Autism in Girls

I missed this article from August 5th's New York Times Magazine by Emily Bazelon on autism in girls. It's heartbreaking in its description of the social isolation and depression that girls on the spectrum might be in greater danger of suffering, simply becasue social connections are so important to girls' self-esteem and social awkwardness is a more acceptable male trait.

"Because there are so many fewer females with autism, they are “research orphans,” as Ami Klin, a psychology and psychiatry professor who directs Yale's autism program, puts it. Scientists have tended to cull girls from studies because it is difficult to find sufficiently large numbers of them. Some of the drugs, for example, commonly used to treat symptoms of autism like anxiety and hyperactivity have rarely been tested on autistic girls. "

"No doubt part of the problem for autistic girls is the rising level of social interaction that comes in middle school. Girls’ networks become intricate and demanding, and friendships often hinge on attention to feelings and lots of rapid and nuanced communication — in person, by cellphone or Instant Messenger. No matter how much they want to connect, autistic girls are not good at empathy and conversation, and they find themselves locked out, seemingly even more than boys do."

Contagious Yawning

Fron Mindhacks come this study published by the British Psychological Society that claims that people with ASDs are immune to contagious yawning.
"Past research has found that seeing the eye region of someone yawn is key to the yawn's contagious effects. So perhaps the fact that people with autism are known to focus more on the mouth region of people's faces, rather than the eyes, could partly explain the current findings.Atsushi Senju and colleagues said their results “support the claim that contagious yawning and the capacity of empathy share common neural and cognitive mechanisms.' "

Oprah TODAY

Tuesday's (9/18/07) episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show (CBS) will be about Autism.
Actresses Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete will guest. (Thanks, ASPENNJ Ocean County!)

New Baron-Cohen Study Links Autistic Traits to Testosterone

From a story in the Telegraph of the United Kingdom by Nic Fleming and Roger Highfield"
"Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, from Cambridge University, one of the world's leading experts on autism, revealed initial details of his new study at the British Association Festival of Science in York yesterday.
Professor Baron-Cohen said: "The idea that fetal testosterone may play a causal role in autism is an existing hypothesis.
"There's no evidence that it's a causal factor, but this research is certainly consistent with that hypothesis."

The Urge to Label

When I started reading this article in Newsweek by Lorraine Ali, I thought it was bashing "overdiagnosis" of ASDs. But then I came upon this paragraph:
"... Mary-Dean Barringer, of the nonprofit learning institute All Kinds of Minds, says we put too much emphasis on the labels that others assign to our kids. "We're absolutely appalled by this diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome," says Barringer. (Asperger's is a high-functioning form of autism, marked by obsessive interests and impaired social interaction.) "These are very highly specialized minds, and to put a syndrome on it and treat it as an aberration does damage to kids and families. There are still challenges there on how to manage it, but why not call it a highly specialized mind phenomenon rather than a disorder? That label alone shapes public perception about uniqueness and quirkiness." "

NJ Autism Bills Signed Into Law

PoliticsNJ.com reports "A bill package sponsored by Senators Loretta Weinberg and Joseph Coniglio, designed to increase and improve available resources for families and individuals living with autism, was signed into law today by Governor Jon Corzine. The bills were signed at the Eden Institute, a non-profit organization which provides educational and vocational services to adults and children living with autism."
If you go to this page, you can type in the bill numbers to see the text of the laws. The bills are:
S2568
S2569
S2558
S690
S2559
S698
S2306

Possible Genetic Link Between Anorexia and Autism

Katy Campbell of the London Times interviews Professor Janet Treasure, the author of a new study examining the similarities in thought patterns between people with eating disorders and people (especially girls) with autism.
"What we now realise is that we need to be looking at underlying neural networks in the brain – how patterns of information are processed, how this affects both behaviour and the way an individual reacts to her environment, and why this goes wrong. We need to consider those aspects of how the brain functions that increase the risk of someone falling prey to an eating disorder. "
[snip]
"We have found, for example, that people with eating disorders find it difficult to change self-set rules and learnt behaviour once fixed in the brain. They also see the world in close-up detail, as if they are looking at life through a zoom lens – but this can be at the cost of having an ability to see and think about self-identity and connections with others without getting lost in the details.
We also discovered that this distorted pattern of processing information has a strong similarity to autistic spectrums. It has even been described as the female form of Asperger’s. Traits that may appear present in childhood, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder or overperfectionism, can often indicate a vulnerability to developing an eating disorder later in adolescence. "

Scholarship for Students with Autism

Lisa Jo Rudy of About.com reports that the Organization for Autism Research is offering a scholarship to students with autism pursuing post high school studies. They will award three $3000 scholarships annually. The deadline to apply is September 28, 2007. Full details here. Cool!

V-a-c-a-t-i-o-n!

No posts this week - I have been on vacation. We went to Sesame Place. NT daughter and I enjoyed the roller coaster! It's amazing to see the progress my son has made since we last visited. We all really enjoyed ourselves. We also went to a minor league baseball game where he begged to stay for the postgame fireworks. We can't believe this is the same kid who had major panic attacks every Fourth of July! My son and I also saw a wild major league game yesterday between the Mets and the Phillies. So we have had a lot of fun family time. Next week is back to school. The new routine might be tough for the first few days. Fourth graders are going to change classes this year, to get them used to a different way of doing things. So we are anticipating some bumps in the road from out organizationally-challenged kid. But I am optimistic that he will adapt. Enjoy these last days of summer!

Talk of the Nation Today

***UPDATE***
The online link for this story is up here.
Audio of the broadcast will be available online after 6:00 pm, Eastern Time.
Please also consider commenting on the Blog of the Nation here.
Related NPR story on parents fighting for insurance coverage of treatment of autism here.

