Madeline Kara Neumann

227 comments on “Madeline Kara Neumann”

1. Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, though the reason for his being institutionalized may have been Alzheimer’s disease and not just criticism. He was not entirely rejected however; while he left Vienna with a bad reputation he was able to build a thriving practice and his techniques became accepted throughout Hungary. His doctrine was vindicated shortly after his death by Louis Pasteur. So, a good example of exactly what I said….
   Um, that’s from the wiki account:

   The events depicted in the paragraph you cite did nothing to prevent Semmelweis’s decades of outrage in response to the perverse way he was treated becoming second nature to him, leading to the beating that resulted in his death 2 weeks into his institutionalization. Clips from Planet of the Apes could perhaps serve as a metaphor to what he went through, yet you insist on portraying it as some kind of victory.

2. Jonathan (t o o), I’m not saying that autism isn’t as you describe. My point is that I think that we are describing autism today in a way that measures only the symptoms, and doesn’t consider the cause. You can get the same symptoms from varying causes. Let’s say “classic” autism is caused by abnormalities in the brain that result in the inability to function the way most people do. That’s not to say that there aren’t other things that can cause the brain to experience similar issues. In this respect, can a shot or other substance “cause” autism? Unless that shot causes the brain to undergo physical changes…and since we don’t perform routine brain scans on our children, we can’t really know the answer to that, because we don’t have a “before” picture…then no, the shot didn’t cause autism. But it could cause the brain to experience a chemical reaction which produces autism-like symptoms.
   And I disagree that every case of a parent that blames the vaccines was fooling themselves. I know parents can be self-delusional when it comes to their children, but there are video accounts that are available if you look hard enough that show a drastic decay in social interaction, verbal skills, eye contact, etc.
   Finally, consider this…if it’s fairly well known that autism will normally manifest within the first 2 years, why not settle the issue by taking a 10 year period and delaying all but the most critical vaccines until after the age of 2? Many children will have low exposure risk below this age, especially if they do not attend daycare.

3. Jonathan, if you are open to questions:
   Austism and Asperger’s as they’re conventionally understood is that there’s little to no access to the subject’s own internal agenda. This seems to relate to the autists’s inability to relate to social dynamics, because they don’t have that access to their own inner workings as a template to guide them.
   This even seems to relate to Temple Grandin when she talks about longing as a child to be held, yet was still driven to push all affection away, (if I have any slack to interpret her account) as her inability to parse the agendas of those caring for her (her need for affection being that severely unconscious to her, regardless of its power over her) seemed to conflict with her ability to receive that affection. (She now keeps a modified cattle-squeeze machine in her home for her own personal relief.)
   But you don’t seem to display this internal disconnect in your posts here. Does it manifest in some other manner, or am I missing something?

4. Mike,
   You’re close, but I don’t think it’s so much as being unaware of emotion, but an inability to recognize it/label it, which is why so much of autism therapy deals with labeling the abstract, such as feelings. Anything that isn’t physically observable or touchable is difficult for the autistic to process. Even when using sign language, signs that are made in mid-air, that have no physical starting or stopping somewhere concrete, are extremely difficult to teach. In the case of my own son, whom we’ve had since he was 10, there is no doubt what emotions he’s feeling at times, and he makes his needs known (he is non-verbal). When Joe was hurt at work (he’s now 34), the first thing he did when he saw me was wrap his arms around me and hold on, giving far more contact than normal. Last year, when a last-minute cancelation by our sitter forced us to take him to Shoreleave, he was terrified of the hotel, having never been in one and thinking only of it as a huge institution where he might get left. He did not sleep that first night, and insisted someone be in physical contact with him at all times during the night (he was fine the next day as he began to understand). Labeling things such as fear or sadness are a big help for the next time such feelings occur. What absolutely broke my heart was when we took on a disabled foster child. When LB was crying because his dad kicked him out in favor of his stepmother, Joe not only went and got LB a blanket and gave it to him, but without any prompting gave him a hug. Just because the autistic can’t demonstrate something on command doesn’t mean its not in there. Always, always, assume competency. Also, many autistics are on a time delay to allow for delayed processing: in our case, it’s three days between hearing/learning something and being able to show/do it. That shoots down every standardized test, which demands immediate response, hence, autistics test much lower than they perform.
   Much of what we take for granted, re: social/emotional behaviors, are not ingrained, but learned – hence diplomatic incidents when another culture is misread. When your child is learning to walk and falls down, s/he will immediately look up at you – waiting to see what you do. If you laugh and say, “You’re silly!” , the baby will also laugh, and think nothing of the next time he falls. If you shriek “Oh you poor thing! Did you hurt yourself?” and coddle him to no end, you will wind up with a baby who falls and immediately cries in fear. If you have a baby who cannot understand the tone or content of the parent’s reaction, you will have a baby who cannot respond in any expected way, even if they feel the exact same insecurity.
   WIth autistics, everything is still there, it’s just their responses are scrambled, never knowing the proper way. Joe had abdominal surgery years ago; he was leaning over a bedrail with a belly full of staples, something to make the rest of us cringe, and your first instinct is to say “They don’t feel pain” (I cannot tell you how many doctors still believe this fallacy). Never knowing anyone with stitches/staples, no one ever told him this feeling he had was called pain. However, when he caught his finger in a radiator at school and received a 3rd-degree burn, he most certainly was yelling from the pain.
   There are clues to understanding autistic behaviors, but you have to be extremely observant, and endlessly patient.

