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By ScienceMode
SALT LAKE CITY – Twenty years after first being assessed in a long-term autism study, 41 Utahns with the disorder had a higher social outcome than those in similar studies, University of Utah psychiatry researchers have reported in the Journal of Autism Research online.
Although the researchers can’t yet explain why the follow-up study showed the Utah group fared better overall in living independently, developing social relationships, and in some cases even showing higher IQs than 20 years ago, the results offer hope for many with a childhood diagnosis of autism, according to Megan A. Farley, Ph.D., the study’s first author and a research associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the U of U School of Medicine.
“This is an amazing group of people who, in many cases, did a lot more than their parents were told they would ever do,” Farley said of those who participated in the follow-up study. “This gives a lot of hope for younger people with autism and average-range IQs.”
Farley and her fellow researchers drew the follow-up study participants from an original group of 241 Utahns with autism who took part in a University of Utah and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), study from 1984-1988. The average age of participants in the original study was 7, while the average age at the follow-up study was 32. Participants in the current study had an average childhood non-verbal IQ of at least 70.
For the follow-up study, the researchers assessed the participants’ overall social outcome by their ability to maintain paid employment, the existence of meaningful social relationships, and their degree of independence in daily life. From these criteria, an individual’s overall social outcome was assigned to one of five categories: very good, good, fair, poor, and very poor:
* Very good meant the person held paid employment without extra support to perform job duties, had important social relationships, and a high independence in daily life.
* Good indicated the individual had a generally high level of independence at work and in daily life, requiring some extra support, and also had a friendship or some acquaintances.
* Fair reflected the need for regular support at work or home, but the person did not have to live at a special residential facility. The participants in this category had acquaintances through special activities but no particular friends.
* Poor showed the need for a high level of support, such as a residential living facility and planned daily activities for people developmental disabilities. Those in this category had no friends outside their residential living arrangements.
* Very poor meant the individual required a high level of care in a hospital setting with no autonomy and had no friendships.
By these measures, the researchers found that 24 percent of the participants had a very good social outcome; 24 percent had a good outcome; 34 percent had a fair outcome; and 17 percent were rated in the poor social outcome category. No one’s social outcome fell into the very poor category.
About half of the 41 study participants were employed in full- or part-time competitive jobs. Six were living independently, including three who owned homes. Three were married with children, and one person also was newly engaged to be married. Eleven of the participants have driver licenses and the same number had a higher IQ than when assessed 20 years earlier.
“Adults with autism haven’t received the attention from researchers that children have, but the few studies that have been done on similar groups showed 15 percent to 30 percent having good outcomes, compared to the 50 percent in our study,” Farley said. “One early Canadian study showed similar results to ours, but other studies have had fewer people living and working independently as adults.”
Although, Farley doesn’t know why the Utah group fared better than those in other autism studies, she thinks it may be related to early intervention to help children with the disorder and strong social and family networks in Utah.
The most important factor in whether study participants had a better living outcome was their degree of independence in daily activities—being able to take care of themselves, hold employment, live on their own or at least semi-independently, and take part in meaningful social relationships, according to Farley. Although IQ significantly influences social outcome, daily independence plays an even greater role in determining how well people with autism function, the researchers said.
Although encouraging, the follow-up study results also show autism’s devastating toll. About half the participants could not live or work independently, and the majority lived with their parents, although many of them had a high level of independence in their daily activities. Social isolation is a serious problem as well—44 percent of the group has never dated. In addition, 60 percent of the study participants, even some of those who had achieved independent living and working, were prone to anxiety and mood disorders and worried about a social stigma attached to autism. The IQ of eight participants declined since they first were evaluated 20 years ago.
The 41 participants in the follow-up originally were identified through a statewide epidemiological survey between 1984 and 1988 conducted by the U of U and UCLA. The goal of that study was to identify every person born with autism between 1960 and 1984 and who lived in Utah during the four-year survey. The survey was one of the largest population-based autism studies in the world, meaning it tried to assess the whole population of Utahns with the disorder rather than a select group. By assessing participants from the original study, the follow-up gives a unique perspective on the long-term course of autism, according to Farley.
