New Study: Clues To Autism’s Gender Bias (April 13, 2012)

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Newspaper stories below:

Link: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Autism gender bias clue found

Link: Vancouver Sun: Gene may be key to why autism affects boys more

Link: Canada.com: Gene glitch could explain gender bias in autism

Link: HealthCanal.com: Gender bias in autism

... and they jump straight to the "this might mean that in the future we can totally prevent it or develop a cure".

Wooooooooooooooooooooo............... /sigh

For clarification in case anyone knows (or in case that I accidentally skipped some information): what about the other 1609 people diagnosed with an ASD of which some were probably male too? Was it only those 5 boys/men who had an ASD and had this mutation?

i wonder how they will react when realising all their computer and smart phone apps would likely go away if Asperger's/ASD were "cured" - and the world was left without the ASD nerds to create them...?
[SNARK]

even after all the years of daily schoolyard beatings and all the life crap, i don't want my asperger's to go away

i feel bad for ASD people who have major functional problems - but i am in a place i kind of like

i worry i would trade my brainpower and focus for being as much of a dumbass as most of the NT's i see around me

Not very informative. No information, not even guesses, at what the "protective factors" might be. No details on where the males and females in question fall on the spectrum, beyond having a diagnosis or not, nor any information on how they made that judgment. And on top of that, a very small sample size. So, we really don't know if there are protective factors that females have, nor what they are if there are.

Reading those, I was thinking at first that, if this is so, I'm a defective female for lacking those "protective factors". But with further reading and thinking about it, it's also quite possible that the females in the study, the ones that it says don't have autism, are actually people like me.

Not true. There's no mention of the idea of a cure for autism at all. Treatment and prevention. Neither of which are the same as a cure. (A treatment can sometimes be a cure, but not all treatments are cures.)

And the two articles of the 4 which mention the possibility of prevention (the other two only mention treatment) do not say anything along the lines of totally preventing it.

I don't remember seeing that in the article I read, which one did you read? The one I read (CBC) said "A key for a TREATMENT".

First website link, researcher. Notice the ending part about him, in first link. To me he has a conflict of interest.

http://www.hgm2011.org/stephen_scherer.html

http://www.hugo-international.org/aboutus.php

I know I'll get jumped on for not 'getting' the topic (well, possibly), but I think they should focus the researches on why so many girls are either undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, rather than finding a biological basis for an existing diagnosis.

Also for Mysty.

I only read the one from Vancouver sun and the ending gave me that impression.

""The idea is that now we have a genetic clue into defining what the factors are that govern the fact males are more susceptible to autism than females - We can use that clue to try to tease out how we might alter that process artificially," Scherer said.

Scherer said he believes this protective factor may one day be used to prevent or treat the disorder.

"We might be able to develop drugs, for example, that enhance that missing factor so we can treat individuals who are autistic," he said."

I know he does not specifically say "prevent all cases".

Here's something I don't understand about that information: If a missing gene causes men to develop autism but the missing gene doesn't cause it in women, then what does cause women to develop autism?

This accurate of what a SHANK1 gene is? Or not.

http://www.informatics.jax.org/marker/MGI:3613677