Weekly Round-Up
Just a few of the many articles on Autism that I found interesting this week.
A short while ago I linked up to an article describing the importance of maintaining good family health. This week I came across an article on Autism Through Jacobs Eyes that succinctly describes the gamut of emotions that parents may go through after receiving a diagnosis. I think that it’s important to recognise that these emotional responses may resurface over a long period of time and that it’s very important for the parents to get the support they need to be able to support the child.
(Some of the links in the above paragraph may require you to be a member of Facebook before you can read them).
Also in the news this week is another study of brain function in connection with Autism. New CMU Brain Imaging Research Reveals Why Autistic Individuals Confuse Pronouns (wow! what a title) reported on prnewswire.com describes how children on the spectrum, who confuse the pronouns “I” and “you”, may exhibit poor synchronization between parts of the brain at the front and the back. (Remember last week we had a study that described poor synchronization between the left and the right of the brain). However the article on prnewswire.com came in for some criticism from Autism NB for misrepresenting the results as applying to all autistic children while the study only looked at high functioning children. However that’s two studies in a relatively short period of time that indicate poor brain synchronization may play a part in autistic behavior.
Biological Marker For Autism
Copyright © Dr L Dinstein
An interesting report has been published in the Neuron journal that may indicate a means to accurately diagnose autism in very young toddlers.
The technique involves measuring the synchronization in electrical activity between the left and right hemispheres of the brain while the child is asleep. In children with delayed language development or a-typical development they found poor synchronization in the electrical activity between the left and right hemispheres. This was not evident in children with normal development nor in children with a language delay not associated with autism.
Imagine an orchestra were ready to play a piece of classical music and one half started a fraction of a second after the other half. What you’d end up with was a noise from which you could occasionally catch part of the melody. This could be similar to what’s happening in an autistic child’s (or adult’s) brain.
The Weizmann Institute reports that the researchers were able to diagnose 70% of autistic children aged 1 – 3 years old. This could form the basis of an empirical diagnosis of autism from a much earlier age than is currently possible.