The long-term follow-up also will help researchers identify issues that affect the social outcomes of adults who were diagnosed with autism as children, providing information that can help determine services that will help these adults lead more fulfilling lives.
“Our current results have encouraged us to go further in following up the entire sample of 241 adults who were identified with autistic disorder in the 1980’s,” Farley said. “We now know that, with the help of the remaining adults and their families who are willing to give of their time and energy, we will be able to have a better understanding of the life course in autism. We’re excited now to contact all of the families who participated in the original study.”
Source: University of Utah Health Sciences
Source: http://sciencemode.com/2009/03/23/ha...p-study-shows/
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by AFP
BANGKOK (AFP) — A Thai fireman turned superhero when he dressed up as comic-book character Spider-Man to coax a frightened eight-year-old from a balcony, police said Tuesday.
Teachers at a special needs school in Bangkok alerted authorities on Monday when an autistic pupil, scared of going to lessons, sat out on the third-floor ledge and refused to come inside, a police sergeant told AFP.
Despite teachers' efforts to beckon the boy inside, he refused to budge until his mother mentioned her son's love of superheroes, prompting fireman Sonchai Yoosabai to take a novel approach to the problem.
"My fireman rushed back to the fire station and took out his Spider-Man costume... The boy immediately ran into his arms with a smile," sergeant Virat Boonsadao said.
He said the fireman keeps the costume at work to liven up school fire drills.
Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...jcI6x5ULZyySyA
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By Tiffany Lankes
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Florida parents are pushing for a law that could dramatically change how teachers treat students with disabilities, banning techniques such as secluding children in isolated rooms, strapping them into chairs and spraying them with liquids.
The bill would require school districts to train teachers non-physical strategies for working with special needs students. It also would require teachers to file reports and notify a child's parents when restraints are used in emergency situations.
If the bill is passed, Florida would have one of the toughest laws in the country for regulating the treatment of the state's 376,000 students - about 14 percent - who qualify for special education.
"What we're talking about here is creating safety for teachers and children ," said Sylvia Smith, with Florida's Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities.
A similar proposal died last year after critics said it was vague and could restrict teachers too much. And this time around, the state is dealing with a severe budget shortage, also putting the future of the bill in doubt.
"Anything that is going to have a fiscal impact in this kind of year is going to be a problem," said Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee.
But supporters are pinning their hopes on a growing advocacy movement among parents, who say techniques referenced in the bill are dangerous. The movement gained steam after a former Venice Elementary teacher was found not guilty of abusing her profoundly disabled students, even after admitting to hitting them in the head with objects and strapping them in chairs to control their movement.
"There's just been too much going on," said Sharon Boyd, a Charlotte County parent who has been at the forefront of the push for the legislation. "We're done with it."
Hundreds of supporters plan to rally for the bill in Tallahassee on Developmental
Disabilities Awareness Day on Tuesday.
Florida's Department of Education has been trying for more than a year to implement its own rules, but each time it has brought a proposal to the table parents and advocates have said it is not strict enough.
Some of the techniques banned in the bill may seem surprising to people unfamiliar with special education classrooms, where teachers sometimes use unconventional strategies to teach students with extreme learning challenges and to control their behavior.
But the state does not have any policies or laws regulating what techniques teachers can use, even though there are rules for people who work with the disabled in health care settings.
The state allows school districts to decide, but most do not have specific written guidelines.
Parents and advocates say properly trained teachers can manage behavior without getting physical.
There is no way to know how widespread the use of restraints is in Florida classrooms.
Most school districts do not require teachers to record instances, or report them to anyone - including parents.
Some parents say they have no idea their children are being restrained until they come home with injuries.
"No one knows what goes on behind those doors," said Boyd, whose 9-year-old son has autism.
Even educators debate the legitimacy of restraints.
Administrators in Sarasota County say they do not allow teachers to use most of the techniques that would be outlawed in the bill.
"When I review the bill I didn't see it as an additional burden," said Sonia Figaredo-Alberts, who oversees Sarasota's special education services.
The Florida Education Association has not taken a position on the bill, but spokesman Mark Pudlow said the organization has a lot of concerns .
The bill has not yet been scheduled for a hearing before either of the Legislature's education committees, but Detert said her staff is conducting an analysis of its costs and its impact.