5. Even when using sign language, signs that are made in mid-air, that have no physical starting or stopping somewhere concrete, are extremely difficult to teach.

   That sounds something like when young children insist on watching the same video over and over. In their case, they aren’t as intuitively acquainted with the nature of time to let go the the riveting moments of the video.
   You must be acquainted with Oliver Sacks. His one patient who was given his sight back, Virgil, couldn’t handle the nature of sculpture — or human faces for that matter — where the visual intake changes with the viewer’s changing position. With Virgil, the dimensional barrier was spatial, but with an autist, it sounds like time can be the dimensional barrier, creating an experience from which its impossible identify with things we consider conventional. I think Sacks even explicitly addressed the temporal disconnect in autists, but hearing it and understanding it are 2 different things.

6. For some reason, TypePad doesn’t want to recognize my login today, at least in IE (and Firefox keeps locking up when I come to this site. Oy).
   Anywhich, Susan has it pretty close to correct. Those of us on the spectrum do tend to have a higher tolerance for pain, as well as not always understanding that people expect us to do something when it does hurt, but isn’t agonizing yet. The mirror-neuron problem crops up here. You know the old saying, “monkey see, monkey do”? Well, it’s not really true of monkeys, and it’s not true of autistics, either. We don’t understand the complex interplay of facial expression, posture, and vocal tone encompassed by the term “body language” (well, some of us can learn to interpret over the years, but it’s always a conscious effort); thus, we also don’t express ourselves through it. Those who (consciously or not) expect a certain amount of body language, don’t see our responses, or (sometimes) accept those responses as authentic.
   Trust me, we have the full panoply of emotions – we just don’t always express them in ways or times that are expected. We also tend to have sensory problems, quite similar in ways to Sensory Integration Disorder, which can interfere with cognitive processing (it’s hard to concentrate on what someone is saying, and try to understand how they’re saying it, when that dámņ flourescent light is buzzing so frakking loud!).
   For more insight, last night there was an episode of Anderson Cooper 360 in which Dr. Sanjay Gupta interviewed autistic activist Amanda Baggs, as well as a young friend of hers from the Internet (I don’t recall his last name, but he was called DJ by his family).

7. It’s been amazing to see how many regulars here at the board have such an intimate knowledge of this issue. Thanks for sharing.
   Those like Susan O, people who actually open their homes to special needs kids, my respect for you is off the chart. I don’t know your religious beliefs, if any, but you are far far better an example of what a good Christian should strive to be than Mr and Mrs Neumann will probably ever hope to achieve.

