Wired on Autism in the Valley

digaman writes: "The December issue of Wired magazine contains an article of mine on what appears to be an upsurge in autism among the children of programmers and engineers in Silicon Valley: "The Geek Syndrome." A complicated issue, explored in depth. I hear the California Department of Developmental Services is launching a research project to investigate the questions raised in the article."

Comments

Real numbers

[MiTEG]

The BBC has an interesting article that gives some real numbers. The article says that about "pervasive developmental disorders" are running at a rate of about 46 per 10,000, and full out autism is about 17 per 10,000.

Autism or Aspergers?

[Yaruar]

One of the things I have been finding out a lot about recently is aspergers due to living with the daughter of an expert.

We ahve been toying with ideas about links between people suffering from high functioning aspergers syndrome and people who work in professions such as IT, especially development. This is mainly because with aspergers the only major outward impairment of the individual is with social interraction and social awareness and this coupled with tendency to obsess over repetitive detail means that aspergers sufferers fit the mould of good programmers.

I don't know enough about the syndrome to know if it is passed on through genes, but one could postulate if there is a group with a higher than average make up of the disease who are breeding amongst themselves it might possibly lead to a significent level of new cases compared to the national average.

Even today a lot of aspergers cases are misdiagnosed as straight autism.

Here for more information on aspergers and the differences between it and autism

Re:read the article

[fatphil]

"It's like a planned obsolescence in the intelligence of the species."
Good observation, nicely worded too!

You mustn't forget intellectuals' breeding patterns anyway. Intellectuals breed with negative population growth. (i.e. 2 intellectuals have 2.0 children on average). i.e. Intellectuals are destined to become outnumbered anyway. (However, that doesn't mean that they won't be a dominating minority - the majority of South Africans were black, the dominant minority white, for example).

However I'm not convinced, from reading the article, that the thing is hugely genetic anyway. I think that, as always, the socialisation that the children get in the first few years of life governs how schizophrenic (i.e. detached) the child will develop. Maybe the intellectual parents _nurture_ detached children.
(i.e. it is more like self-inflicting obselescence.)

FatPhil

Re:The MMR Vacine May Have Something to Do With It

[claeswi]

This is a very unfortunate and common misconception; the first signs and symptoms of autism-spectrum disorders often appear around the time when the child begins to speak, and this coincides with the time when the MMR vaccine is given. The epidemiological evidence is strong against there being a causal link.

If you're seriously interested in reading about it rather than just deciding that the temporal correlation between the two is sufficient proof of causality, both BMJ and the Lancet have had a lot of original articles and correspondence on the topic in the past few years, for example the following study by Taylor et al.


Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association


Taylor et al.

Summary

Background We undertook an epidemiological study to investigate whether measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine may be causally associated with autism.

Methods Children with autism born since 1979 were identified from special needs/disability registers and special schools in eight North Thames health districts, UK. Information from clinical records was linked to immunisation data held on the child health computing system. We looked for evidence of a change in trend in incidence or age at diagnosis associated with the introduction of MMR vaccination to the UK in 1988. Clustering of onsets within defined postvaccination periods was investigated by the case-series method.

Findings We identified 498 cases of autism (261 of core autism, 166 of atypical autism, and 71 of Asperger's syndrome). In 293 cases the diagnosis could be confirmed by the criteria of the International Classification of Diseases, tenth revision (ICD10: 214 [82%] core autism, 52 [31%] atypical autism, 27 [38%] Asperger's syndrome). There was a steady increase in cases by year of birth with no sudden "step-up" or change in the trend line after the introduction of MMR vaccination. There was no difference in age at diagnosis between the cases vaccinated before or after 18 months of age and those never vaccinated. There was no temporal association between onset of autism within 1 or 2 years after vaccination with MMR (relative incidence compared with control period 094 [95% CI 060147] and 109 [079152]). Developmental regression was not clustered in the months after vaccination (relative incidence within 2 months and 4 months after MMR vaccination 092 [038221] and 100 [052195]). No significant temporal clustering for age at onset of parental concern was seen for cases of core autism or atypical autism with the exception of a single interval within 6 months of MMR vaccination. This appeared to be an artifact related to the difficulty of defining precisely the onset of symptoms in this disorder.

Interpretation Our analyses do not support a causal association between MMR vaccine and autism. If such an association occurs, it is so rare that it could not be identified in this large regional sample.

Lancet 1999; 353: 20262

Re:It's actually a contributing factor, I think.

[Kupek]

The women's lib stuff is bunk. All of it. Contrary to popular beleif, what this culture views as the "normal" family and social structure isn't quite normal. When you say "traditionaly," you're going back, what, 100 years, 500 years? Not far enough.

From "The Way We Really Are," by Stephanie Coontz:

One of the most common misconceptions about modern marriage is the notion that coprovider families are a new invention in human history. In fact, today's dual-earner family represents a return to older norms, after a very short interlude that people mistakenly identify as "traditional."

