Talk:Autism/Archive 1

message: I'll quote the article first and comment below:
"Diagnoses of ADHD together with autism or Asperger Syndrome are becoming increasingly common in children. In young children, the two conditions can appear similar. However, as children age, differences emerge between the two conditions. Children with typical autism become more withdrawn, while with a suitable environment hyperactivity reduces. In either event, problems with social skills can develop.
By contrast, children with ADHD rarely become calmer with age but often develop social and communication skills to a normal level. Any issues with social skills experienced by children with ADHD may have other causes. Examples include low self-esteem or difficulty with quiet, constructive social interaction."
There are many misunderstandings about autism. Sometimes I feel ADD is even more misunderstood - and yes I hate that it was changed to ADHD years back, I'll explain. Hyperactivity is, I can not stress this enough: just ONE possible symptom of a much more complex condition. Why this is so personal for me, is that I have the hypoactive form and it is suggested that there are just as many of us as our more outgoing counterparts. We may fidget and display every single other symptom as children, but because we don't possess the sterotypical one of "bouncing off the walls" we slip through the system. I was finally diagnosed at age 17, having known there was something 'different' about me for quite some time - no matter how hard I tried, or how much I wanted to be an Honor Student, I scraped by with C's and D's (but easily aced Psychology - and the other more interesting classes with the help of Ritalin). Now, I read into Asperger's Syndrome and did find it incredibly similar, and I sometimes wonder still if I have it or autism instead. I am extremely withdrawn, am unable to read social cues, am honest to a fault, though the occassional outburst comes out that is usually called "inappropriate", etc. However; what keeps me on the ADD side of the fence is the thinking process which is at the core of what ADD is reallly all about, not the superficial and "cosmetic" behavior. I see the world very abstractly, and artistically - never got through Algebra - though I could've told you it was an arabic word. And despite our differences, me and my hyperactive counterparts seem to just 'sense' each other (I coined the term "Addar"), we are very spontaneous, and have trouble focusing, another stereotype which is true to a certain extent, but more complex than just not being able to concentrate. Anyway, since I have a very biased view on this I thought I'd put it here on the discussion page for review. I also hope someone can takes something away from the anecdotes and tell me if I reallly might have Asperger's syndrome, or autism. All I know is that, whatever I have, it is really lonely. Not: "I haven't had a date in 6 months lonely", but I haven't even had a friend, or just someone to talk to in ten years lonely, and could never seem to connect to any of the friends I had like others can. Anyway, Wikipedia isn't for personal stuff I realize, but it is for edification, and that's what I would like to do here. And the stuff like: "have difficulty with quiet, constructive social interaction" bring certain knee-jerk expletives to my mind. Even to a child that is extremely condescending - the "constructive" word particularly. ADDers have no trouble being constructive in their own non-linear way. Plus it is all based on the erroneous assumption that all ADDers are loud and obnoxious. Khiradtalk 02:59, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: ADHD/ADD

message: The "Autistic Traits" section is attributed to "(Klin and Volkmar, 1997)," but there is no clue in this article which source this is.  Is "1997" the page number of that book, or more likely, is it the publishing year?  This is not in the Wikipedia citation style anyway.  Someone please find out to which source this refers and use the Wikipedia citation formatting, if possible.  If not, maybe the citation should just be removed altogether. Midtempo-abg 23:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed the problem by supplying a different citation. Eubulides 04:53, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Autistic Traits section 

message: This proposal is motivated by today's change which replaced "autism spectrum" with "autistic spectrum" in the lead.
Currently Autistic spectrum is the main article and Autism spectrum redirects to the main article. However, in scholarly literature, Autism spectrum is the preferred terminology; Autistic spectrum used to be more common, but Autism spectrum is now the clear champion. I just now checked Google Scholar, and Autism spectrum has 9,840 hits as opposed to the 8,480 of Autistic spectrum, and the top hits for Autism spectrum are more recent.
So, I propose that the main page be moved to Autism spectrum, with Autistic spectrum left as a redirect to the new main page. Comments? Eubulides 19:44, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename to "Autism spectrum" 

