look to an outsider like child abuse”. There can be no double standard for vulnerable children - if it would be abuse if practised on a normally developing child, then it is abuse of a child with autism.

Hilary Gilfoy
Chief Executive, Autism Speaks

Richard Mills
Research Autism

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

So, it's okay for parents to very publicly (so millions will watch) tell a typical child that they want to kill her, and that they've refrained only because of a sibling whose life they value? Because this is what Autism Speaks promotes as appropriate treatment of autistic children. So it's okay for parents to spread the word (so millions will know) that their child and all children are souless empty shells, are non-sentient and actually dead? Because this is what the leadership of Autism Speaks has done for autistics.

Both Autism Speaks and Research Autism (for examples from Research Autism, see their "press pack" http://www.researchautism.net/publicfiles/070425_press_pack.doc and their website) have forcefully disseminated false, sensationalist, apocalyptic information about autistics.

This is certain--in fact, this is the intention--to lead parents (and others) to believe that anything is better than being autistic--including being subject to endless experimental treatments which may be painful and harmful. Including being dead. I suggest that neither Autism Speaks nor Research Autism would contemplate spreading such false and harmful information about non-autistic children (or adults). These two enormous and autistic-free (when it comes to decision-making) groups fighting against autism are now complaining that their own vast power and influence is being reflected in how autistic children are being regarded and treated.

How wrong can untested assumptions about human neurological configurations be? How wrong can untested assumptions about the nature and worth of some human lives be?

See excellent Science News article http://sciencenews.org/articles/20070915/bob9.asp about the recent work of the neuroscientist Bjorn Merker. The whole article is worth reading. Picking out parts isn't easy. I would want to bold face a whole lot of it. Here goes:

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

In October 2004, Swedish neuroscientist Bjorn Merker packed up his video camera and joined five families for a 1-week get-together in Florida that featured several visits to the garden of childhood delights known as Disney World. For Merker, though, the trip wasn't a vacation. With the parents' permission, he came to observe and document the behavior of one child in each family who had been born missing roughly 80 percent of his or her brain.

These children, 1 to 5 years old at the time of their Disney adventure, had suffered strokes as fetuses or had experienced other medical problems shortly before or after birth that destroyed nearly all of the brain's outer layer, or cortex. In this rare condition, called hydranencephaly, cerebrospinal fluid fills the gaping hole within the child's head.

Such youngsters often die in the first year of life as a result of seizures, cerebral palsy, lung abnormalities, and a variety of other physical ailments. With proper medication and the installation of shunts to drain fluid from the braincase, however, some individuals live 20 years or more.

Neurologists typically regard hydranencephaly as an anatomical sentence to a lifelong "vegetative state." Such children supposedly validate a brutally simple equation: Little or no cortex equals no awareness of any kind.

In family activities observed in the Magic Kingdom and elsewhere, the kids quickly cast doubt on that standard assumption. Merker noted that these cortex-deprived, nonverbal children remained alert for much of the day. They reacted to what happened around them and expressed a palette of emotions. A 3-year-old girl's mouth opened wide and her face glowed with a mix of joy and excitement when her parents placed her baby brother in her arms.

The youngsters displayed good hearing but limited eyesight, a curious pattern given that they typically retained small parts of the visual cortex but none of the auditory cortex.

In observations at each child's home, Merker noted that these youngsters recognized familiar adults, liked familiar settings, and preferred specific toys, tunes, or video programs. Although saddled with limited mobility, some kids took behavioral initiatives, such as learning to activate a toy by throwing a switch.

[...]

Self-awareness and other "higher" forms of thought may require cortical contributions. But Merker posits that "primary consciousness," which he regards as an ability to integrate sensations from the environment with one's immediate goals and feelings in order to guide behavior, springs from the brain stem.

If he's right, virtually all vertebrates—which share a similar brain stem design—belong to the "primary consciousness" club. Moreover, medical definitions of brain death as a lack of cortical activity would face a serious challenge. At the very least, physicians could no longer assume that individuals with hydranencephaly don't need pain medication or anesthesia during invasive medical procedures.

[...]

In a 1999 report, D. Alan Shewmon, a pediatric neurologist at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center, and his colleagues described home observations of three children, ages 6 to 17, who had been born with hydranencephaly and raised by loving, attentive parents. Each child displayed comparable signs of conscious mental activity, the researchers reported.