I heard on the radio this morning that "Talk of the Nation" on National Public Radio is devoting an hour to the impact of the rise in autism cases on schools. This is a call-in show. They generally have a few experts talk for a while, then open the phones to comments from listeners. It runs for 2 hours with a different topic devoted to each hour. It airs live at 2:00 pm, Eastern. More details will eventually appear here. Find your local NPR station here.

An Aspie's Perspective

The August 20 issue of the New Yorker has a wonderful essay called "Parallel Play" by Tim Page. He writes a wonderful first person account of life with Asperger's. Page is a Pulitzer Prize winning classical music critic for the Washington Post. Unfortunately, this essay is not available online. Here are a few excerpts:
"In the years since the phrase became a cliche, I have received any number of compliments for my supposed ability to 'think outside the box'. Actually, it has been a struggle for me to perceive just what these "boxes" were - why they were there, why other people regarded them as important, where the borderlines might be, how to live safely within and without them."

"A friend published a sweet autobiography entitled "Thank You, Everyone," in which she expressed gratitude to everybody who had influenced her...If I were to create a similar book, I would call it "Sorry, Everyone" and apologize for my youthful cluelessness..."

"...I cannot pretend that Asperger's has not made much of my existence miserable and isolated (how will I get to sleep tonight?). I hope that young Aspies, informed by recent literature on the subject, will find the world somewhat less challenging than I have."

Autism Researchers Think They Are Closing In on Cause

This extensive Newsday article by Delthia Ricks focuses on recent genetic research and the reaction of some parents of children on the spectrum.
" With his Cold Spring Harbor [Laboratory] collaborators, Jonathan Sebat and Lakshmi Muthuswamy, [Michael] Wigler has found that spontaneous mutations specific to autism occur with a relative degree of frequency in the human genome. These random strikes are technically known as copy number variants, or CNVs. The Cold Spring Harbor team defines these mutating hits as a major cause of autism."

"Support from the Simons Foundation has allowed the researchers to collect genetic samples from 264 families nationwide, involving more than 1,000 individuals. Within these families, Wigler and colleagues were able to identify 118 families they dubbed as "simplex" where only one member displayed symptoms of autism and 47 families that were identified as "multiplex," with two or more affected siblings. The rest were controls.By studying families, the team was able to determine whether a child's genes were identical to the parents' or whether they contained variants. The investigation revealed the variants were most prevalent among people with autism."

"Alison Singer, executive director of Autism Speaks, a national advocacy organization, said the Cold Spring Harbor studies are destined to have a strong impact on how parents understand autism."We want them to pursue the science wherever it leads," Singer said. "But we don't want to get into a situation where we blame the parents. When some parents read stories about older fathers or older mothers, they can become very sensitive."Singer said what's missing in Wigler's work is the mechanism that causes genes to mutate. Susceptibility genes, she said, often need an outside stimulus to set off a genetic chain of events. Perhaps parents may be correct who think vaccination underlies autism, said Singer, whose daughter and brother are autistic."

The Meaning of Napoleon Dynamite

Child Psychiatrists Hope Levin and Steven Schlozman weigh in on the popularity of the movie "Napoleon Dynamite". Psychiatrist Brett Sharp writes a letter of response.

Autism/Pesticide Link? And What to Do About It

Charles has an excellent post at The Special Education Law Blog about the recent study demonstrating a possible link between autism cases and maternal exposure to pesticides while pregnant. Hip post has lots of advice about what parents can do to learn about their local school's use of pesticides and how to promote an IPM - Integrated Pest Management system.

Autism on Oprah

Oprah's August 2nd show was on autism. Go to her website to see the episode and explore other resources.

Preparing for an IEP Meeting

Charles at the Special Education Law blog has linked to an informative web site that helps coach parents at IEP (Individualized Education Program) meetings. It's a table of typical comments made by school officials with suggested responses by parents that might help get a more meaningful dialogue going. The law site is out of Colorado, but laws from other states are also cited.

AS in Adults

Very interesting article in USA Today, by Suzanne Leigh, about diagnosing Asperger's Syndrome in adults. Be sure to check out the comments. This quote is sure to generate some response:
"Almost by definition, an Asperger's person would not form an intimate relationship, get married and have children," says research scientist Katherine Tsatsanis of the Yale Developmental Disabilities Clinic. "They don't form connections. The desire, the drive and the social knowledge is lacking."

***UPDATE***
The doctors quoted in this article have posted a disclaimer on their website. They say they were misquoted.

Hippotherapy

This article by Eliza McGraw in the Washington Post offers a nice detailed description of hippotherapy - "which uses the natural movements of the horse as a tool for physical, occupational and sometimes speech therapy."

"Unlike therapeutic riding, which teaches people with special needs how to ride, hippotherapy (the name derives from the Greek word for "horse") focuses purely on the repetitive motion of the horse's walk, which mimics an average person's gait."

"Therapists may work with adults as well. But William Benda, an emergency physician and advocate of hippotherapy in Big Sur, California, is more enthusiastic about hippotherapy's effects on children than on adults. "The future benefit is much greater for the 4-year-old than a 40-year-old," he says. 'Injury to the brain is static, but the function worsens over time. Children's bodies have to grow around an asymmetrical disability, and they get worse. So we try to catch them as early as possible.' "

Support Group for Grandparents

This is such a great idea. I hope more groups like this form.

Swimming Lessons

I could really relate to this post from Ali Edwards at A. I like Edwards blog because it's about more than all autism, all the time. Kind of like life.