8. To elaborate on Susan O’s explanation sometimes an explanation is simply required for the feeling to make sense. An autistic child can be extremely angry but in a sense be disconnected from the cause of that anger and even knowing that “hey, that thing, that feeling of wanting to throw things and scream – that’s called anger”. Think of it this way, those with autism are born with all the same feelings but a complete disconnect from understanding them, that understanding is learned and learned slowly. And even once the abstract notion of those concepts has been grasped (he is angry, she is happy) there’s still a huge undertaking to apply the abstract to themselves. There’s no automatic connection that that boy in the teaching book is the same as me therefor I must able to feel and be as he is. This is why group teaching methods very rarely work with younger autistics, getting to the point of understanding that “Now you kids need to..” also means that this applies to you is a very advanced learned skill.
   As for the sensory problems, that’s a very misunderstood thing at times, people have problems grasping that people with autism don’t see/hear the world as others quite a lot of the time. Some lights are bad, some machines make too much noise, that magnetic field from that machine is so loud, it’s something neurotypical people can’t even hear because they’re so used to tuning it out. I liken it to a radio with a broken volume dial, sometimes it’s roaringly loud, sometimes it’s so quiet you can’t hear. I think this might be one of the two reasons for that “autistic people don’t feel pain” myth. Some situations are extremely painful yet to most normal people wouldn’t even notice the source of pain let alone be bothered by it, others don’t seem to have nearly as big an impact while a neurotypical person would normally be bothered by it. The other reason for that little misunderstanding concerning pain is that a child with autism may not know that hey, this level of pain is ok to cry and you probably should be. The pain is still there, it’s just expressing it isn’t a natural skill to those with autism. It can make docotor’s visits very interesting… “does this hurt? or this?” ummm, can I have 10 minutes to process this and get back to you once my brain’s figured it out? And yes, those dámņ flourescent lights really need to get phased out, how people can concentrate with them around is impossible to fathom at times.

9. Those of us on the spectrum do tend to have a higher tolerance for pain, as well as not always understanding that people expect us to do something when it does hurt, but isn’t agonizing yet….
   We don’t understand the complex interplay of facial expression, posture, and vocal tone encompassed by the term “body language” (well, some of us can learn to interpret over the years, but it’s always a conscious effort); thus, we also don’t express ourselves through it. Those who (consciously or not) expect a certain amount of body language, don’t see our responses, or (sometimes) accept those responses as authentic.

   But those kinds of reactions to stimuli aren’t conventionally things anyone ever deliberates over. It sounds like reaction to stimuli is simply unavailable to the intuition of the autistic, and therefore they display no urgency as its conventionally understood, except perhaps in reaction to what obstructs to them. It isn’t that they have no will, like someone frozen with Parkinson’s, but they have to literally ration out their actions/reactions for the perhaps otherwise normal will they have (except perhaps, again, in reaction to obstruction).
   It isn’t the autistic’s reaction to pain that’s irrational, but the conventional reaction to pain that’s irrational — a common experience of which the autistic is denied. Without that common experience (as well as all the others), they have little to no notion of what wigs other people out to inhibit their behavior.
   Something like that?

   Trust me, we have the full panoply of emotions – we just don’t always express them in ways or times that are expected.

   Well, how can you be certain?

10. Sensory Integration issues are almost a hallmark of autism – and a lot of ADHD as well. If you can find a sensory-integration therapist – a good one – they can be a godsend. Ours connected immediately with Joe, and taught us a few things to try. Some work wonders, and we knew we hit on something right when we caught Joe doing some of the hand massages himself. I’m still undecided on auditory integration therapy – listening to a series of very expensive CD’s whose music is supposed to retrain the ear to ignore certain pitches. We’d hoped it would ease some of Joe’s reactions to high-pitched noises, like bird chirps. Although it didn’t seem to do much of anything, it didn’t hurt him and he wasn’t bothered by it. We also tried the hassle of prism glasses, to refocus his vision. This, at least the testing part by a “behavioral optometrist”, was a farce, and he looked like a dork with the glasses, but after a while we did notice he was actually watching TV, not always lying with his back to it, but I can’t prove any effect either way. Again, at worst it was harmless.
    Such therapists are few and far between. They won’t be covered by insurance, and you’ll need a special rider to a state contract to pay for one if it’s a State-care child. Check credentials, though; there have been numerous cases of children dying in the hands of people who “press” them with pillows, squeeze tunnels, and the like. If your child doesn’t like it, stop immediately. Never be bullied by a “specialist”.

11. See, this squeezing thing sounded like quackery to me.
    BUT…
    I am friends with a brand new teacher. He doesn’t yet have a full time teaching job, so last summer he worked at a school for autistic children. He told me how much they enjoy it and many seemed to NEED it. He didn’t go into depth on the techniques, but did mention that many seemed to act much better socially.
    As I am one who is obviously open to alternative health methods, I must say if it does good and is harmless, go for it.

12. Former magician and escape artist James “The Amazing” Randi, who today is an outspoken atheist and skeptic who speaks out against pseudoscience and religion with his James Randi Educational Foundation, has spoken about the Neumann case in his Weekly Commentary, “Swift”, at http://www.randi.org/joom/swift/swift-april-4-2008.html#i1.

