Autism and Abuse?!?!? What?!?!?

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I just read an article dated 2003 that stated that child abuse and/or neglect victims often show higher signs of autism. It referenced a recent Harvard study that showed that those who suffered ongoing child abuse/neglect showed permanent brain damage and altered brain changes in four demonstratable ways.

WHAT?!?!? I thought that it had already been disproven that autism was ever caused by abuse??! !?!?

No,autism makes abuse more likely as we are solitary and largely silent individuals.

We already know that better parenting (early intervention, etc.) decreases the signs of autism. We also know that constant stress changes the chemistry of the brain (look up long-term effects of bullying). This is just a natural extension. It's not that bad parenting causes autism- it just makes it worse.

Technically speaking, I am autistic, not an aspie. But today, no one except for my mother and my husband can even tell most of the time. I had *excellent* parents. If I hadn't, I strongly suspect that I would not be as high-functioning as I am. What would I be like if I had had abusive parents?

I have a sometimes verbally abusive mother and did have a physically abusive father well only when he drank, and I think I was more prone to it, due to the fact I'm autistic.

Autism is brain wiring...unles they hit the kid hard enough to rewire their brain....?

I think this is a case of the chicken an egg.Because autistics kids are "different" the parent might be more likely to abuse them,maybe out of frustration and maybe in attempt to change them and get them to comply(like tryig to beat a 3 month old into not wetting their diapers).

Abuse may make a child withdraw and not wish to communicate,not look people in the eye out of fear,create depression and rage issues.....part of the DX for autism is a "ruling out of other causes"and I would say a hostile and threatening and traumatic abusive relationship with a caregiver qualifies as ...."other cause"...it's called PTSD and shared by both autistic and nonautistic people in life threatening situations.

Maybe they should spend more time researching the idiots who are abusing their kids and how to "treat" them,as they are the real problem......(I hate this fricken world and it's upside down way of looking at things)

but we all know the egg came first.

Shhhh,dont tell the amoeba's.....they think THEY came first,(so egotistical with their cell division and what not.)

i thought my only two options were chicken or egg....which the egg obviously came before the chicken was there.


and i'm pretty sure amoeba has only been around for about 17 years.

Why is this in Art, Writing, and Music? Moving it to more appropriate forum.

Anybody can have abusive parents/an abusive childhood. It would only make things worse for kids who are Aspie/autistic. I'm pretty sure I'm Aspie (waiting on diagnosis at the moment), but my mother was verbally abusive.

The answer to the chicken or the egg question is a question.

"Does the creature that eventually evolved into the chicken also count as a chicken?" If it does then the chicken came first (since egg laying started at a later stage in evolution).

Otherwise the egg came first (since the genetic mutation that resulted in the chicken as we know it occurred before the egg hatched).

On a more serious note I can attest to abuse being more common in regards to autistic children.. our parents cant relate and when a human being cant relate to and understand a creature it doesn't fall into their definition of a human being therefore they are invalid as targets of empathy. We are their children on an intellectual level but on an emotional level we are.. frighteningly alien perhaps?

Of course as others have stated even when abused its rare to say anything.. its just the way things are it never occurred (at least to me) to report it since it would cause short term disruption of my routine which was far more terrifying than continuing to deal with the stress and suffering I had already grown accustomed to.

My sister attempted to contact child services on my behalf but my stepmother just lied through her teeth then hit my sister in the head with a telephone after they left.

M thoughts exactly. The abuse does not cause autisn, auties are different - to some unenlightened parents "just not right" - and so abused.

As if things are not bad enough already.Daddy comes home and kicks the dog. I was the dog.

Same happened to me, then I was placed in foster care where I endured mental abuse instead of
physical. Most physical injury heals with time, mental and emotional scars don't go away. These did
not cause my Autism, rather my guardians and siblings did not understand my peculiarities and issues.
I've learned to live with my limitations and stop beating myself up over lost opportunities because I
underestimated my abilities and potentials.

And right there, Krex (and in the rest of your post), you've, er, struck the nail on the head, as it were. Some insecure NTs seem to think that if they hit their AS kids hard enough, it will rewire their brains, and they'll start acting more "normal". (As an aside, the more I read here, the more fortunate I believe I was in my choice of parents - mine thought I was odd, but they didn't necessarily regard that as a bad thing...)

I also agree that the researchers got their correlations backwards, rather like someone examining the smoking/disease linkage and concluding that lung cancer leads to smoking two packs a day. (Or the recent series of PSAs here in the States, finding a link between drug abuse, drinking, and underage gambling, and concluding that the gambling leads to the drinking and drugs, rather than the idea that perhaps they simply have common risk factors...)

I cry for you, ritchie.

How do you know this? There is no way to prove it.