What is severe autism?
We have to wait, patiently, for the DSM-V people to cough up their system forranking and classifying all autistics according autism " severity. " In the meantime, some recently reported data are worth mulling over.First,here is the most recent unofficial DSM-V autism " severity " ranking-system proposal, andhere is my response, including information about instruments commonly claimed to measure autism " severity. " The current official DSM-V void in this area can be locatedhere.An increasingly prominent measure of autism " severity " is the Social Responsiveness Scale.Developed by John Constantino, it now exists in differe...
Source: The Autism Crisis - February 12, 2010 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
Proposed new autism criteria: the DSM-V
Here they are and here are ten off-the-cuff thoughts:1. The most sit-up-and-take-notice change is the total removal of Rett syndrome from the DSM. It is gone. The DSM-V people are saying, " genetic syndromes don ' t belong in our book, " or words to that effect, and I agree.2. Indeed the vast majority of named neurodevelopmental disabilities do not appear in the DSM, past, present, or future. This raises the question of why autism is there. Rett ' s being excluded is not going to immediately result in Rett ' s individuals being catastrophically deprived of recognition or assistance. Instead it may result in these individua...
Source: The Autism Crisis - February 10, 2010 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
Very early autism intervention: the Early Start Denver Model
Early autism intervention research carries consequences for all autistics, and for a lot of nonautistics as well.DawsonG et al. (2010) is a newly-published randomized controlled trial of a newly-developed manualized very early autism intervention and as such deserves a close look.Developed by Sally Rogers and Geraldine Dawson, the Early Start Denver Model has been the subject of a handful of previous papers, none involving anything approaching a major trial. ESDM is reported to combine the Denver Model with Pivotal Response Training, two interventions developed in the 1980s which individually lack good quality evidence for...
Source: The Autism Crisis - February 7, 2010 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
1 in 86: the prevalence of autism among adults
"Autism rate in children has doubled, say doctors" ... "Autism ' more common than thought '" ... "Autism in children ' 10 times higher ' than first thought" ... "Autism at a record high" ... "autism is 25 times more common than what researchers thought" ...This mess of headlines and claims was generated in response to one autism prevalence study, Baird et al. (2006), published in the Lancet.All 56,946 individuals comprising the targeted population cohort in this study are, as of today, the last day in the decade, 18 years of age or older. They were born between July 1, 1990 and Dec 31, 1991 and they are now all adults.With...
Source: The Autism Crisis - December 31, 2009 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
Autistic people are persons: An anniversary
The statement that " autistic people are persons " is part of the 2008 decision by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal inDawson vs Canada Post Corporation. Today,this decision is one year old. Here is the relevant excerpt:[133] This said, there is no doubt for the Tribunal that autistic people are persons, that unfortunately they are not well accepted in society, that they are looked at often times as special creatures who are not part of society as a whole and that society would be better off without them. The Tribunal is further of the view that autistic people need to be better respected and protected in society. They ne...
Source: The Autism Crisis - October 4, 2009 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
An anomaly in autism intervention research
Promotion first, science later, if ever. This pattern is near universal when it comes to autism interventions. In the absence of good quality research, autism interventions are loudly claimed to be effective.For those promoting ABA-based autism interventions, claims of effectiveness unfounded in good quality research were only the first step. The real triumph has been widespread agreement that fair tests of ABA-based interventions are unethical and bad for autistics. As a result, any experimental design carrying the risk of being informative about the benefits and harms of ABA-based interventions has,for a long time now,be...
Source: The Autism Crisis - July 23, 2009 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
Alan Turing's brilliant essay
In 1950, Alan Turing wrote" Computing Machinery and Intelligence. " This one short paper, exploring what came to be called the Turing test,continues to influence research and thinking across multiple fields.Tyler Cowen and I have co-authored a new paper asking two questions.What does the Turing test really mean? And how many human beings (including Turing) could pass? Our premise is that some aspects of Turing ' s paper have not received sufficient attention:Turing ’s paper is rich and multi-faceted and we are not seeking to overturn all of the extant interpretations. We do wish to suggest that a potent and indeed subver...
