Some observations

[Guest guest]

A busy week here in our corner of Aspergerland:

--The ongoing debate over vaccine-caused autism;

--The Tuesday evening meeting (during which our son punched the childcare worker, who was trying to intervene in some horseplay between him and another boy) (so many apologies to her);

--Getting home in time to watch the Frontline special on, "Are We Overmedicating Our Kids?";

--Wednesday night at the "Teaching Social Skills to Children With Asperger's Syndrome" program;

--and this morning's article about gene-related autism (http://news./s/ap/20080110/ap_on_he_me/autism_gene_5).

There's a lot to synthesize, but several bits I'd like to add to the ongoing discussions, if you'll permit me.

1. Dr. Marker's program last night outlined a protocol which sounded almost exactly like what is done and taught by the PEP program -- lots of praise wherever possible, praise must outweigh negative comments, positive environments, etc. Like any other treatment program, there's a lot of factors that affect the degree of success....We've been doing this since our son was three, starting with the PEP-related Early Intervention School in Lyndhurst -- and he still manifests violent, explosive behaviors (though, admittedly, less frequently)(which may or may not be due, in part, to maturation).

2. Dr. Marker's preliminary comments included a factoid that "every 20 minutes a child is diagnosed with an autism disorder." This is interesting when tied to the Frontline show, which observed how many kids were being diagnosed with a behavioral disorder by people other than qualified specialists, and being potentially unnecessarily medicated, with occasionally unforeseen and undesired results.

3. The Frontline show primarily examined disorders that were once diagnosed as "ADHD" and shifted to a diagnosis of bipolar, an arc that suggested a change that followed what was a "fashionable" diagnosis (consider the rise and fall in the last thirty years of such social-psychological theories as past-life therapy, and even the feel-good team-building programs instituted at many large companies). Forty-six minutes into the show, the word "Asperger's" appeared on the screen; however, no discussion was offered about the kids with autism-spectrum disorders. The show fell completely short in this respect, which troubles me because of how many ASDs also may be a missed call, as their diagnosis relies on observed behavior that overlaps other behavioral disorders.

4. My brother crunches data for the genetics researchers at Washington University in St. Louis. In conversations with him, and in reading articles relating to his work, there exists the fact that, while the human genetic code has been mapped, many institutions are hard at work trying to determine what the individual bits of code affect in an individual. What they observed early on is that many characteristics that make up an individual, both good and bad, are caused by combinations of gene code which may not even be next to each other, or even on the same chromosomal leg. Metaphorically, we are still in a strange town with a map of its roads. Now, we need to identify what occupies all the town's buildings.

Many have said at meetings how they've read, even met Dr. Temple Grandin. In addition to her works, I recommend reading the any of the books by Dr. Oliver Sacks, whose work illuminates the remarkable afflictions of the mind that occur when the cosmic dice of genetic chance fall between seven and snake-eyes. Do I vote "yea" or "nay" on vaccines being the source of the rise in autism-spectrum disorders? I would suggest that there still is data yet to come.

Thanks for your forebearance.

- Mandel-