13. I’m not talking Kenny G, candles, and scented creams. The technique we use most often is merely a firm hand massage, including joint pressure, on the theory that oftimes the autistic feels as if his limbs/skin is “asleep” or tingling, and the massage eliminates this annoyance. Obviously, this is not a cure for severe behaviors, but a few months later, we did notice Joe squeezing his own fingers together, something he’d never done before, so he must be getting something out of it. It works wonders when he is unsettled and anxious and has to sit somewhere he can’t escape, such as appointments, school functions, etc. It’s a much more gentle alternative to his banging himself in the head or biting his arm. Whether it really does something, merely distracts him, or he enjoys the one-on-one time, we’ll never know.
    Each person is different, and has different tolerances. While Joe enjoys the shower left on massage and brisk toweling, he hates weighted vests or the type of whole-body wraps or squeezing that others enjoy. He has a “shiatsu” exercise ball (Walmart, $10) that’s covered with nubby little bumps that he’ll lay across and rock sometimes for hours (a blessing for someone with an attention span that at times runs in seconds). Nothing is a cure, or even a solution, but every part of the “sensory diet” helps hold the pieces together, and over time (read: years) the glue does get internalized, and you gain a small piece of independent ground.

14. Steve Jones: “Secondly, we appear to be in the midst of an Autism epidemic. It can’t be genetic as we don’t get genetic epidemics.”
    Luigi Novi: “We are not in the midst of an epidemic. Autism rates are now greater because more conditions are now classified under the umbrella of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), whereas previously, they were not, and because there is now greater surveillance of these conditions, thus producing the illusion that autism has increased.”
    I don’t think the increased diagnosis of autism is just because there is a greater surveillance for the condition. Autism is on the rise. So is asthma, allergies and other auto-immune disorders. There is some debate over the causes for this. Is it increased pollution? Is it the over-use of anti-bacterial agents and antibiotics?
    Some people speculate on a link between Autism and food allergies. I speculate that the link (if there is one) between immunizations and Autism may come from an allergic reaction to the vaccine, maybe not even to the weakened virus, but to the surrounding stuff used to grow and transport the vaccine.
    SO, vaccines MIGHT be dangerous. OK. I’ll give you that. Still, get your kid vaccinated!
    Why?
    Because it’s a question of statistical probabilities and negative outcomes. Is there a chance that your seat belt will trap you in a burning car? Yeah. But the chance that your seat belt will somehow contribute to your death is FAR OUTWEIGHED by the chances of your seat belt actually saving your life.
    We have talked a lot about AUTISM. It’s bad. It’s a tragedy. It’s a growing epidemic that deserves more money for scientific study and treatment.
    How much has this discussion talked about the terrors and tragedies surrounding POLIO or SMALLPOX? Not much. It doesn’t concern us much anymore. Smallpox is almost extinct!
    I’ve had relatives with polio, who were paralyzed before the time the vaccine was available. I’m blessed to live in an age when I don’t have recurring nightmares of my children contracting the disease.
    Right now doctors and scientists have weighed the statistical probabilities and negative outcomes of getting vaccines versus NOT getting vaccines. There is a small chance that a child will have a negative reaction to a vaccine. The chances of that negative reaction being truly horrific (like causing autism or death) are seen to be even smaller still.
    Weigh that against an age when the world was literally PLAGUED with polio or smallpox. The risks are high and the negative outcomes are staggering.
    I’m not saying that we shouldn’t give serious study and consideration into trying to develop and maintain the safest and most effective vaccines and vaccine schedules. I am saying that we can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
    Vaccines are miraculous, a veritable Godsend!

15. I don’t think the increased diagnosis of autism is just because there is a greater surveillance for the condition.

    Given that the diagnostic tools have been developing over the years–how can it NOT be due to greater surveillance???????

16. I didn’t say that increased surveillance hasn’t led to an increased diagnosis of autism. I’m sure it has. I said that I didn’t think that the increased diagnosis was JUST caused by increase surveillance.
    I don’t think the dramatic rise in autism rates can be entirely attributable to the trick of the light caused by increased surveillance. I think autism rates are genuinely climbing as well. I see this as a disturbing trend, rather than a just a reassuring increased awareness.
    What is the cause of this climb? Pollution? Allergies? Vaccinations? Worldwide genetic collapse? That’s up for debate. I’m not a doctor nor a scientist. I’m just some medical patzer on a blog.

