Absolute must see video for parents of kids on the spectrum

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I know this is a long video ( http://videos.med.wisc.edu/videos/32540 ). Please listen long enough to hear about Stevie, age 5, how reacting to Ritalin is NOT an indicator of ADHD, a common co-label to ASD, and the symptoms of Reactive Hypoglycemia (there is a very high probability your kid has this, and it is easy to deal with).

The video talks about accurate assessment, common misdiagnoses, and damage of inappropriate treatment. It talks about the embryonic field of neuroscience (strong growth occurred in the 1990's) and how little is being taught to health professionals, including family doctors and pediatricians. There is no to very little teaching in education, even in special ed.

It is critical for parents to be educated!! !! !! !! !

Some of this applies to all. The gifted part applies to 90% of OCD kids, greater than 70% of kids labeled ADHD and Aspergers/ASD. And a high percentage of kids labeled:

Attentional and Activity Problems: Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD)

Anger Diagnoses

* Oppositional Oppositional--Defiant Disorder Defiant Disorder

* Conduct Disorder

* Intermittent Explosive Disorder

* Disruptive Behavior Disorder NOS

* Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Ideational and/or Anxiety Disorders

* Obsessive Obsessive--Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

* Obsessive Obsessive--Compulsive Personality Disorder Compulsive Personality Disorder

(OCPD)

* ASD and Asperger’s Disorder (aka Asperger’s Syndrome)

* Pervasive Developmental Disorder

* Schizoid Personality Disorder

* Schizotypal Personality Disorder

* Avoidant Personality Disorder

Mood Disorders

* Bi--Polar Disorders Polar Disorders

* Cyclothymic Disorders

* Dysthymic Disorder

* Depressive Disorder

Learning Disabilities (asynchronous development: Dyslexia, Mathematics Disorder, Nonverbal Learning

Disabilities, Sensory Disabilities, Sensory––Motor Integration Motor Integration problems, Auditory Processing Disorders)

Sleep Disorders (Nightmare, Sleep Terror, and Sleepwalking Disorders)


Allergies (particularly food) & Asthma

I'm wary of any claim to be in a high percentage of such a long list of disorders. It's more likely that a very small proportion of these people have co-morbid Reactive Hypoglycemia.

There is a bigger problem with under-medication of ADHD than over-medication. Contrary to popular wisdom, most parents are very reluctant to try medication.

Very interesting read. (I looked at the slides as opposed to viewing the video. Hopefully, I did not miss much. Video watching is not so convenient for me.)

I have a few nitpicks with some of the things they claim are gifted and incompatible with AS, especially with regard to empathy. I don't think having empathy precludes an AS diagnosis, nor does it mean you have to be gifted if you lack the other pre-requisites. (Again, the video may go into that, but I read the slides, only.)

I don't know if the video focused more on 2e, which is also really common.

Good resource. Thanks.

What the list has in common is a brain architecture of strong visual/right brain dominance with weak hemisphere connectivity to the verbal/left brain where word and math symbology, and social communication processing takes place. (Strong local connectivity and weaker global connectivity). So there is considerable overlap in behavior. Autism, as the other disabilities in the list, is a behavioral label, not a medical diagnosis. Critical thinking occurs in the right hemisphere, and local connection dominance is correlated with high IQ. Both leading to the label gifted.

We perceive the world from our perspective. What is easy to us takes place in our dominate hemisphere. Because our current culture has moved toward the strong left-brain over the last 50 years, what takes place in the left hemisphere is perceived as easy. If you have difficulty learning it with little support you are labeled disabled. If it is hard for the lefties, but easy for you, you are labeled gifted. So many righties are labeled disabled and/or gifted. Almost all kids can learn what they need to survive and thrive in this world, different children need different support. Righties need support in symbology/communication of all types and left-brain executive function. Lefties need support in critical thinking and right-brain executive function. Understanding a bit of neuroscience allows you to understand your child's challenges, needs, and how changes in culture/lifestyle have an impact on your child.

I disagree on under-medicating. Multiple researchers investigated whether drugs or ABA is more effective in dealing with behaviors, and they were shocked to find out that both were equally effective/ineffective. What they were embarrassed to find out was the most effective, training parents. Drugs or ABA do not increase a child's skills or understanding, in fact both limit what has long term benefit. They can be helpful in short term stabilizing at situation.

You know the whole left/right brain thing's been debunked, right?

People have inaccurately claimed to debunk hemisphere difference and dominance because parts of many complex tasks use processing on both parts. BUT the type of processing done on each side is very different. A huge number of MRI studies back this.

All social mammals, so far examined, have it. A majority of social context, external-to-self, imitation (mirror neurons), joint attention, and pain expression (see the book Social Neuroscience) is in the left brain. The circuit is very similar to symbology in reading and math. Much of emotional processing and internal-to-self is in the right. Executive function is fairly evenly split between both, but distinctly different, with time and planning on the left, and attention shifting on the right.

It is the understanding of the specific what that happens on each side, and the evolutionary advantage the division has, that leads to understanding of the strengths and challenges of different brain architectures. You are born with limited connectivity and a tenancy for local or global. Then experience shape the development of your network. Teaching should in my view shape critical connectivity by design, not by chance. The brain is highly plastic.

I agree there are left-brain gifted people. Giftedness seems to be mostly determined by local connection dominance, but the flavor of giftedness is determined by hemisphere dominance. The right-brain giftedness is more often recognized as gifted.

AS/AU can be a continuum. One of my research partners was labeled extremely Autistic at 2 years old, and she is now HF-AS. The same is true of the son of a second of my research partners. He would become catatonic at times as a toddler. Because they are behavioral labels put in place most of the time by people with no neuroscience background, anything goes.

AS/AU is strong visual/right brain dominance with weak hemisphere connectivity (strong local connectivity, there is only so much room for connections, so a tradeoff is made). In AS/AU, verbal communication and social context understanding is challenging, but compassion can be strong. What is interesting to me, people that AU/AS people have strong closeness for, get represented in the right-brain internal-to-self region. Psychopaths have strong verbal/left brain dominance with weak hemisphere connectivity, verbal communication and social context understanding is strong, but compassion is lacking. They derive joy from understand and exploiting the needs of others. They are behavioral opposites.

Sociopaths are made by a brutal environment. They are not born that way.

Psychopaths have a distinct left-brain architecture and tendencies can be detected and also helped by 3 years old. I am on travel right now, but can find you, later, the reference to research papers on comparing AU and psychopaths. For awhile, some were claiming AU was psychopathy, and including it in some of the definitions of AS/AU. It was proven they are very different. This work was part of that.

Neither psychopaths or AS/AU are strong in empathy. Empathy goes beyond recognizing pain or needs in others to the internalization of feelings of others (eg. feeling the pain of others, but not necessarily helping them, it is in general unhealthy), perhaps it requires more global connectivity, needing processing on both sides to be strong. Compassion is recognizing another's need and helping them, problem solving, empowering, and healthy. AS/AU can recognize emotions, especially negative, but do not outwardly respond in a social manner.

AS/AU will frequently not recognize social pain of others, but will respond when they are made aware. This is an effective way to build social awareness. AS/AU also may not recognize self-inflicted physical pain, but once they are made aware, they feel the pain, and stop inflicting.