Thoughout most of humanity's history women as well as men were family breadwinners. Contrary to cartoons of cavemen dragging home food to a wife waiting at a campfire, in the distant past of early gathering and hunting societies women contributed as much or more to family substinence as men. Mothers left the hearth to forage for food, hunt small animals, trade with other groups, or tend to crops.

On this continent, neither Native American, African-American, nor white women were originally seen as economic dependents. Among European colonists, men dominated women, but their authority was based on legal, political and religious coercion, not on men's greater economic importance. The most common words for wives in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century colonial America were "yoke-mates" or "meet-helps," labels that indicated women's economic partnership with men. ... But in the early 1800s, as capitalist production for the market replaced home-based production for local exchange, and a wage-labor system supplanted widespread self-employment and farming, more and more work was conducted in centralized workplaces removed from the farm or home. ... Men (and older children) began to specialize in work outside the home, withdrawing from their traditional child-raising responsibilities. Household work and child care were delegated to wives, who gave up their older roles in production and barter.

Re:In breeding

[Marcus Brody]

I am *really* trying hard not to flame these days.... but:

"Studies have shown that problems with inbreeding only occur after many generations of close relatives breeding together"

That is patently bullshit. Please would you point me to the references for these "studies" and I will tear them up along with your post.

OK, here goes. This is pointless, but I feel compelled to demolish you fallacy:

There are thousands of single-gene "monogenic" disorders. A Good example is Cystic Fibrosis, although you could replace this in the example for countless diseases. Cystic fibrosis is a recessive disease. This means that you have two copies of the gene (called CFTR), and if both are "damaged" or mutated, you will have the disease. However, if you have only one mutated copy, you are just fine. In this case you are a "carrier" for CF - but you will probably never know it.

Now let's take the example that you are a carrier for CF. About 1/20 people are carriers for a mutated CFTR gene, so this is not unlikely. Now, you have a 1/20 chance of marrying somebody who also is a carrier for CF. If you did marry someone who was a carrier, each child you give birth to will have a chance of having CF. Each child will have a 1/2 chance of inheriting your "bad" copy of the gene, and a 1/2 chance of inheriting your partners "bad" copy of the gene. 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4, so there would be a 1/4 chance of the child having full blown CF. So overall, you would have a 1/20 (chance of meeting somebody else with CF) x 1/4 chance of having a child with CF:

= 1/20 x 1/4 = 1/80 chance of giving birth to a single CF child, if you are a carrier and marry a random individual.

Now consider having a child with your sister [er... rather not - ed.]. She shares 50% of your genetic makeup. Therefore if you have a single mutated copy of the CF gene, she has a 1/2 chance of having that bad copy. Therefore:

= 1/2 x 1/4 = 1/8 chance of giving birth to a single CF child if you are a carrier and have a child with your sister

So, quite evidently, if you are a carrier for a "recessive monogenic" disorder, the chances of having an abnormal child are HUGELY increased with inbreeding - within a single generation. This same principal applies to other modes of inheritance and more complex traits - such as heart disease or diabetes. The maths is a little more complicated though. Furthermore, every person is a "carrier" for on average TWO inherited diseases. This seems like a lot, but just remember that the chances of meeting someone else who also happens to be a carrier for the same disease is very rare. Unless you happen to have sex with a relative. In which case, you are very likely to have an abnormal child.

Despite what the twat above said, I seriously advise you *NOT* to start going out and making bacon with your auntie.

Re:Psychology and the scientific method

[iconian]

The problem is not with Psychology but with the intepretation of Psychological research by media and folks like yourself. If you read any well-written research journal paper, you'll know what I'm talking about. Most Psychology choose their words carefully and make conservative intepretation of the data in their papers because of blunders of wild interpretations made by early Psychologists such as John Watson. The media has a tendency of distorting Psychological findings (as with any science) to make it interesting or understandable.

I'm not sure what school you went to but the Psychology research methods and stats (2 courses)at my school are carefully taught. In the upper level Psychology classes, we are trained to critique and recognize biases in scientific journal. In fact, I have trouble reading even NYTimes articles without the urge to tear it up.

As a student of Psychology and Biology, you are making a gross generalization when you suggest Psychology is not a science. Psychology is a broad field. What people have to know is that Psychology != Emotions. Cognitive Psychology for example rarely deals with "feelings" at all (which is actually a fallacy of the field if you think about it because emotions affect how you process information). Like any science, Psychology has also an early history of poor science. (Look up Aristotle & Anatomy or Da Vinci & Flight.) Unfortunately, when people think of Psychology, people narrowly think of Sigmund Freud, sexual repression, etc. Freud WAS NOT a Psychologist. None of his work at the time under went testing. He made his claims and people took it for truth just because it made sense to some people. If you argued with him about the Oedipus complex, he would use circular logic and say "you just have unresolve issues with your mother. That's why you can't accept my claims." Most of Freud's claims has been refuted. His work is rarely mentioned past Intro Psychology courses.

Know what you are talking about especially if you are going to criticize a particular field of science. If you are going to make generalizations, back them up with specific examples. Know your sources of a work that you are reading, if possible, read the original.