17. Again, remember, the diagnostic criteria have changed since the “baseline” years usually used in claims of “an Autism Epidemic OMG HEELLLLLLPP!!” Asperger’s Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism used to be regarded as “being weird”. There didn’t used to be an “autism spectrum”.
    And no, for the last frakking time, autism is NOT an autoimmune disorder! It is a matter of neurology, not chemistry! The original 1998 paper, claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, has since been retracted by its authors, although it is repeatedly cited by those claiming that “it MUST be caused by SOMEthing!”
    It IS caused by something. It’s caused by one or more of a number of minor genetic quirks, extra or missing information buried within the structure of the chromosome itself. (The most common mutation linked to autism, 16pw11, is found in just over 1% of autistics. The second most common, which [IIRC] is located on the 12th chromosome pair, is found in around 0.65% of autistics.)
    Please, PLEASE, before relying on what your intuition tells you, investigate the current science on the topic. And when I say “the current science”, I mean as published in peer-reviewed journals by competent neurologists, not as printed in a Sunday-supplement article ghostwritten for Jenny McCarthy and her holistic witch doctor.
    One good place to find a lot of info is autistics.org. You could also check wrongplanet.net – there’s a good bit of linkage in several discussion threads there. (Distrust LeKiwi and zendell – they both fear vaccines more than disease, and will twist statistics in any manner necessary to support their fear.)

18. Like I said, I’m a patzer, a know-nothing. But neurology has a LOT to do with chemistry. Just ask anyone who has taken an anti-depressant.
    I’m sorry I implied that autism was an autoimmune disorder similar to asthma. What I was trying to say was that there has been a dramatic increase in the diagnosis of asthma and other autoimmune disorders as well as autism. I don’t believe this increase in JUST based on increased surveillance. But I’m a prater and a patzer.
    Here is a brief article that says I’m full of šhìŧ:
    http://www.immunisation.nhs.uk/Library/News/Increase_In_Autism_Most_Likely_Due_To_Changing_Diagnostic_Practices
    Johnathan, you obviously know bucket loads more about autism than I do. But just because there are genetic factors linked to autism, that doesn’t make autism entirely a genetic disorder. I see nothing wrong with scientists looking into possible environmental impacts on the development of autism, including food allergy or vaccine.
    Admittedly, most of the “evidence” of such connections is circumstantial right now, not empirical.
    There are genetic links to Breast Cancer. But there have also been plenty of environmental links made too.
    I do believe my fundamental thesis is still sound: The relative benefits of vaccination far outweigh the potential risks of avoiding vaccine.
    Vaccination is a Godsend.

19. I don’t think the dramatic rise in autism rates can be entirely attributable to the trick of the light caused by increased surveillance. I think autism rates are genuinely climbing as well.

    Why?
    Given the increased surveillance AND the changed definitions, what’s your evidence?

20. Jonathan, on the one hand you admit that what was once just ” being weird” is now listed on the autism spectrum. Do the tests that Drs. do to determine if one is on that specturm involve a brain scan? To my knowledge, Drs. aren’t looking at brain scans…they’re looking at behaviour, learning capacity, social interaction skills, etc. To that end, it really doesn’t matter of classic autism has a physical cause related to brain formation and function. What matters is that what we call autism today is a behavior-based diagnosis, the cause of which only matters in terms of prevention and treatment. You disparage Jenny McCarthy, who despite maybe not being the best spokesperson for a quite serious condition, nontheless appears to have been able to do something most doctors admit is impossible…reverse the autistic condition to the point where her child’s doctors now insist that an earier diagnosis of austism was wrong. Because the medical community at large refuses to think that the current/prior understanding of autism might be wrong.
    For some cases of austism, I don’t doubt that it’s a matter of brain construction and/or functionality, and for those cases, there’ probably isn’t much to be done to improve their condition. But with such a wide spectrum of conditions which are called autism, isn’t it even just a tiny bit possible that the diagnosis’ are pulling in chemical causes as well as the neurological?

21. Luigi Novi: “We are not in the midst of an epidemic. Autism rates are now greater because more conditions are now classified under the umbrella of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), whereas previously, they were not, and because there is now greater surveillance of these conditions, thus producing the illusion that autism has increased.”

    Russ Rogers: I don’t think the increased diagnosis of autism is just because there is a greater surveillance for the condition.
    Luigi Novi: I didn’t say there was.

    I said that autism rates are now greater because more conditions are now classified under the umbrella of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), whereas previously, they were not, and because there is now greater surveillance of these conditions.

    Russ Rogers: Autism is on the rise.
    Luigi Novi: Classification of autism is on the rise. Autism itself is not.

