Children on the autism spectrum and meltdowns in public places

Sara Ryan conducted a qualitative study where she interviewed parents of autistic youth about their experiences taking their children out in public. The study, “‘Meltdowns’, surveillance and managing emotions; going out with children with autism,” was published in Health Place in the September 2010 issue [16(5): 868–875].

Here’s the abstract of the report:

The qualitative study from which the data reported here are taken, explored the experiences, support and information needs of parents of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. 46 parents were interviewed either individually or in couples. Thematic analysis of the data revealed the complexity involved for the parents in taking their children out in public places. The emotion work parents conduct in public places both to make their children more acceptable within the space and to reduce the discomfort that others experience, helps to preserve the orderliness of public places. However, the special competence that parents developed over time also masks their turbulent feelings in public encounters.

The article is copyrighted, but with their permission, I’ve uploaded it to this site so that you can read the full article (pdf format).

Carousel image:  Sophy Kozlova, Dreamstime

Brain Scans Detect Autism’s Signature

An autism study by Yale School of Medicine researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has identified a pattern of brain activity that may characterize the genetic vulnerability to developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Published November 15 in the early edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study could eventually lead to earlier and more accurate autism diagnosis.

[...]

The team identified three distinct “neural signatures”: trait markers — brain regions with reduced activity in children with ASD and their unaffected siblings; state markers — brain areas with reduced activity found only in children with autism; and compensatory activity — enhanced activity seen only in unaffected siblings. The enhanced brain activity may reflect a developmental process by which these children overcome a genetic predisposition to develop ASD.

Read more on Science Daily.

FDA issues warnings to marketers of unapproved ‘chelation’ products

On October 14, the FDA warned eight companies that their over-the-counter (OTC) chelation products are unapproved drugs and devices and that it is a violation of federal law to make unproven claims about these products. There are no FDA-approved OTC chelation products.

You can read the FDA press release here.   Although I realize that some parents may reasonably argue that saying something is “unproved” doesn’t mean it is “disproved,” remember that many OTC products are not without their own dangers.

Federal Circuit Rules No Link between Autism and Vaccine

From The Blog of Legal Times:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has just upheld lower court findings that reject a causal connection between childhood vaccines and the onset of autism.

The ruling came in Cedillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, which was the first of a series of test cases heard by special masters for the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in 2007. The claims court picked several such cases to test different theories of causation advanced in the roughly 5,000 cases alleging a link to autism filed under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.

Read more on The BLT.

A School District That Takes the Isolation Out of Autism

Michael Winerip had a really up-beat story about Wisconsin schools and autistic students in the New York Times a few weeks ago. It begins:

Garner Moss has autism and when he was finishing fifth grade, his classmates made a video about him, so the new students he would meet in the bigger middle school would know what to expect. His friend Sef Vankan summed up Garner this way: “He puts a little twist in our lives we don’t usually have without him.”

People with autism are often socially isolated, but the Madison public schools are nationally known for including children with disabilities in regular classes. Now, as a high school junior, Garner, 17, has added his little twist to many lives.

He likes to memorize plane, train and bus routes, and in middle school during a citywide scavenger hunt, he was so good that classmates nicknamed him “GPS-man.” He is not one of the fastest on the high school cross-country team, but he runs like no other. “Garner enjoys running with other kids, as opposed to past them,” said Casey Hopp, his coach.

Read more in the New York Times. Then ask yourself why, if Wisconsin can do this so successfully, other states haven’t.

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