Bigger generation of gamers coming .....

[dieseltaylor]

Autism has exploded in the last century, rising sharply from an estimated 1 in 25,000 children (http://www.autismtoday.com/articles/Epidemic%20of%20autism.asp) to an astonishing 1 in 88 children, according to the CDC. (http://www.cdc.gov/Features/CountingAutism/)

Changing definitions as the problem or is there actually a problem increase.

[Wicky]

Having worked in that field there is a demand from parents to get their child diagnosed as Autistic or having ADD, OCD/OCPD. As autism is diagnosed by a broad spectrum of behavioural symptoms it isn't hard. Reasons can be for funding, disability benefits or in a minority of cases for providing a reason why the kid is simply off the rails.

[Stalins Organ]

"off the rails" is not actually a useful diagnostic for autism - all it is is an indication that something is wrong, somewhere.

my oldest son was "off the rails" as a toddler & was diagnosed with Aspergers at age 6, and that was refined to autism a few months later.

What was"wrong" was not the autism (which is as far as I am concerned, not a problem, defect or anything else that "needs treatment") - but that we did not know that he was autistic nor how to relate to an autistic child.

Within weeks of the diagnosis, and an improved understanding of what autism is, he was "on the rails", and has been ever since.

So what did we change? We gave him rules. Ten of them, printed and taped to his bedroom wall, and when he broke them, he got time out and told which rule he had broken.

that was it - period. He is still autistic of course - think of "Sheldon-lite"...but only marginally "lite" - but like Sheldon his behavioral "quirks" are not threatening nor dangerous to anyone or thing except his potential for breeding!!

IMO people need to stop trying to "treat" autism, and need to understand that it is a behavioral pattern that can only be changed in the same manner as other behavioral patterns - with massive difficulty and with the risk of completely screwing up the person being "treated" even worse.

[Wicky]

Just for clarification my "off the rails mark" while sounding flippant describes parents who want their child labeled as something when they aren't actually autistic. Autism can't be diagnosed with a blood test so people with behaviours and traits at the mild end of the spectrum i.e ADD / OCD and in cases I've worked with, juvenile delinquents, are more commonly falling under a blanket diagnosis of Autism simply because they won't sit still and conform. (cutting out sweets, fizzy drinks and food colourings has a remarkable curative effect!)

IMO people need to stop trying to "treat" autism

Applying Skinner behavioural modification is, with the best intention in the world, a form of treatment of last resort based on underlying cognitive ability. Though teaching as early as possible makaton/sign language can certainly assist in establishing a base means for communication which pays dividends in helping someone express themselves in a world of isolated frustration.

There are fashions that come and go in the 'treatments' of Autism and like deaf culture which rebelled against their treatments at the hands of mainstream society i.e . the fight against the elimination of sign language in schools for the deaf*, I so hope that Aspies themselves can define how they want to be treated.

* Which early on valued oral methods of training communications for the convenience integration into general society rather than with the emphasis on the deaf person/society as a subculture.

[Stalins Organ]

apparently an autism blood test is on the way!!

the not sitting still thing is interesting - my son couldn't do it all through primary school - he had to stand at the back of school assemblies with a teacher. But in his intermediate school production he was in the choir with 250 other kids, packed cheek-by-jowl for 8 x 3-hour productions plus all the practices and rehersals without any bother at all!!

apparently he'd remembered the intermediate principal coming to primary school and telling them all that they had to enjoy intermediate....so that was the rule he followed there!

[Affentitten]

Just for clarification my "off the rails mark" while sounding flippant describes parents who want their child labeled as something when they aren't actually autistic.

Yep. Because they want a faux medical excuse for their child being a little turd.

The other day I was at a meeting at church (God help me) for parents and families of all the kids who were doing first communion. As we walked towards the door a child was standing right in it. When we got to the threshold he slammed the door in our faces. I opened it and as we walked in the child gave mny wife a shove in the back. I said "Excuse me, I think that's a bit rude," and we continued on inside.

After the meeting the kid's mother came flying over to me, screaming about how he had autism and he was special needs and how my "having a go at him" was entirely inappropriate. :confused:

[Michael Emrys]

What was"wrong" was not the autism (which is as far as I am concerned' date=' not a problem, defect or anything else that "needs treatment") - but that we did not know that he was autistic nor how to relate to an autistic child.[/quote']

Thanks for this post, SO. You have gained stature in my estimation. I am reconsidering including you in the human race after all.

Michael

[Stalins Organ]

I'm puzzled Michael - how would you know anything about the human race???

[Affentitten]

I'm puzzled Michael - how would you know anything about the human race???

He's watched it evolve.

[Michael Emrys]

He's watched it evolve.

And more recently, devolve.