Advocates say that school districts already spend money on training and could redirect their resources.
They also say if teachers are using the correct techniques the need to use physical restraints, and file the accompanying paperwork, will be rare.
Source: http://www.gainesville.com/article/2...ed-are-taught-
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By News-Medical.Net
People with autism-related disorders are less likely to make irrational decisions, and are less influenced by gut instincts, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust. The study adds to the growing body of research implicating altered emotional processing in autism.
Decision-making is a complex process, involving both intuition and analysis: analysis involves computation and more "rational" thought, but is slower; intuition, by contrast, is much faster, but less accurate, relying on heuristics, or "gut instincts".
Previous studies have shown that our response to a problem depends on how the problem is posed - the so called "framing effect". A surgeon who tells a patient that there is an 80% chance of surviving an operation is more likely to gain consent than one who tells the patient there is a 20% chance of dying, even though statistically these mean the same thing.
Now, in a study published today in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers in Professor Ray Dolan's group at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) have used the framing effect to study decision-making in people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
According to the National Autistic Society, these disorders affect up to one in a hundred people in the UK. They range from mild conditions, such as Asperger syndrome, through to highly disabling conditions, such as Rett syndrome. Symptoms - which vary widely in severity - include language problems, poor social interaction and rigid patterns of behaviour and thinking.
Participants in the study performed a task involving deciding whether or not to gamble with a sum of money. For example, they would be given £50 and be presented with two options: option A was to keep £20; option B was to gamble, with a 40% chance of keeping the full £50 and a 60% chance of losing everything. This version was known as the "gain frame".
At other times, the participants would be presented with the "loss frame", the only difference being that option A was phrased in terms of losing money. In other words, when given £50, option A was to lose £30 of their initial amount; option B was the same as above.
Despite option A being essentially the same in both gain and loss frames, the researchers found that the "control" participants - those without ASD - were more likely to gamble if the first option was to "lose" rather than "keep" money. For participants with ASD, this effect was much smaller, suggesting that this latter group was less susceptible to the framing effect - in other words, they were less likely to be guided by their emotions into making inconsistent or irrational choices.
"People with autism tended to be more consistent in their pattern of choices, their greater attention to detail perhaps helping them avoid being swayed by their emotions," says Dr Neil Harrison.
Although this attention to detail and a reduced influence of emotion during decision-making is beneficial in some situations, it may be a handicap in daily life, explains Dr Benedetto De Martino.
"During social interactions a lot of information must be processed simultaneously, making this a very complicated computational task for the brain," he says. "To solve these complex problems we rely on simplifying heuristics - gut instincts - rather than extensive logical reasoning. However, the price that we seem to pay for this ability is that sometimes irrelevant contextual information leads us to make inconsistent or illogical choices.
"Less reliance on gut instincts by people with autism may underlie their difficulties in social situations, but also enable them to avoid potentially irrelevant emotional information and make more consistent choices."
The study reinforces previous research suggesting that the key difference in how people with ASD make decisions may lie in the amygdala, an area of the brain critically involved in processing emotions. In a 2006 study published in the journal Science, Dr De Martino and colleagues showed that decision-making involves activity in the amygdala. In people with ASD, the amygdala has been shown to differ from that in the majority of people - not in size, but in the density of nerve cells.
Dr Harrison believes their research may play an important role in highlighting the strengths of people with ASD, rather that focusing on negative aspects of the disorder.
"Our research shows a positive strength in people with autism, more research focussing on abilities as well as disabilities of people with autism will enable us to gain a clearer understanding of this condition while simultaneously assisting people with autism in living rich and full lives."
Source: http://www.opposingviews.com/article...n-gut-instinct
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By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff | March 22, 2009
WILLIAMSTOWN - Much of what matters to Jessica Park can be found in a small room on the second floor of a rambling old house in this western Massachusetts college town. The walls of Park's bedroom, which doubles as her art studio, are covered with posters of rainbows, lightning, Las Vegas, and astronomical phenomena: the constellations, galaxies, the moon. Perfume bottles and body creams, dozens of them, are lined up on a dresser. Trays of paints fill the shelves next to Park's drawing table, which holds a sketch for the artist's current commission, a painting of the Taj Mahal.