message: Can we lose the line "Some autism are severe or moderate or light" added to the end of this section on 11 April? The poor grammar makes it hard to understand but it doesn't seem to add anything. Maybe there's something in there but as it stands it seems to me no more meaningful than if I went and stuck "Some bears are bigger than others" in the bear article. Scatterkeir (talk) 17:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, if you do not fulfill the criteria for a diagnosis, you are not on the autism spectrum. Autism is characterized by severe and pervasive impairment in several areas of development, and if you have "very weak traits" you should not get this diagnosis. But I agree with you that the article could mention that there are degrees of impairment, which also probably will be specified in the next version of the dsm. Lova Falk talk 14:47, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Classification 

message: I renamed this article from Autistic spectrum to Autism spectrum. To see the previous discussion for this article, please see Talk:Autistic spectrum. To see why it was renamed, please see Talk:Autistic spectrum #Rename to "Autism spectrum". Eubulides 15:55, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just moved the above page to Talk:Autism spectrum/Archive 1, while I was history merging the article. The older discussions can be found there. Graham87 12:43, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renamed from "Autistic spectrum" 

message: The german autism article discusses autistic disorder, asperger's syndrome and atypical autism in one article and it mentions the autism spectrum as the concept of a continuum. They do have an additional, yet short, article on 'Early infantile autism'. I think this article can link to de:Autismus. --Fenke 18:38, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  de:autismus 

message: I noticed there's both this ASD page and a PDD (Pervasive developmental disorder) page. Both definitions are mainly the total of Autism, Asperger's, Rett, CDD and PPD-NOS. So, is there a difference between ASD and PDD, and if not, should the pages be merged? --Daraku no Tenshi (talk) 00:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  PDD 

message: I noticed that autistic people, such as myself, tend to not do well in public schools because of the usually-arbitrary rules that can make an autistic break down. So, in that event, a school for autistic children was developed in Pennsylvania recently. I heard about it on the news one day. Angie Y. (talk) 01:41, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Schools for autistic people 

message: "Autism is intentional, whoever is actually in charge is in the process of destroying the naturalness of the human race. They gave everyone ADD, and some people took it much harder."
This is why wikipedia is regarded as a joke, at best, and a cancer, at worst. Shame...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.102.186.115 (talk) 00:59, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Vandalism is certainly a problem with Wikipedia. That particular vandalism was reverted within half an hour; the article had been stable for over three days before that, so you just happened to hit a small bad window. Next time, please feel free to fix vandalism yourself, if you encounter it; just visit the article history and hit the "undo" button; please see Help:Reverting for more info. Eubulides (talk) 01:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Random 

message: This recent edit by , as well as this recent edit by , both attempted to add an external link to the Association for Science in Autism Treatment, a not-very-active autism organization. This article doesn't really have the space for external links to Autism Speaks, Generation Rescue, and dozens of other autism-related organizations, nor does it have the space for a link to the ASAT. The ASAT link (like links to Autism Speaks, etc.) doesn't satisfy the criteria of WP:ELYES and so I removed it. Eubulides (talk) 18:37, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Association for Science in Autism Treatment 

message: The article Dion Betts is being discussed for possible deletion.
I was unable to find sources indicating his notability (or that of his books), but I am by no means an expert in this area! If he is indeed notable, if his books are thought of as being significant in the field of Autism spectrum, I would be grateful if people could take part in the discussion.
I am not seeking to get this article deleted if he/his books are actually notable and significant in the field. However, if they are not significant, then the article is right to be deleted.
If you want to make your thoughts known, the AfD is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dion Betts
Thanks -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 17:38, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  AfD: Dion Betts 

