The Autistic Me

A new study seems to support the stereotype that autistic students and scholars are drawn to the STEM disciplines.  Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Participation Among College Students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder , by Wei, Yu, Shattuck, et al, indicates I am not alone in being drawn to the STEM fields. While I love writing, and consider myself a "writer" before most other roles I might have in life, even my writing tends to embrace my "geekhood." I am a geek. When I'm not writing, I'm experimenting with programming tools, new hardware, and reading all I can on websites like Slashdot and Ars Technica . My bookcases reveal my split-personality: books on art theory sit above books on database programming. I tell myself that programming is simply a special form of writing, but few of my colleagues in English or communications would agree. The idea of a programming poet confounds people, especially in an academic world with traditional di...

Thursday night I noticed the following on FoxNews.com: Dr. Manny Says Autism Breakthrough Is Real...For Now By Dr. Manny Alvarez Published June 09, 2011 | FoxNews.com …[W]hen you look at a family that delivers twins, and one is autistic and the other is not, as a scientist, I have to believe there is a genetic component to the problem. The studies, published in the journal Neuron, appear to have proven as much. The researchers examined the genomes of more than 1,000 families in which one child was autistic and the siblings and parents were not. Their findings confirmed a growing body of evidence that autism can be caused by a random genetic mutation that could occur at any one of hundreds of different sites in the human genome. On behalf of my son, who was born with autism, and my family, I just want to congratulate the men and women who spent years working on this research. The comments were soon filled with the standard anti-vaccine rhetoric, government conspiracy claims, and general...

I have written several times about the "visual" nature of my thought process. This same topic appears in various memoirs by individuals diagnosed with autism. We write about " Thinking in Pictures " and "seeing the shapes of numbers" after being " Born on a Blue Day " (to borrow from two book titles). But why do people diagnosed with ASDs think visually? How does this affect decisions and communications by autistic individuals? Brains of People with Autism Focus More on Visual Skills - US News and World Report MONDAY, April 4 (HealthDay News) -- The brains of people with autism concentrate more resources in areas devoted to visual perception, resulting in less activity in areas used to plan and control thoughts and actions, says a new study. The findings may explain why people with autism have exceptional visual abilities, said the researchers at the University of Montreal. They analyzed data from 26 brain imaging studies that were conducted over...

Today I had a pleasant e-mail exchange with another autism blogger. It reminded me of a basic truth about autism: express opinions or facts, you are certain to offend someone. You could state that autism begins with the letter "A" and someone will read into this statement something conspiratorial. "Autism" as a topic is as polarized as the current U.S. political environment. Every issue is an "us vs. them" issue. Human existence is nuanced. My ethical system is rather rigid, but I also realize that sometimes we weigh "right" and "wrong" on a metaphorical scale. Our opinions on some matters are reflections of our experiences and cultural norms. I'd like to argue science is science, but even science seems to engender endless debates. Scientists will admit funding and publishing are definitely political and socially complex. Some of the reactions to blog topics are anticipated, while others have surprised me. Allow me to explore so...

On many Web forums dedicated autism, no matter the topic there is an increasing likelihood that a discussion will be hijacked by the anti-vaccine, "curebie," anti-establishment, conspiracy theorists. They are led by "journalists" and celebrities given prominence by the Huffington Post, DailyKos, Age of Autism, and other websites. They admire discredited men and women, individuals reprimanded in legal proceedings, sanctioned by medical review boards, and disavowed by universities. Yes, to many of us with science and quantitative backgrounds, the science is firmly established — as firmly as one can expect within medical science. And what annoys us is that self-proclaimed watchdogs and anti-vaccine hooligans, and they are hooligans, point to "journal articles" and demand other articles in response. Of course, the "journals" publishing the Geiers and most others are vanity journals, foreign publications, or minor journals of no standing — but that do...

Tonight I read yet another post from an anti-vaccine advocate citing epidemiologists who can prove a link between vaccination and autism. Those must not be very ethical epidemiologists. Science is seldom certain of anything. It is rare that a researcher can say X is definitely, undoubtedly, always caused by Y. Only in public policy debates do we make science seem certain of things. In academic papers, everything is reduced to correlation and likelihoods, seldom are there certainties. Being certain can lead to embarrassment later in most fields. Epidemiologists are professionally constrained from stating that "X causes Y." They can offer correlation, probability, and other measures of statistical significance, but they are not experts in causation. In fact, the U.S. Code prohibits the use of epidemiology as the sole or even primary evidence in a case relating to causation. The British and Canadian courts have similar restrictions on epidemiologists. An epidemiologic study publ...

The great portal/blog Left Brain / Right Brain has a lengthy post on current research dealing with potential causes of autism. The post offers links to multiple peer-reviewed studies underway on the familiar suspects, ranging from mercury to the age of parents. Of course, no amount of research will influence the zealots, but I can at least suggest reading the actual studies underway: GENE-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS IN AN AUTISM BIRTH COHORT AUTISM IN A FISH EATING POPULATION (a study of a population exposed to high levels of mercury) NEUROIMMUNOTOXICOLOGY OF MERCURY GENETIC SUSCEPTIBILITY TO MERCURY-INDUCED IMMUNE DYSFUNCTION IN AUTISM & ASD Again, I can only suggest reading and following the research. Many of the early findings demonstrate what we already know: mercury and other toxins are dangerous. What the findings do not, at least not yet, demonstrate is that mercury or other heavy metals are the primary cause of autism. Mercury exposure in adults does cause neurological damag...