We have learned a lot about autism in the time since I first began working with children whom most would call clear cases of early infantile autism in the 1960s and 70s. For one good thing, we are no longer dogged by B. Bettlehiem’s theory that autism is caused by cold, distant (”refrigerator”) mothering. But we have much to learn, still.
Although we know much more about the language and social problems that autistic children have, scientists been not yet constructed a compelling theory of possible genetic causes and neurological deficits that likely underlie this disorder. However, a group of neuroscience researchers at the Massachusetts Intitute of Technology (MIT) is hoping to unravel the sources of the disorder, according to Emily Singer of the MIT Technology Review.
Based on their view that autism is a multple-allele problem and aided by a large grant, the scientists plan to investigage many fundamental connections.
“We will look for a relationship between gene variation and variation in the brain,” says John Gabrieli, an MIT neuroscientist. Gabrieli will use fMRI, a type of MRI that shows which areas of the brain are active when people think about specific problems, to compare brain activity in normal individuals and in those with different forms of the suspected autism genes. Specifically, his group will look at how people deal with social functions, by imaging brain activity in response to faces and facial expressions.
Link to Drawing Out Autism by Ms. Singer
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The U.S. Congress is preparing to acknowlege the 30th anniversary of the passage of Public Law 91-142, the Education of Handicapped Children Act which is the predecessor to the contemporary Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The draft resolution is available as a PDF.
Download a copy (Windows users, right-click the link; Mac users, control click).
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In popular views of disability, identifying children as having disorders—labeling them—causes problems. This idea is especially popular with critics of services for children with emotional or behavioral disorders, but it is inaccurate.
As Jim Kauffman has pointed out repeatedly, it is logically impossible to provide services to individuals without deciding to whom we are going to provide those services. This point, along with others, is reiterated in an article by John Ruscio in which he reports a review of the literature on negative effect of labels from The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice. Here’s the abstract:
The stigma of mental illness is a profound social problem with a long history, and it is widely believed that diagnostic labels cause or contribute to such stigmatization. In an evaluation of labeling theory and the research that it prompted, special attention is devoted to a close examination of 3 widely cited studies (Langer & Abelson, 1974; Rosenhan, 1973a; Temerlin, 1968). Despite a pervasive confounding of diagnostic labels with the behaviors they denote, which increases the apparent influence of “mere labels,†the empirical literature does not support the putative negative effect. To more productively combat the stigma of mental illness, it is suggested that psychologists pursue community-based educational and contact-oriented programs, recognize the unavoidability and value of diagnoses, improve diagnostic reliability and validity, and compassionately convey diagnoses in the context of humane and effective treatments.
Link to Mr. Ruscio’s article in the The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice article.
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Steve Forness, talking at the Division for Learning Disabilities conference in Charleston (SC, US), reminded people about how long it takes for children who have emotional or behavioral disorders to receive services. Drawing from Duncan and Forness (1995; Behavioral Disorders), he noted that children’s parents reported first suspecting that something was amiss about their child when the child was 3.5 years old. However, the first recognition of the problem by people outside the family (e.g., notes in MD’s records) didn’t come until a couple of years later, first school recognition didn’t come until about age 6, and actual identification as a child needing special education services didn’t come until when the child was going on 8 years of age. Most often, the special education category used to identify these children, however, was Learning Disabilities rather than Emotional and Behavioral Disorders.
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