New study finds clusters of Autism spectrum

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Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6045CX20100105

It is hard to tell without reading the report, but it sounds like they ruled out the possibility of highly educated parents being more prone to autistic children. I agree that it isn't necessarily true, but it might be. What do you think?

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14126944

Well it is an interesting idea that the better educated and richer parents are more likely to get a DX for their children.

It is a new idea for me.

One problem I see is that due to advances in medical science it is the case that the way that conditions are DXed changes with time. I heard of a case in the UK of a sailor who died of AIDS in the 1950s. For years it was a case which baffled doctors, but now with the advances in medical science if a person with the sailor's symptoms was presented at a hospital then it is likely that a doctor would think HIV / AIDS.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/24/scien ... -aids.html

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Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

I may be wrong but it seems like they were refering to ASD as a disease.

I am not diseased or sick. I'm disordered.

...

The idea of autism clusters are nothing new to me.
The region around Eindhoven (the Netherlands) is suspected to have an increased number of autistic people compared to the rest of the country. In this region Philips started, and there are also a lot of other high tech companies. I don't suspect that the education lvl of the parrents is the cuasse of the high lvls of autism described, but that both are caused by something else.


My theory:
People with autie/aspie-traits from other areas are probably more narrow educated (and better in that certain area of expertise) than those without these traits. As the economy in regions like silicon vally were starting to grow these specialist were needed, and moved there. Especially the ones who had better education. Consequently the relative number of autie-like ppl started to grow in these regions. And when these ppl get children there are more auties among them, because it is hereditary.

The high lvl of education comes from the fact that the these parents where needed, and moved. And that due to there traits they were more wanted than those without the traits.
The high number of auties under there children would be the result of there autie traits.

The fact that most are aspies could be due to that there is, generally, not much of change in the "lvl of autie-ness" from parent to child (under the assumption that AS is a mild form of autism). Or by the idea that there were many (undiagnosed) aspies among the ppl that moved to these regions.

P.S. I don't assume any savant like abilities, more something like the special interests that ppl around here have.

Tsk... I'm sure you all will agree autism has been around a very long time. After all, Hans Asp[erger has been studying it since the late 1930's. some places it seems to be more concentrated. (I always thought England had more eccentric people per square mile than any other country, but I'm being facetious.)
A lot of other problems related to that have been around a long time, haven't they? Just because the media has "discovered" something doesn't mean it didn't exist before.

Last night I watched an insteresting film from Thailand entitled "Chocolate". It was about an autistic savant girl who learned different complex styles of martial arts from just observing it once. She also had amazing reflexes. It was a fantastical film, but her autism was obvious.

I'm wondering how common autism is there, and how society treats it there. I have learned that in Japanese society autism is still viewed as a problem that is somehow the mother's fault... it all stems from the views of the general public, and that particular society. Whether or not people want to acknowledge it for what it is, or attribute it to something else.

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"Not everything that steps out of line, and thus 'abnormal', must necessarily be 'inferior'. " -- Hans Asperger (1938)

Here's the link where I read it on Yahoo: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100105/sc_ ... m_clusters

One of their plans to study "dust":

"In one, her team plans to collect dust samples from the homes of 1,300 families with autistic children to look for common chemicals, such as flame retardants, that might be playing a role. "

Dust samples indeed! Other members who have posted her are right, "Autism/Asperger's" has been around a long time............

Here's what I want to know: HOW can they miss the possiblity that "white educated" society/culture is becoming so narrow in the acceptance of how people act that any child outside of that narrow definition of "normal" is going to get a label?

I've been ranting about this off and on for years now, HOW MUCH of the label, especially those of us who fall under both gifted and Asperger's/Autistic labels, is society's narrow view, not some "condition" or "disorder"?????

Think about it. How many of you here, when you are around people who don't give a hoot about social stuff, "fit in" more? I do. Especially outdoorsy people or people in the arts.

Somebody needs to study the social anthropology or whatever it would be called of certain educated society, as I don't think it's only "white", but perhaps moreso due to their history of emphasis on fitting in.

Incredible.

First they do a research study to find clusters of Autism in California, and when they get all the wrong results, they decide there is something wrong with the research.

IMHO, there is nothing wrong at all with these results. Autism is more common in children to highly educated, white parents. Simply because the autistic traits are more common among white than black or hispanics, and that a generation ago people with autistic traits could get a high education because of their traits.