In a couple of months the architectural jewel will be rendered in Park's signature style: each spire, minaret, balcony, and dome transformed with a meticulous hand and mysterious vision into a precise riot of color.
"I use acrylics. Sometimes come straight from the tube, but usually mix them up," Park says of her brilliant hues. "I like how they look!"
Park is autistic, and her room is a window on what she calls enthusiasms and others call obsessions. Her previous enthusiasms - the subjects of Park's early paintings - include radiators, dials, and heaters. In recent years, Park's artwork has been dominated by Victorian houses surrounded by weather anomalies and set against night skies made of "purplish black," her favorite color. The skies are invariably filled with stars, painstakingly depicted in their correct positions and dimensions.
It would be hard to overstate just how keenly, and to what powerful effect, Park's art is an extension of her autism. As a small child, largely uncommunicative, Park was fascinated by abstract shapes and color gradations. She is also a mathematics savant, able since she was young to create her own complex number systems. (It took a mathematician to recognize the seemingly random series Park wrote on a piece of paper when she was 12, which turned out to be the squares of the numbers from 51 to 100 arranged according to the number of powers of 2 they contain.) Order, as it is for many autistic people, became a driving force in Park's life.
And so it is in her artwork, a selection of which is now up at Endicott College in Beverly. The well-defined edges and controlled patterns of brick, stonework, clapboards, and shingles appeal to the 50-year-old artist, according to her mother, Clara Claiborne Park, a former English professor at Williams College and author of two highly-regarded books: 1967's "The Siege: A Family's Journey into the World of an Autistic Child" and 2001's "Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter's Life with Autism."
During a recent visit to the Park family's home, exchanges with Clara, who is in her late 80s and has speech difficulties, were limited. Jessica's sister Rachel, who imports Asian art and artifacts for sale online, facilitated an interview with Jessica. (Another sister, Katharine, is a history of science professor at Harvard.)
Conversation focused on the tasks that make up Park's days: working as a clerk in the mailroom at Williams College's Paresky Center (in 2007 it was officially christened the Jessica H. Park Mailroom), a job she's held for nearly 30 years; taking care of household chores in the home she shares with her mother and her father, David Park, a retired physics professor; and cooking.
"Spaghetti sauce. Fish chowder. Eggplant. Tuna noodle casserole. And chocolate cake," Jessica Park says, when asked about her favorite dishes to make. Unable to engage for long, she regularly jumps up from her chair to look at the Las Vegas photos she and her sister Rachel have collected, or check the WeatherBug on her computer, or bring more tea and cookies to the living room. And while the formerly mute child is now capable of some social interaction, Park suddenly becomes agitated - as she has all her life - when a visitor asks a question that begins with the word "what." No one knows why.
Park's art is displayed throughout the house, a patchwork of well-worn rooms and narrow hallways, as is an honorary doctor of fine arts degree she received in 2003 from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. Her father says that Park's evolution as an artist has played an extraordinary part in forming his daughter's identity.
"There are so many things she can't do, and we've always tried to emphasize the importance of this thing that she does well and use it as a support for her ego, her sense of self, her sense of her own value," David Park says. "I don't know how Jessy's mind works. But I do think this has meaning for her."
Jessica Park works slowly. One of her large pieces, which can be up to 24 inches by 18 inches, will take several months to complete. Park receives around $2,500 for a commissioned painting, according to her brother Paul, a science-fiction novelist, and around half that if the client is a family friend or affiliated with the autistic community. Park is also represented by Pure Vision Arts, a New York exhibition space for artists with developmental disabilities.
"It's not exactly a living," says Paul Park, "but that's because my mother hasn't run it as a living. If Jessy is working and being productive, that's what's required. The selling part of it is big, but not because Jessy likes to spend money. Jessy likes numbers. And she likes them to go up, not down."
The earliest work included in the Endicott show is a childlike abstraction made when Jessica Park was 10. But as the show's catalog notes, even this simple painting is characterized by a striking degree of order and precision - no overlapping of colors, strong patterning, and decisive composition - that is the key mechanism by which Park relates to the world around her. Noted neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, who told her story in a 1998 documentary film for the BBC series "The Mind Traveller," wrote the foreword to both of Clara Park's books as well as the exhibit catalog.