22. Jonathan, I would have thought in the slippery, chaotic, constantly-shifting landscape of our dynamic world, it would have been more apparent to you that no one here has identified autism as an autoimmune disorder. You have to deliberate over whether what you’re feeling is pain or not, but react to things no one even said? What’s the deal? Maybe you should ask for some kind of refund.

23. Jonathan, on the one hand you admit that what was once just ” being weird” is now listed on the autism spectrum. Do the tests that Drs. do to determine if one is on that specturm involve a brain scan? To my knowledge, Drs. aren’t looking at brain scans…they’re looking at behaviour, learning capacity, social interaction skills, etc. To that end, it really doesn’t matter of classic autism has a physical cause related to brain formation and function. What matters is that what we call autism today is a behavior-based diagnosis, the cause of which only matters in terms of prevention and treatment. You disparage Jenny McCarthy, who despite maybe not being the best spokesperson for a quite serious condition, nontheless appears to have been able to do something most doctors admit is impossible…reverse the autistic condition to the point where her child’s doctors now insist that an earier diagnosis of austism was wrong. Because the medical community at large refuses to think that the current/prior understanding of autism might be wrong.

    For some cases of austism, I don’t doubt that it’s a matter of brain construction and/or functionality, and for those cases, there’ probably isn’t much to be done to improve their condition. But with such a wide spectrum of conditions which are called autism, isn’t it even just a tiny bit possible that the diagnosis’ are pulling in chemical causes as well as the neurological?

    I’m not so sure that you’re not conflating scientists with the community at large here. Most scientists are not so sloppy as to group the large of numbers of syndromes under the one label of “autism” and try to treat them the same—but the public is. And most certainly most scientists do NOT think their current/prior understanding of autism could be wrong–that pretty much is the antithesis of science. However, much of the larger community may think that (and, in fact, HAVE thought that about science, quite incorrectly).

    The nature of science is tentative and quite ready to reinterpret past findings in light of new findings—but to only do it as narrowly as possible. It’s much more likely that the behavior you’re talking about is that of the public in general.

24. “Most scientists are not so sloppy as to group the large of numbers of syndromes under the one label of “autism” and try to treat them the same—but the public is.”

    I don’t think it’s necessarily lumping everything under one category, I think it may be more that the public, even professionals not well-versed in autism, are treating “autism” as a disease itself, where in reality it is more of a *symptom* of something else going on – whether a social disorder, a genetic disorder, a result of cerebral infarct, maldevelopment of the brainstem, – I’ve even seen it as a secondary result of severe leadpoisoning in a child. Therein, I think, lies the biggest problem. Hence, you can ease the symptoms, but never “cure” the disease, and because the causes can be so diverse, no one cure is ever going to solve the problem.

25. “I’ve even seen it as a secondary result of severe lead poisoning in a child.”

26. Susan O: “I’ve seen [autism] as a secondary result of severe lead poisoning in a child.”

    Susan O isn’t the only person to make this observation.

    Here is a short paper: Autism and Autistic Symptoms Associated with Childhood Lead Poisoning
    by Theodore I. Lidsky, PhD and Jay S. Schneider, PhD

    http://jrnlappliedresearch.com/articles/Vol5Iss1/lidsky.pdf

    So, obviously Autism or Autistic Symptoms can be affected by the environment, chemistry or neurochemisty. It’s not just a question of neurology and genetics. The environment CAN and does play a factor in at least some children developing autistic symptoms.

    It’s funny. There seems to be some evidence of heavy metal poisoning being attributable to causing autistic symptoms in some children. But, Chelation (a medical treatment developed for heavy metal poisoning) is still considered unscientific alternative medicine when it’s used to treat autism.

    There has been no statistical or scientific link between the trace amounts of mercury (a heavy metal) used to preserve some vaccines and the onset of autistic symptoms.

    Another problem is, if you define autism as incurable, then anybody who has treated the symptoms successfully obviously wasn’t dealing with a “true” autistic child. It’s a Catch-22. If they get better, it wasn’t autism.

    At this point, I think we have to accept that what is being defined as autism is a fairly wide spectrum of symptoms with a possibly wider range of causes. What we know about autism is far less than what we don’t know.

27. “Luigi Novi: Classification of autism is on the rise. Autism itself is not.”

    While the first is undoubtedly true, how can you support the second? Personally, I think it’s attributable to both an increase in diagnosis for various reasons, and also that the incidences are also increasing. But to state that autism itself is not on the rise suggests that you’re privy to some biomedical knowledge that approached the omipotent level.

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