Source: The Autism Crisis - July 15, 2009 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
Alan Turing's brilliant essay
In 1950, Alan Turing wrote < a href=http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html > " Computing Machinery and Intelligence. " < /a > This one short paper, exploring what came to be called the Turing test, < a href=http://www.macrovu.com/CCTGeneralInfo.html > continues to influence research and thinking < /a > across multiple fields. < br / > < br / > Tyler Cowen and I have co-authored a new paper asking two questions. < a href=http://www.gmu.edu/centers/publicchoice/faculty%20pages/Tyler/turingfinal.pdf > What does the Turing test really mean? And how many human beings (including Turing) could pass? < /a > Our premis...
Source: The Autism Crisis - July 15, 2009 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
Definitely not autism advocacy: Accomplishments, capabilities, and rights
As an advocate for the rights of physically and mentally disabled people, I am acutely aware of how many people in our society consider the disabled to be childlike, helpless, hopeless, nonfunctioning and noncontributing members of society.This opens a NYT opinion piece written by Evan Kemp. While Mr Kemp raises concerns about a specific fundraising event, his statements have much broader relevance.For instance, Mr Kemp writes of the great harm that ensues when disabled children are denied the possibility of learning from successful disabled adults. The autism advocacy signature argument that disabled adults with achieveme...
Source: The Autism Crisis - July 13, 2009 Category: Child Development Tags: definitely not autism advocacy Source Type: blogs
The highest autism prevalence ever?
Baron-Cohen et al. (2009) propose a world where there are 157/10,000 autistics. The authors used what they call a " novel approach " to autism epidemiology and this is worth a closer look.The study is based on questions sent to schools about the UK SEN (Special Education Needs) register, and a survey, including a screening questionaire, sent to parents of students aged 5 to 9 years. Many schools, 66 out of 162, refused to participate. Of schools that agreed, 79 of 96, representing 8824 out of 11,635 children, provided SEN register information. Of the surveys sent to parents, 29%, representing 3373 out of 11,700 children, w...
Source: The Autism Crisis - July 6, 2009 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
Notes on autism severity and the DSM-V
I was asked briefly to comment onthe notion of " severity " of autism as currently proposed for the DSM-V. Here are some far from complete notes (some from earlier writing or work of mine) I organized in response:Currently, “severity” of autism most often refers to the attempt to quantify the obviousness of autistic traits and abilities. The more obvious these traits and abilities are judged to be, and therefore the more atypical a person is judged to be, the more “severe” autism is considered to be.Being “more severe” (having more obvious autistic traits and abilities, or being more obviously atypical) is wide...
Source: The Autism Crisis - June 15, 2009 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
The autistic way of laughing
There are real and fake smiles that can be distinguished visually, if you know how, and it turns out that there are real and fake laughs.William Hudenko, a clinician and researcher, patiently explained this to me atIMFAR 2009. Real laughs are " voiced " versus fake laughs that are " unvoiced " and these two kinds of laughs can be distinguished acoustically.Hudenko et al. (in press) describe voiced laughs as having a " tonal, song-like quality " and as " strongly associated with positive affect, " while unvoiced laughs are " largely atonal and noisier. " Instead of reflecting a person ' s genuine emotions, unvoiced laughs a...
Source: The Autism Crisis - May 27, 2009 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
Saving autistics and the world: Skin shock at the 2009 ABA convention
We describe the use of supplementary Contingent Skin Shock (CSS) to address intractable behaviors other than aggression and self-abuse. From 2003 to 2006, CSS was added to the programs of 72 students. However, in June of 2006, the New York State Department of Education put into effect regulations that limited the use of skin shock to aggressive and self-injurious behaviors. Subsequently, a federal judge temporarily blocked these regulations at the request of the parents and treatment resumed for most of these students. Here we first describe the initial effect of adding CSS to the students programs. Second, we describe the...
Source: The Autism Crisis - May 17, 2009 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
The autism recovery story
You have seen the autism recovery storyinthemedia. Bloggershavejumpedin too. I was atIMFAR 2009 in Chicago and saw the educational symposium presentation by Deborah Fein that was the stated cause of all the excitement.Butin her presentation, as in her abstract, Dr Fein did not associate the findings she reported with any kind or quantity of autism intervention or treatment. When speaking at IMFAR, she expressed doubt that this in fact could be done.Dr Feinclearly added more information when speaking with the media. She expressed her view that recovery from autism, what Dr Fein calls " optimal outcome, " was associated with...
Source: The Autism Crisis - May 14, 2009 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
