Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Identify Genetic Systems Disrupted In Autistic Brain
hessian sends this excerpt from Medical Xpress "Autism has a strong genetic basis, but so far efforts to identify the responsible genes have had mixed results. The reason for this is that autism is influenced by many different genes, and different genes are involved in different individuals, making it hard to find the common genetic ground between patients. Now, research conducted at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has shown that despite this fact, the different genes involved in autism tend to be involved in specific processes in the brain. This can explain, on the one hand, similarities in the behavioral symptoms of different autistics, but also the large spectrum of behaviors observed in different autistic individuals."
Hear that Andrew Wakefield, you murdering piece of trash! Real researchers are finding real causes for autism, and not making them up and compromising the health of tens of thousands of people to make a buck.
May you roast in hell, and in the meantime come down with some particular noisome and noxious kind of cancer that makes you smell like rotting flesh and cause unceasing and unbelievable agony.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No, no, no.... See, the vaccines contain chemicals like dihydrogen monoxide that travel through the bloodstream up to the brain, where they interact with the homeopathic echoes of infancy still resonating in the neurons. These deadly chemicals then alter the genes to cause further infant behavior, as has been observed here. Since the child now has to fight against these infant tendencies, development is slowed in what we call "autism".
Totally makes sense, I swear...
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Considering that low levels of autism-like symptoms seem to be prevalent in engineering disciplines, is this something that could be used to turn your dreamy/artistic/social child into more of a nerd/engineer type?
Also, I wonder what sort of reaction there would be if instead of autism, this paper was dealing with a potential to detect/fix some more politically sensitive group such as the GLBT community
...the article is dealing with a gene for Autism Spectrum Disorder, not Tourette Syndrome.
You're in the wrong discussion!
(Inspired by a Monty Python skit about an argument... "Oh, this is abuse!")
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
+---------+
| Sarcasm |
+----+----+
|
|
My son is a high functioning Autism spectrum disorder child. He is 7 and has his feelings hurt quite genuinely and easily.
That is the hard part about being a parent of a child with this issue. His mom and I long ago decided it is not a disability, and not to treat it as such. You are very correct that he has an extremely ordered mindset, very logical and very strongly identified concept of right and wrong. The kicker is that his labels of right and wrong are very accurate, not just with the niavite of a 7 year old. The hardest part is helping him understand that the world is distinctively unfair. That right and wrong, while ideal logical statements often have substantial color to them that makes right wrong and wrong right enough to really make it difficult to just say "That's not right". One of his current passions (they seem to run in very deep streaks) is martial arts. The high focus / high structure seems to really work well for him.
I think he has a future that will be bright, as long as I can help steer his course in life towards something that resonates with him.
Since it sounds like you have experience in this environment, have you any sage advice for a parent that wants to do the right thing for his child?
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
One of my closest friends is a high functioning Autistic. He's a wonderful human being and I cherish our friendship. He does have a high degree of social interaction problems and he was in his mid thirties before we could go out in public without him having an episode or creating a scene (he doesn't like people touching him or making eye contact).
I met him when we were in middle school and he was often a target of bullying. As we moved into high school the bullying started to become worse, but there were several of us who befriended him and it soon became known that to mess with him was to mess with us.
Today he lives on his own and has married a woman very similar to himself, he still can't manage his own finances and he does require some watching but he holds down a very nice job as a data analyst (his mind was made for abstract numbers) and lives a mostly normal life. The older he gets the better his social skills become, although he is definitely different.
Ironically I don't think there's a darn thing wrong with him, he's perfect just the way he is. Yes, he's different, but in so many wonderful ways.
You're right, your son is not disabled and you're doing the right thing by not treating him like he is. He might be different, but that doesn't mean he's disabled, it just means he's different.
Since it sounds like you have experience in this environment, have you any sage advice for a parent that wants to do the right thing for his child?
I am autistic and I grew up in special needs classes and went on to college and now work in a marginally social insurance analysis software development role for a big company. I have a wife, a bunch of kids, a full life.
The big piece of advice is: let him follow his passions, and they will change often, there really is no fighting it, and hey like me he might even end up using it for a nicely compensated occupation.
My second is, try to do your best to teach him how and why to lie. Anybody can say things that aren't true, but the little social lies everyone tells every day were the hardest thing I ever had to overcome. You described a highly black and white world, and largely I had the same thing. I had no idea why you would pretend to not to be disgusted by religious people, or why you wouldn't say things like "no thanks I don't eat food served by people who have dirty shirts and nervous fingernail habits." There is a very blurry line between tact and deceit and that took me a lot of bullying and a lot of painful trial and error to figure out, it is not typically intuative for an autistic person, because largely we would prefer to know the real reasons behind things, but non-autistic people prefer to be lied to in social situations.
Most of the lies I tell people in a social context are straight out of movie scripts, because I can never figure out how to word it correctly on my own. People seldom notice, and when they do they think I am making an "in" joke with them. It is a win-win.
It seems like you have the right idea of how to deal with him.
You are right, it's not a disability. The most important thing to consider, is getting him ready for the world outside. His interaction with society will never be as normal and easy as with the majority of people, but with proper training, and education, he can act like it is. People with autism lack empathy, and don't understand human emotions properly. It confuses them, and can put them in awkward positions as they rack their brain trying to guess what a non-autistic person would have done in similar circumstances. And this is the part to be focused on. Teaching them standard social behaviour. Autistic people love rules, love routine, and teaching them proper responses to common questions, proper behaviour to common incidents, will certainly make them much happier in life. If they dont know how to respond to something, they'll try and remember taught rules, then try to remember past experiences, maybe something they've seen in a movie, or read from a story, or happened with another family member.
For example, if one day, your son got married, and his wife bought him a bouquet of flowers. You shouldn't expect him to be as delighted as most men would be. But with proper training, he'll understand the gesture, he'll understand what she means by them, and will display the delight she's expecting, even though in reality, he really doesn't care about flowers at all. Eventually, he'll be capable of understanding most social interactions, understand expected responses, and cope with society, hiding his syndrome from everyone except those close to him.
All it takes is the basic understanding of what he has, and what *others* are like, and why he should try and cope.
Hope this helps you.
my sig pwns your sig
You're not going to make a billion dollars, slow the fuck down.
Also, genius, it's a spectrum disorder. Ranging from people who might have it, or are just using it as an excuse to be a dick, like you, to people who can not funtion.
You falsely link intelligent with autism. IF someone made it so you were comfortable around people, you would still be just as smart as you atr. Not nearly as smart as you think you are, but that's the case now, so no change.
Parents of Kids that rock back in forth all day, drool on themselves and can't communicate would probably love to cure the disorder.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
People with autism lack empathy, and don't understand human emotions properly. It confuses them, and can put them in awkward positions as they rack their brain trying to guess what a non-autistic person would have done in similar circumstances.
Just wanted to mention, non-autistic people have the same lack of empathy toward autistic. And you'll also find a lot of empathy among those on the spectrum. (Seems to be especially strong among females on the spectrum, from what I've seen.) A lack of understanding of how that empathy is portrayed by autistics has resulted in a strong believe that there is a lack of empathy.