Michael

[dieseltaylor]

Very funny lads. : )

I do not wish to sound base but in the instance of the church door is the lack of punishment - and I mean physical - actually not helping. I am hypothesising that at an early age if the link between behaving badly/displeasing an adult is a smack across the calfs would this actually help to establish a correlation. I am suggesting I suppose that sending an autistic kid to his room early or for x hours may actaully be no punishment whatsoever - and possibly a reward.

Until know I have not thought how one can punish bad behaviour in autistic children. Physical punishment ideally should never be required but in the very early years perhaps it is the only means to convey a message. If it all sounds very primitive bear in mind I think we are but animals and the animal kingdom has lots of examples of raising young but jawing at miscreants to change behaviour is not one I have heard of : )

[dieseltaylor]

Incidentally the increase in autism rates may actually be something else. The idea that chemicals can change peoples behaviour - phooey! : ) This study was on rats.-

Epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of altered stress responses

David Crewsa,1,2, Ross Gillettea, Samuel V. Scarpinoa, Mohan Manikkamb, Marina I. Savenkovab, and Michael K. Skinnerb,1,2

+

Author Affiliations

aSection of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712; and

bCenter for Reproductive Biology, School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164

Edited by Fred H. Gage, The Salk Institute, San Diego, CA, and approved April 18, 2012 (received for review November 15, 2011)

Abstract

Ancestral environmental exposures have previously been shown to promote epigenetic transgenerational inheritance and influence all aspects of an individual’s life history. In addition, proximate life events such as chronic stress have documented effects on the development of physiological, neural, and behavioral phenotypes in adulthood. We used a systems biology approach to investigate in male rats the interaction of the ancestral modifications carried transgenerationally in the germ line and the proximate modifications involving chronic restraint stress during adolescence. We find that a single exposure to a common-use fungicide (vinclozolin) three generations removed alters the physiology, behavior, metabolic activity, and transcriptome in discrete brain nuclei in descendant males, causing them to respond differently to chronic restraint stress. This alteration of baseline brain development promotes a change in neural genomic activity that correlates with changes in physiology and behavior, revealing the interaction of genetics, environment, and epigenetic transgenerational inheritance in the shaping of the adult phenotype. This is an important demonstration in an animal that ancestral exposure to an environmental compound modifies how descendants of these progenitor individuals perceive and respond to a stress challenge experienced during their own life history.

[Michael Emrys]

We're doomed. And it's all Monsanto's fault.

Michael

[dieseltaylor]

Market Grrden and epigenetics - where wargaming and behavioural effects meet!!

Text from Peter D'Adamo about Holland of 1944/1945: genetic harm on children

How hunger came over Holland in 1944 / 1945 - and the health of the newly born in these times

from: http://n-equals-one.com/blogs/2011/02/05/1688/

Dr. Peter D'Adamo is also on Facebook

[The project of operation "Market Garden": occupation of bridges and let come in troops]

<On September 17, 1944, the sky over southern Holland was filled with paratroopers. That sunny Sunday afternoon marked the beginning of operation “Market Garden,” Field Marshall Montgomery’s plan that the Allies hoped would end the war in one quick blow. Better known as “A Bridge Too Far,” the plan was to grab a series of bridges over the Rhine, hold them until reinforced, and then push on to the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial heartland. Operation Market Garden initially did quite well, except for the last bridge, at Arnhem, where the paratroopers met stout resistance and were eventually forced to surrender or retreat.

[Project of Dutch exile government supporting "Market Garden" with a rail strike, fairy strike - sabotage on railroad network, on bridges, on freeways]

Operation Market Garden would have just been a historical footnote to World War II if it had not resulted in the setting in motion of a series of political moves that resulted in wide-ranging health consequences for the Dutch population. The Dutch Exile Government in London was convinced that Market Garden would produce a quick end of the war and decided that the Allied operation would be aided if they called for a railway strike in occupied Holland. This strike would seriously hamper the mobility of the occupiers and prevent a quick Nazi counterattack in the early stage of the operation. It asked all Dutch railway employees to go underground and make contact with Dutch resistance. By October 1944, almost all railway employees were underground. They disabled and sabotaged all railway tracks, bridges, ferries, and parts of highways to give the Germans a hard time with their military logistics.

[German measures against the strike and against sabotage: confiscation of vehicles, also bikes - blast of dikes and flooding - no food supply any more]

With the failure of Operation Market Garden, the only real effect of the strike was to infuriate the German occupation government, who immediately confiscated all vans, cars, and even bikes to move their forces to the front. To make things worse, the Nazis blew up all the all dikes and dams in western Holland so that the Dutch were held hostage with no possibility of any food supply.

