Interesting article about "four core subtypes" of autism

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nca14
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12 Oct 2024, 9:27 am

https://www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum ... -subtypes/ - Untangling biological threads from autism’s phenotypic patchwork reveals four core subtypes. Fragment:

Quote:
(...) They applied a statistical model to data on the traits and behaviors of 5,392 autistic people from the SPARK research cohort. By adjusting the number of groups, the team found the most significant similarities among participants when the model sorted the cohort into four autism subtypes.

The largest group—consisting of 1,976 people—shows mild challenges in core autism traits, whereas the smallest—554 people—has severe difficulties across those same traits. The other two subtypes are somewhere in between: One group specifically experiences social challenges and disruptive behavior, and the other shows developmental delay and difficulties in select traits.


My opinion: I think that part of individual diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder have pervasive developmental disorders not related etiologically and phenotypically to classic autism, especially the subtype of a "group specifically experiences social challenges and disruptive behavior", which tends to be somewhat described in articles like Asperger's 1944 article summarized and Straight talk about Asperger syndrome - the "Asperger's group". The subtype which "shows developmental delay and difficulties in select traits" may be associated with many cases of PDD-NOS diagnosed by earlier DSM-IV and "the largest group - consisting of 1,976 people - shows mild challenges in core autism traits" appear to have relatively mild form of classic autism which could be misdiagnosed as Asperger syndrome instead of autistic disorder using DSM-IV. "Asperger's group" appears to be on the schizophrenia spectrum since childhood (so-called "schizoid disorder of childhood" and may be especially prone to schizotypal disorder), but it is still a pervasive developmental disorder and a kind of autism, not just a personality disorder.



pokeystinker
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13 Oct 2024, 1:54 am

nca14 wrote:
https://www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/untangling-biological-threads-from-autisms-phenotypic-patchwork-reveals-four-core-subtypes/ - Untangling biological threads from autism’s phenotypic patchwork reveals four core subtypes. Fragment:
Quote:
(...) They applied a statistical model to data on the traits and behaviors of 5,392 autistic people from the SPARK research cohort. By adjusting the number of groups, the team found the most significant similarities among participants when the model sorted the cohort into four autism subtypes.

The largest group—consisting of 1,976 people—shows mild challenges in core autism traits, whereas the smallest—554 people—has severe difficulties across those same traits. The other two subtypes are somewhere in between: One group specifically experiences social challenges and disruptive behavior, and the other shows developmental delay and difficulties in select traits.



My opinion: I think that part of individual diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder have pervasive developmental disorders not related etiologically and phenotypically to classic autism, especially the subtype of a "group specifically experiences social challenges and disruptive behavior", which tends to be somewhat described in articles like Asperger's 1944 article summarized and Straight talk about Asperger syndrome - the "Asperger's group". The subtype which "shows developmental delay and difficulties in select traits" may be associated with many cases of PDD-NOS diagnosed by earlier DSM-IV and "the largest group - consisting of 1,976 people - shows mild challenges in core autism traits" appear to have relatively mild form of classic autism which could be misdiagnosed as Asperger syndrome instead of autistic disorder using DSM-IV. "Asperger's group" appears to be on the schizophrenia spectrum since childhood (so-called "schizoid disorder of childhood" and may be especially prone to schizotypal disorder), but it is still a pervasive developmental disorder and a kind of autism, not just a personality disorder.



I'm really sorry, I tried to digest what you wrote but I can't, for the life of me, understand.


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Fnord
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13 Oct 2024, 1:59 am

Why does the website hosting the article have one set of writing standards for scientists and another set for journalists?

:chin: Hmm . . . this means something . . .


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MrsPeel
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13 Oct 2024, 8:47 am

The way they are dividing up autism into subtypes is a bit like dividing people up according to whether they like ham or cheese. One subtype of humanity enjoys both ham and cheese, one subtype leans towards ham, one leans towards cheese, and a smaller group hates both.

So yeah... I guess we could do all these tests to work out which subtype someone is in, and then we could, I don't know, either feed them only cheese because that's what they like, or try feeding them ham, to make them more like everyone else?

Maybe they'll get somewhere with all this subtyping eventually, but there's nothing useful yet.



MrsPeel
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13 Oct 2024, 8:52 am

Fnord wrote:
Why does the website hosting the article have one set of writing standards for scientists and another set for journalists?

:chin: Hmm . . . this means something . . .


Spectrum was good but then it became The Transmitter and since then there hasn't been much deep discussion of issues relevant to us (actually autistic people), it's mostly academic navel-gazing.



nca14
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13 Oct 2024, 10:44 am

pokeystinker wrote:
I'm really sorry, I tried to digest what you wrote but I can't, for the life of me, understand.

I noticed that some autistic people do not have many traits associated with "classic autism" described by Leo Kanner, among absent traits there may be: speech delay, need for sameness and predictability, good visual thinking with poor verbal thinking. I also think that some cases of ASD are associated with comorbid schizoid personality disorder or schizotypal disorder which is "melted" into individual's autism (these schizophrenia-spectrum disorders may will have more symptoms in early adulthood than in childhood or adolescence), probably only minority of ASD individuals have comorbid schizophrenia-spectrum disorder, but prevalence of SSD among autistic people may be many times higher in the general population and may account for many cases of poorly-functioning ASD individuals in adulthood, I even postulate specific type of ASD which I would call "schizodevelopmental autism" which may be especially dissimilar to the stereotypes about autism based on Kanner syndrome. Some cases of ASD would be classified as Kanner syndrome earlier, some are markedly similar to Kanner syndrome and some are more dissimilar to it, but even these dissimilar cases are still cases of autism and pervasive developmental disorder. Schizoautistics would require larger support than standard (not comorbid with SSD) autistics with the same level of intelligence quotient and functional language. They are doubly challenged in life - firstly due to ASD, secondly due to SSD.

Another interesting article from The Transmitter: https://www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum ... -children/ - Slow onset may explain late autism diagnosis in some children. Fragments (with my bolding or underlining):
Quote:
Some autistic children don’t show traits of the condition until age 5 or later, new research suggests. Others show a few mild features at age 3 but only later meet the criteria for diagnosis.

The findings suggest that autism traits are not always apparent by 24 months, the typical age for screening. As a result, efforts to bring down the average age of diagnosis, now at 4 years, can only go so far.

“There are some children who do get evaluated, sometimes multiple times, only to get diagnosed later,” says lead researcher Sally Ozonoff, endowed professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, Davis. “This research is explanatory for those children.”

Quote:
When the team analyzed the data at both time points, a different set of patterns emerged. Half of the late-diagnosed children scored well below the cutoff for an autism diagnosis at age 3, but their scores increased significantly at ages 5 to 9. The other half scored just below the autism cutoff at age 3, and their scores bumped up slightly in that time.

The results suggest that autism traits in some children become significantly more pronounced over time.