What Causes Autism? Science is slowly approaching an understanding.

"Notes on Autism Assessment and Treatment" are written by Dr. Jim Roche. These autism notes are not meant to provide a guide to either diagnosis or treatment. For information on diagnosis and treatment contact your medical doctor or a registered/licensed psychologist for an appointment and assessment. Information about Dr. Roche's services can be found at these addresses:

Relatedminds: http://www.relatedminds.com
ADHD Help BC: http://www.adhdhelp.ca
At Psychology Today: http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/70682
At the BCPA website: http://bcpa.pixelmountainarts.com/users/jimroche
At CounsellingBC: http://www.counsellingbc.com/listings/JRoche.htm
At Psyris: http://psyris.com/drjimroche
At Autism Community Training: http://www.actcommunity.net/jim-roche.html

What causes autism, Autism spectrum disorder and Asperger's Syndrome? We now know more about the cause of autism than we have for a long long time. But we need to be careful not to allow the anti-vaccine / anti-scient crowd misdirect us. Moises Velasques-Manoff, the author of "An Epidemic of Absence: A new Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases" has written an excellent summary of the latest research for the New York Times. It can be found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/opinion/sunday/immune-disorders-and-autism.html?smid=pl-share

Velasques-Manoff points out that one subset of those with autism, which makes up at least if not more than 1/3 of those with autism, seem to have some type of inflammatory disorder. And this inflammatory disease doesn't start as a result of vaccinations - it's starts way before that, in the womb. We know this is true because the brain changes that are associated with autism are noted prior to the age of immunizations, and there is no correlation between those getting these vaccines and those who develop autism. Hopefully, someday, the uninformed will start to notice the basic problems with their science, or maybe start to have some respect for science.

What the research Velasques-Manoff writes about notes is that a large number of mothers of autistic children have had some sort of immune compromising condition while they were pregnant. This leads to a inflammatory reaction, in both the mother and child, and this effects the astroglia and microglia - which ar enlarged from chronic inflammation.

 A population-wide study in Denmark spanning two decades indicates that infections during pregnancy increases the risk of autism in children.  Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Infections during pregnancy ...must cause autism. So cut down the number of infections. But again, the epidemiology doesn't lead in that direction. Like much of science, it's more complicated than that. You see, while world wide viral and bacterial infections have gone down ....autism rates have gone up. Especially places where there are fewer infections! Somewhat of a contradiction.

You see while infections and other disorders have decreased, the number of inflammatory disorders HAS gone up.  And the relationship between these inflammatory infections and autism is very clear. A mother with rheumatoid arthritis, an inflammatory disorder, has an 80 percent increase in the chance of having a child with autism. A mother with celiac disease increase her risk 350 percent.

So the questions now becomes why we are now so prone to inflammatory disorders, and if there is anything we can do to decrease these risks?  There are several suggested therapies - for the mother - and these oddly follow the idea of doing something about what Velasques-Manoff calls our "microbial deprivation." (Remember: dirt and parasites are "famous for limiting inflammation.")

 Probiotics? "domesticated parasites?"  These are just some of the thoughts Velasques-Manoff and others are looking at. What we do know is that we have spent too much time looking at the effects of dysregulation in the child with autism, and not enough time looking at dysregulation and other problems in parents .... remember, it's a genetic disorder to a great degree.

Click on the above link to get the New York Times article, and check out some of Velasques-Manoff's writing elsewhere.