"For Jessy, artwork is not a hobby or a pastime or even a profession or a vehicle for expressing herself to others," Sacks writes. "It is, for her, a crucial way of exploring the varieties of life, within the tight constraints of her methodical systems. It is a way of balancing her life."
Everyone around Park agrees that her artistic development made a dramatic, and perhaps life-changing, leap when she met schoolmates Anna and Diana Saldo at Mount Greylock Regional High School, which Park attended for nine years. Intrigued by this girl who would rock and scream uncontrollably in class but could also, by that time, really draw, the twin sisters (both talented artists who would later go into special education) took Park under their wing. They became, in Anna's words, like peer tutors, accompanying her to gym and art classes despite jeers and teasing from other kids, and they spent two summers living with the Park family on Block Island.
"We didn't have a lot in supplies, little watercolor sets and cast-off printer paper, but we did art lessons that also went into life skills," recalls Anna Saldo, who lives in Williamstown and has Park over for dinner every Monday night. "Initially we modeled what to do, and she would do the same. Jessy was very withdrawn and socially inept, but there was obviously raw talent there. It was nurtured and cultivated, and it bloomed."
Park's artwork may be the gripping subject of books, a film, and gallery exhibitions, yet the artist herself couldn't be less interested. She would rather talk about the difference between perfume and eau de toilette. Her brother Paul can't say whether she actually uses the lotions and potions that hold so much fascination these days. All he knows is that they spend hours at the mall looking at containers, and that for Park skin care isn't so different from numbers, or rainbows, or painting.
"It's an autistic person's paradise, 50 products at each counter. Is this one a.m. or p.m.? Before or after bath? Cream or powder? Everything has a category with tiny gradations, and because she's got a powerful intellect Jessy turns it into a system that she invests in. She's the same way with bathroom cleansers and appliances and vitamin pills," says Paul Park. "It's the way she does her art."
Source: http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_art...cision_is_all/
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By THOMAS J. SHEERAN – 18 hours ago
KENT, Ohio (AP) — Sky Walker watches recordings of "The Price is Right" over and over again on a TV positioned just outside his jail cell, a calming ritual for the autistic teenager, who is prone to erratic behavior swings when his routine is changed.
He also gets his favorite barbecue potato chips, and visitors have been allowed to bring him McDonald's Happy Meals — an attempt to keep his environment as normal as it can be as he awaits a decision on whether he is competent to stand trial in his mother's fatal beating.
Walker, 18, is charged with murdering his long-doting mother, Gertrude Steuernagel, a professor at Kent State University who once wrote publicly about having to cope with her son's aggressive behavior. She was found unconscious in their kitchen Jan. 29 and died eight days later.
The case has posed special challenges to the justice system from the start; Walker had to wear a face mask at an initial court appearance to prevent him from spitting at deputies.
The case has also worried advocates, like Rory McLean, president of the Autism Society of Greater Cleveland, who fear that Walker's actions — he was found cowering in the basement when sheriff's deputies responded to the home — could be misinterpreted.
Walker, who has a court-appointed guardian, is due to be arraigned Friday on the murder charge but both sides agreed he did not have to appear in court. He is also charged with assaulting a deputy who investigated the beating. No pleas have yet been entered on his behalf.
To be deemed competent, a defendant would have to understand the charges against him and be able to help in his own defense.
Prosecutors and Walker's attorney declined to discuss the case. But Dr. Phillip Resnick, a psychiatrist who has worked in the Cleveland courts for decades, said interviewers would need to determine whether a defendant knew at the time of such a crime that killing was wrong.
Autism is a developmental disability that limits social interaction and communication skills, usually starting before age 3. Walker, for example, has trouble putting words together to express himself. A family friend said he uses words only in a way that his mother could easily interpret, such as saying "wheels on the bus" to indicate he was getting upset.
Those with the disorder can be easily upset by a different routine such as a new food item or schedule change. They might find the rub of clothing upsetting and often take comfort in repetitive behaviors, such as rocking back and forth. The gentle hum of a refrigerator might be maddeningly loud for the autistic.