message: A  introduced this text:
The AUTISM MOVEMENT IN INDIA: The autism movement in India has seen the intensive passion with which individuals have come forward to start centres across India to help not only children with autism but also parents/caregivers/professionals with the most effective strategies that could make a difference to those effected by autism/ASD/Asperger's syndrome. Most recent among the organisations is the INDIAN AUTISTIC SOCIETY'S CARE4AUTISM CENTRE(www.care4autism.info)and its associate centre MAYA (MANAGING AUTISM for YOUNG ADULTS)in VADODRA, GUJARATstarted in Hyderabad, India offering yeomen services to the educational needs of children both young and adults alike.
Apart from its various activities for children with Autism, it is also involved in conducting Work-shops and seminars for parents and caregivers/professionals across India which will help in spreading the awareness among public and teaching community alike.
This material as-is isn't suitable for Wikipedia, as it is promotional and doesn't have a neutral point of view. I suggest adding a brief, neutrally-worded report to Sociological and cultural aspects of autism. For now, I reverted the addition and copied it to here. Eubulides (talk) 19:08, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Autism movement in India 

message: I've created a new article (stub) for Yale's Ami Klin, a fairly high-profile autism/Asperger's researcher. As this is rather out of my field, I'm looking for any assistance in expanding the article. Thanks. - SummerPhD (talk) 21:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: New article in need of attention

message: Some of the other autism-related pages, such as Heritability of autism, have recently switched to the  family of citation templates, which make the pages smaller and faster to load. Let's use these templates here too; that will make it easier to share citations among the pages, and also make this page a bit faster and smaller. Eubulides (talk) 04:56, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page loading efficiency and style 

message: ARTICLE HOUSEKEEPING: DSM-IV REFERENCE
In it's introduction, I note this article states: "According to the DSM-IV, the three main forms of ASD are" -- from which point forward, the author then correctly provides the DSM-IV's taxamonic differentiations.
I'm being picayunish here, but, technically, the DSM-IV neither specifically acknowledges nor references the commonly employed term Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Hence, the statement "According to the DSM-IV"  could be mistakenly interpreted to suggest that it does.
NON-EXISTENT DISORDER?
In fact, the terms "Austism Spectrum"  and "Autism Spectrum Disorder" -- while in contermporary usage -- do not actually describe an existing phenotype, but instead have become umbrella terms (and far more euphonious and marketable ones) for actual, existing disorders. And, while it is true that the CDC  mentions ASD on its website, it is nonetheless listed as an alternative description of disorders which are already subsumed under rubric of Pervasive Developmental Disorder. At the very least, the appearance of a neologistic convention, such as ASD, might prove to be a fruitful avenue of inquiry.
FAKE CRISIS?
Another point worth pursuing is this: The purported statistical dispersion of this "new" disorder (1 out of 110 or 1 out of 160, depending on sourcing) is arguably pandemic. Clearly, this is the “WMD” of mental health, if we are to believe the numerous PSAs.  Where is the Jerry Lewis telethon for this horrible crisis? More to the point, where do these statistics come from?
CUI BONO?
Well, several brave souls (myself included), who do not completely accept what essentially amounts to an ontological argument for the existence of ASD, argue that what is really going on here is not an epidemiological phenomenon, but instead,  a marketing ploy; after all, the existence of  a new and properly fear-mongered disorder like ASD spectrum is potentially worth billions - especially to the pharmaceutical/Mental Health conglomerate. And, one has to admit, Autism Spectrum Disorder is more likely to simply roll off the tongue at congressional lobbying parties than Pervasive Delevopmental Disorder. (Which, by the way, cannot be said while intoxicated.)
BOOGIEMAN TACTICS
Case in point: Unless you've been in seclusion, you have heard, as have I, the many PSAs about ASD (Ok, I'm abusing my acronymic privileges).  The one which comes to mind is the frequently aired radio add (done by actress Mariska Hargitay of NBS's Law And Order),  warning us that if our infants don't babble on schedule or meet certain other maturational milestones, they probably have ASD.  After all, Mariska tells us: "One out of 150 children have Autism."   These and other similar statements would appear to be designed to evoke a collective, sympathetic nervous system response on the part of the public. (Boogieman, table for 300 million?)
STATISTICAL LEGERDEMAIN
So, where did these statistics come from?   One hypothesis states that the increase in diagnosed cases of Autism is "an artifact of increased surveillance and broadening of the definition of autism."  The Increase in Autism Diagnoses: Two Hypotheses
Interestingly, other pediatric epidemiological studies of Pervasive Developmental Disorders    or ASD-type disorders, arrive at a similar conclusion;  far from being  statistically anomalous, the occurrence of this typology has uniformly remained at about 60-70/10,000 children.  Epidemiology of Pervasive Developmental Disorders - A compendium of 43 studies.
I'm just sayin.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Psyteam (talk • contribs) 14:02, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right about ASD not being in the DSM. That error was recently introduced, and I just now fixed it. The rest of the comment doesn't seem to be suggesting any specific change. Eubulides (talk) 18:13, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  '''Statistical legerdemain or actual disorder?''' 

