Autism take a heavy toll on families — autistic teens aremore likely to be bullied , and families with autistic kid arelikelier to have lower income . But now at last , we ’re start to learn more about what causes autism .
TheInternational Meeting for Autism Researchis taking property decent now in San Diego , and already a mountain of peachy information about the reasons for autism has been presented . The bottom line : Autism is a multi - factoral disorder — even with in each individual child , Irva Hertz - Picciottotold a pressure league yesterday . But we ’re starting to infer some of the factor that come into it .
And one crucial bit of selective information from yesterday ’s press conference : David Amaral of U.C. Davis says that changes in mind growing associated with regressive autism are observable as former as 4 - 6 month of historic period , long before any behavior change show up . “ Precocious ” brain growth and heavy headway diameter in those early months are associated with regression . ( Which means , among other thing , that the MMR vaccine , which is parcel out at 12 month , ca n’t mayhap be make these case . )
research worker have been able to identify autistic child at younger and unseasoned age , thanks to new symptomatic guidelines , and one result isa huge MRI study of autistic child age 12 to 40 months . Among other things , researcher Eric Courchesne found that connectivity between the secular lobe and the limbic system ( include the amygdala ) is very unlike in austistics , from early on on . And young autistics have twice the number of cells in their frontal cortex as other kids . Also , a measure of brain development call fractional anisotropy ( FA ) is much higher in young autistics than other tike , but then does n’t uprise as quickly as it does in normal children as they grow older .
( There ’s some cracking live - blogging of the league going on atLeftBrainRightBrainandThe Thinking Person ’s Guide to Autism . )
Other research gift today suggested thata difficult labor or febricity during the other part of pregnancycould aid stimulate autism - spectrum disorder ( ASD ) , and that mothers who havehypertension or diabetes , or are weighty before pregnancy , may be more probable to have autistic children .
The bottom crinkle , though , is that we ’re only just starting to learn the accuracy about autism and what causes it . And we ’ve been held back from making progression for too long , thanks to myth like the vaccination myth and before that , the “ refrigerator female parent ” myth . [ Thanks Shannon ! ]
Autism
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