As many as 30 percent of autistic children display some level of aggressive behavior, said Dr. Max Wiznitzer, who treats autistic children in Cleveland.
A 2005 study in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law reported on the cases of three autistic defendants charged with murder. Two were sent to prison mental health units; the third was acquitted.
But an autistic man was convicted in 2004 in San Diego of killing a 17-year-old, and a man with a form of autism got a life prison term in Charleston, S.C., for killing a family friend.
"Generally, there is no diagnosis which would make someone categorically not responsible," said Resnick, who has seen hundreds of mental competency claims although few involved autism.
For his video arraignment on the initial charges, Walker had to be taken from his holding cell, which is being used in place of a regular jail cell so deputies can keep a close watch on him. Seated in a restraint chair and with a cloth mask to prevent him from spitting at guards, he thrashed his head back and forth.
"That's probably because he got out of a routine we've been able to establish for him," said Sheriff's Maj. Dennis Missimi.
Family friend Molly Merryman said she never saw aggressive behavior from Walker during visits he and his mother made to her farm. The adults would make dinner, and Walker would pace a 120-foot circle for hours outdoors, she said.
But as Walker grew older, his behavior appeared to change. Steuernagel hinted at this in a campus newspaper article she wrote a year ago belittling complaints by colleagues on how busy they are.
"Busy? Try spending an evening sitting in a closet with your back to the door trying to hold it shut while your child kicks it in," she wrote.
Neighbor Donald Toth recalled talking to Steuernagel at curbside several years ago. Walker approached his mother and began pounding her with his fists. Steuernagel excused herself, grabbed her son and took him into the house, Toth said.
Steuernagel kept her cell phone handy and warned students she might have to leave class on short notice to check on her son, who attended high school. But, Merryman said, mother and son shared happy moments. They went to Disney World. They danced, taking turns leading. When he was younger, they went door to door on Halloween.
Still, Steuernagel yearned for a simple conversation with her son.
"I keep waiting for that day," she wrote in the Daily Kent Stater. "In the early days, right after his diagnosis, I was sure it would happen. Now, as Sky has celebrated his 17th birthday, I'm not so sure that will happen."
Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...zLCtAD971AA5G4
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Natalia Kleinhans, PhD
by Seattlest
This is fascinating, and thanks to the Big Blog's Scott Sunde for bringing it up: UW researchers have discovered that people with autism have a more intense response to looking at faces than the average Joe. The more social impairment, in fact, the more intense the response to someone's face.
The UW Autism Center's Natalia Kleinhans says, "What we are seeing is hyperexcitability or overarousal of the amygdala, which suggests that neurons in the amygdala are firing more than expected."
The amygdala is a little almond-shaped whozit that is mostly known as your "fight or flight" response center, but it's actually much more than that. Its emotional tagging helps you make decisions, remember things, and identify faces. Without the right emotional response, face-recognition gets a little squirrely.
On the other hand, an overactive amygdala gives you a less detailed picture of the world; it makes you more reactive first, take stock later. If it hits medium-high and stays there every time you see someone's face, it'll make looking at them uncomfortable, like you're getting joy-buzzered each time you see them. (Outside of faces, this probably also relates to the autistic tantrum or freak-out.)
These relationships between an amygdala that won't calm down and bad social skills supports the theory that, when this hyperarousal occurs, a person misses out on important cues--facial expressions, gestures, tones of voice--to interpreting what's going on socially.
Kleinhans' research abstract is here, and it mentions something else worth noting: While the amygdala in autistic subjects didn't habituate (i.e., kept going, "Oh shit! A face!") nearly as quickly as other people's, "there were no group differences in overall fusiform habituation."
The scientists had included the fusiform gyrus in their study because it's theorized that people with autism don't make a great distinction between people and things, and even prefer things to people. The fusiform gyrus is implicated in our responding to pictures of faces differently that that of a car or blender, so they were curious if it was reacting differently. It wasn't.
To us, the amygdala's hyperarousal suggests the reverse of that theory--people with autism are not robots for whom a mom and a toaster are equally useful appliances, but people who are reacting too strongly at the sight of other people. We predict a lot more emphasis on habituation techniques as this information disseminates.
Source: http://seattlest.com/2009/03/19/why_...in_the_eye.php
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