message: Holy schmoly! I agree with the previous comment, in that this is an EXCELLENT rewrite of this article. The page is now updated, accurate, cogent, and organized. I viewed the page before these edits, and it has, in my opinion, been absolutely transformed from its previous "C-class" state. It provides a detailed overview of various aspects of autism spectrum, exactly what we need the Wikipedia page to be! I also believe that the recent edits made in the Neuropsychological Findings section are necessary, even though they've been accused of being "very tenuous speculations." Neuropsychological aspects of various disorders are coming to the forefront of medical and psychological research. In order for these Wikipedia pages to be up-to-date with the current research, these "speculations" should follow the times, though perhaps noting that these physiological and neurological correlates of ASD are still uncertain and currently being studied may be beneficial. I also agree that discussing the actual neuropsychological functions affected in the disorder would be great to tie this neuropsychological section together. And hyperlinking some of the brain/neuro terms might be helpful for laypeople who aren't familiar with the field. Other than these minor and probably even optional suggestions, I can't think of anything else to change. The page is stellar, and the edits made to this page are very impressive!   C_Lee 05:27, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page Revamped 

message: Note that there is a separate article on Autism. Perhaps these articles should be merged or their content should be better coordinated, to avoid repetition. Thomas.Hedden (talk) 14:15, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: They are about different things. Autism is about the psychiatric syndrome, "autistic disorder." This article is about that syndrome and others. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 14:33, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with article on Autism? 

message: What are the limits of the spectrum? Some people are better at communication than others, some are better at recognising facial expressions than others... Are we all on the spectrum? Can our autism be measured if we are normally functioning people?  78.86.61.94 (talk) 16:56, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lim=?  

message: I was just wondering if there should be a reference to meltdowns. Although there aren't referenced in the DSM they are accepted by Professionals as a real thing.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.120.103.156 (talk) 00:50, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meltdowns 

message: I have just read the comments regarding GA. I am aware of an online CiteULike Autism research paper sharing library which currently has over 500 research papers. Most papers have related tags relating to the papers specific content. I have my own online PubMed research paper collections which may also be a useful source of secondary (review) research papers Autism collection and Autism and Regression collection dolfrog (talk) 01:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  possible source of supporting research 

message: The second paragraph ends with the phrase "and preoccupations with parts of objections." Unsure whether this is vandalism, or perhaps a carelessly entered attempt at saying "...parts of objects". Regardless, its meaning is not clear. Can someone with subject matter expertise please rewrite this sentence? Publius3 (talk) 20:04, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: agreed and changed. Yobol (talk) 19:45, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  phrase with unclear meaning 

message: Is the picture that mentions the philtrum a joke? There are lines all over the face. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be noticing. Biosthmors (talk) 23:03, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It could be that those lines are means of measurement for specific facial features; of course, that is pure speculation on my part, I think we should probably remove it as I don't see what it is adding to the article. Yobol (talk) 23:08, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Added picture here for discussion now that I removed it from page. Yobol (talk) 23:10, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joke?