For instance, shortly after birth, a newborn girl's brain scan revealed an almost total lack of cortical tissue. Physicians told the girl's mother that the child would live no more than 2 years as a "vegetable." A neurologist concluded that the girl's brain was "like that of a reptile" and that she would never interact with other people.

Shewmon first visited the girl at age 5, observing her behavior at home. Despite difficulty sitting up or walking without aid, she exhibited excellent health. She smiled in response to Shewmon's friendly overtures and immediately looked at objects brought close to her. In a videotaped play session with her mother, the girl uttered "ah-ah" when encouraged to say "mama."

She brightened upon hearing happy songs, but often cried during sad songs. She enjoyed the sensory stimulation of car rides, crying at stops and calming down as motion resumed. She disliked the loud noises of vacuum cleaners and hair dryers. She demonstrated understanding of a few words, including "bunny rabbit" for one of her stuffed toys.

"If these children had been kept in institutions or treated at home as 'vegetables,' there can be little doubt that they would have turned out exactly as predicted," Shewmon says.

[...]

Perhaps most intriguingly, kids with hydranencephaly demonstrate that the brain stem is not simply a reptilian relic stashed in the brain's basement. "The human brain stem is specifically human," Merker says. "These children smile and laugh in the specifically human manner, which is different from that of our closest relatives among the apes."

For now, the neural puzzle of consciousness remains unsolved. But cortically endowed investigators may have much to learn from cortically deprived kids.

---------------------------------------------------------- ----------------

You can find a free pdf of Dr Merker's BBS article here http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Merker-...062006_preprint.pdf

Here's a depressing summary of the autism-related positions of the three largest the parties in the presently contested Ontario election.

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/AL...opaDfqoBebpSfrbXPaQ

It's all about ABA/IBI and all about children. Nothing about adults, and nothing for those of us who just want access to some publicly funded speech therapy for our kids.

Edited by author 09-15-2007 11:44 PM
Jennifer--yeah, I saw that. Then there's this article http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/full_...p?StoryNumber=27169 which shows the NDP in all its mandatory ABA glory:

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

The NDP will put children and families first by providing publicly funded Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI) services in classrooms for all children with autism, and clear the waiting list for autism services.

“IBI treatment isn’t experimental, it’s not something that children with autism can do without. Children with autism need and deserve this treatment, treatment that will make a difference in their lives and the lives of their families. Extending this treatment to all children with autism is the right thing to do,” said Arbus.

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

ABA is already mandatory in Ontario schools. All teachers and administrators are taught that ABA is the only "scientifically proven" way to deal with all autistic children, and all teachers and administrators are required to use ABA methods with all autistics.

But this isn't nearly enough for "autism advocates." They demand that going to school for all autistics means going into an intensive ABA program designed by ABA consultants. This has to mean that school teachers would be subordinate to and under the authority of ABA consultants (or will ABA consultants be the ones who hire the teachers?). Every school must be an ABA school. See this http://www.ontaba.org/consumers.htm from the ONTABA (Canada's only Association for Behavior Analysis affiliate) website. In keeping with true behaviour analytic standards of ethics, it isn't revealed that the "consumer" (Taline Sagharian) is also a litigant trying to extract $1.25 billion from the Ontario government over their failure to make every school into an ABA school.

By the way, the money the NDP is offering to add ($100 million) isn't nearly enough to do what they claim to be doing. $214 million per year (which would then be the total amount) only pays for ABA/IBI for ~3500 children at the very modest rate of $60,000 per year, and that's if no other services whatsoever are provided. There are ~18,000 autistic children (ages 0-19yrs) in Ontario, using the conservative rate of 60/10,000. Some of these children would be too young to be diagnosed. But what about the rest? And school in Ontario goes up to age 21, not age 19.

And while all the parties totally deny the existence of autistic adults, the total number of autistics in Ontario is ~73,000. If an age 6 cut-off for ABA/IBI is unfair, so is an age 19 or 21 cut-off (add in the usual "autism advocacy" cancer/chemotherapy analogy here, to show how wrong it is to deny treatment on the basis of age). Putting all those autistics in intensive ABA programs would cost more than $4 billion a year. Proving ABA/IBI for only half of them (how unfair is that? don't we all deserve a chance of fulfilling our potential--as they say--the only way now offered to us, by becoming or appearing to become as normal as possible? We want reinforcers too!!!) still would cost ~10 times the total money that the NDP is promising to spend.