[barter trade - tulip bulges and sugar beets - apr. 30,000 starved to death]

On September 27 1944, the first radio transmissions from the Dutch underground reached London, warning that there was only enough food left for several weeks. From that point on, and into one of the coldest winters in European history, things just got worse. When the local harvest was not big enough to supply the large cities, people were forced to walk for hundreds of kilometers to trade valuables for food at farms. Tulip bulbs and sugar beets were commonly consumed. Furniture and houses were dismantled to provide fuel for heating. By early 1945, official rations were 400-800 calories per day; and by early 1945, approximately 30,000 Dutch people had starved to death.

[births during the famine: after-effects with the children with high diabetes rate - or little babies in the second generation - lung diseases, kidney diseases, arteriosclerosis, abnormal blood coagulation, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, truncal obesity, schizophrenia, hypersensitivity]

Known to the Dutch as the “Hongerwinter,” the winter of 1944-45 saw the birth of almost 40,000 babies, each of whose vital statistics, such as name, birth date, and weight, were duly recorded by the Dutch authorities. In the 1960’s researchers began to study these now fully-grown famine survivors, and the results were shocking. All had the usual complications, but in particular those fetuses who were in their last trimester during the height of the famine, had very low birth weights. They did grow up normal, but later suffered from very high rates of diabetes. On the other hand, babies who were in the first six months of gestation during the height of the famine, were normal weight at birth but when they reached adulthood went on to give birth to unusually small babies. (1)

Those fetuses exposed to famine during gestation also went on to develop obstructive pulmonary and kidney disease more often than average. Those whose mother’s starved at the beginning of the pregnancy gestation have more atherosclerosis, altered blood clotting, more obesity, and a three-fold increase in cardiovascular disease. Daughters of mothers pregnant during the famine had significantly more truncal obesity and insulin resistance at midlife than average and the sons had higher rates of schizophrenia and an exaggerated response to stress. (2)

What had happened to produce these dramatic health effects, and even more significantly how did it somehow go on to become inheritable, as in the case of those women who were babies in their first trimester of the Hongerwinter and imparted small size to their offspring, decades after the famine?>

Note

And there's something yet: in Germany, followed by two hungry winter 1945/1946 and 1946/1947, there were similar health consequences for the population.

Michael Palomino, 21 January 2012

Sources

Lumey LH, Van Poppel FW. The Dutch famine of 1944-45: mortality and morbidity in past and present generations. Soc Hist Med. 1994 Aug; 7(2):229-46.

Ravelli, A.C. et al. Glucose tolerance in adults after prenatal exposure to famine. Lancet 351, (1998) 173–177

http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/eu/holland/hungerwinter-holland-1944-1945-me-ENGL.html

[GouldD]

this all is freaky, i'll do my best to have a healthy child

and will make him stay away from the computer. unlike me

[dieseltaylor]

: )

My son was a disaster. Raised on the original Civilisation by Sid M. and now a psychologist. Sad.

[gunnergoz]

Interesting that successive generations are scrutinized by the preceding ones, which invariably conclude from their observations that the species is doomed. The successive generations invariably look back at their progenitors and wonder how the species ever survived them.

[Michael Emrys]

Interesting that successive generations are scrutinized by the preceding ones, which invariably conclude from their observations that the species is doomed. The successive generations invariably look back at their progenitors and wonder how the species ever survived them.

Both positions are valid, you know.

Michael

[gunnergoz]

Exactly....

[Stalins Organ]

Very funny lads. : )

I do not wish to sound base but in the instance of the church door is the lack of punishment - and I mean physical - actually not helping. I am hypothesising that at an early age if the link between behaving badly/displeasing an adult is a smack across the calfs would this actually help to establish a correlation. I am suggesting I suppose that sending an autistic kid to his room early or for x hours may actaully be no punishment whatsoever - and possibly a reward.

That is not my experience - smacks did no good whatsoever with my son.

And it took a bit of training for me to learn that time out, although not actually a "punishment", was actually something that reinforced the "need" to follow the rules.

Oh and I had an experience like yours from the other side - my son had hit a kid at a playground (no real damage done - the other kid had gotten "t close" & swas "pushed" away) & the mother went berserk at me, insisting I smack my son, etc - I put him in time out, that wasn't enough, the ranting went on - in the end I told her to shut up and shove off! I'm sure she still thinks I'm a delinquent parent... that's just tough.

Autistic people are short on emotions - so (IMO) they simply do not relate to fear and pain in the same way as non-autistic people. However give them time to think then they will make the relationship you talk about.

Time out is not about punishing them - it is about getting them to make a connection that they will not make otherwise (again IMO)

It also took training for me to learn to do it absolutely everywhere - in the supermarket, at MacDonalds, on a playground....I got some strange looks but it worked very quickly.