Talk:Causes of autism/Archive 1

message: Some of the 'disease models' are not. For example, extreme male brain is consistent with neurodiversity and social construct. Also, Genetics is not necessarily a disease-oriented etiology theory. Neurodivergent 17:39, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to rearrange if you have a better model. I did duplicate the genetic link to the neurodiversity section just because there are alternative interpretations. I could agree that the "extreme maleness theory" could be a neurodiversity theory. What made me keep it in the disease section is the connection with neonatal testosterone which I find highly suspect and disease-oriented. --Rdos 19:44, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, I agree with your types of explanations. Maybe the categories are too strict. What about primarily physical disorder, primarily psychological disorder or primarily a difference? This group does match my current groupings. I'll change the section names accordingly. --Rdos 06:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that none of the explanations are clearly in a single category. For example, trauma could amplify a genetic predisposition. The social construct theory, however, is definitely not a psychological explanation, and I believe it should be classified along with neurodiversity in a separate section. Neurodivergent 14:25, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, I even added the 'blanket term' theory. I think it truly presents all significant theories to date. Neurodivergent 17:08, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disease models 

message: Unfortunately, I don't believe genetic introgression is citable in relation to autism. Did a quick google search and came up empty. Neurodivergent 16:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are probably right. Look at the introgression section I added to Heritability of autism. It might me original research, but I rather like to think that it follows from the available data, so it shouldn't be anything else than a logical conclusion, and thus not OR. I suppose you can delete it here. It doesn't add much to the argument --Rdos 17:10, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand the threshold for OR is 'easy verifiability'. This doesn't qualify. I think I'll just delete it from both articles. Neurodivergent 17:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genetic introgression 

message: Over at the discussion page for the Asperger syndrome, I have proposed that the title "Causes of autism" be changed to something along the lines of "Asperger syndrome controversies".  That title more accurately reflects the content of this article.  In addition, it would make the AS article a bit more user friendly to have a similarly titled MAIN ARTICLE section:  Here's how it is now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome#Causes_and_etiology
Discuss please! Ycaps123 19:56, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It cannot use Asperger's syndrome in the name. Most of the information has been collected from the autism article. I think this article should concentrate on the causes of both autism and AS. Even if it is controversial if autism and AS is the same thing, any differences can be pointed out explicitly. --Rdos 08:54, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They aren't really pleased with the idea on the AS discussion board either.  I guess that I'm outnumbered.  Oh well, that's life I suppose... Ycaps123 09:52, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  title change 

message: Why didn't any list poverty as a cause? I think there has been some sources, especially that the autistic rate is usually higher in the developing world.
:No, in fact, early evidence suggested autism was more common among affluent families. Thinking today is that its prevalence does not depend on socio-economics. Autism has not been screened, for the most part, in the developing world in order to determine its prevalence. Neurodivergent 19:21, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You must be thinking of a different condition. There are no epidemiological studies of autism from the Middle East and Africa, AFAIK. For social class comparisons, see . Neurodivergent 14:59, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I wish I had it in front of me, but the Rolling Stone article "The Kids with the Faraway Eyes" back in '79 quoted Rimland and Lovaas both as saying that the list of parents of autistic children looked like a page from Who's Who. Typically it has been parents who were highly successful scientists, musicians, or academics who had Kanner-type autistic children. You might also want to read Paul Collins' Not Even Wrong -- it sets you straight not only on what autism can be like, but who an autistic person is.  --Bluejay Young 04:01, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poverty as a cause 

message: I was adjusting the INN for Thiomersal in accordance with WP policy.  The degree of repetition, along with some internal inconsistency, caused me to add this tag.  Midgley 16:13, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup: repetitive. 

message: The references are not done correctly in this article.  See Asperger syndrome for an example of how to clean them up. Please update the referencing mechanism.  Sandy 11:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: Derrick Lonsdale has been removed from See also by an editor who has an issue with his work. I am not defending his research merely saying that he has done work that some consider to be of value and that has been cited in discussions. I have restablished the addition - if this talk page reaches a concensus that he goes, that's fine but unilateral removal is not correct. Even if his work is wrong, for NPOV purposes reference should be made to it to ensure all POV are embraced. See also The study, Lonsdale D and Shamberger R J (2000) "A clinical study of secretin in autism and pervasive developmental delay." Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine, Vol 10 (4), pp 271-280, has been cited by the National Autistic Society.
TerriersFan 03:22, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If we're going to list people in See Also, why not list all well known persons ever associated with autism? Frankly, Lonsdale is not even well known. First time I hear of him, and believe me, that says quite a bit. BTW, there are many double-blind studies on secretin, most of them indicating its effectiveness is at most equal to placebo. Uncontrolled studies by Lonsdale are of little value in comparison. Neurodivergent 05:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Neurodivergent is more or less right about how see also links are dealt, particularly with regard to biographies.  If the association with a particular article is strong enough to make such linking reasonable, and you want to avoid having your link addition reverted, it is generally easier to incorporate the link into the text of an article in a way that explains the association, rather than simply adding a see also link.  Sometimes a good explanation is also needed on the talk page.  As far as Lonsdale is concerned, there may well be reason to mention his contributions to understanding the causes of autism and to developing autism therapies.  Ombudsman 17:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I have removed the link . TerriersFan 17:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Derrick Lonsdale 

message: i have my own personaltheory which i already posted on the "autism" page but i think it fits better here. anyway i think that autism may in some cases be the expression of brillience (intelectual) to such an extent that it obscures all else. an autistic person just doesnt care what other people think because they feal so intelectually superior. they dont care to interact with these "inferior" people and more importantly they feel no need to explain what they are thinking because they feel that no one else would have any chance at understanding it, and they are probably correct.
i think this is true because i think i might have some mild very mild symptoms of autism and thats in some ways, the way that i think. if i took those ideas to an extreme i would completely gnore everyone else because i  just wouldnt care.
i dunno something to consider
:As I also said on the talk:autism page, this is original research.  Could a more experienced wikipedian correct me, are we allowed to remove stuff like this from talk pages?  WLU 21:17, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is called extreme arrogance and bad people skills. I have been working with autistic children for many many years and have never encountered one who considers himself/herself superior. These are children, some as young as a few years old who would not understand the concept of superiority, thus proving that your theory is based on personal superiorly complexes. I personally feel that in a world where the disabled still have to battle prejudice on a day to day basis, articles like this one that harm the reputation of those incapable of disputing this fabrication  for themselves, should be banned.
Laura Keren -ABA tutor 195.206.164.223 09:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

text: It's not going on the page anyway, and plesae be civil.  WLU 20:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  my crazy personal theory 

message: *Frequency of Autism
Any thoughts on merging frequency of autism into this article?  If there is no interest the tag should be removed.  It seems there would a lot of work involved to merge the frequency article into this cause article.  Alan.ca 18:31, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging 

message: Removing to talk page - speculative, unsourced, weasle words:
Susan Bryson has claimed that some individuals with autism have evidence of trauma to the brain stem in early development, and that a small portion of the thalidomide victims have become autistic. The victims' limbs were normal unless thalidomide use continued later in the pregnancy. The brain stem anomaly's most striking feature is inability to focus attention away from a stimulus in a short time like neurotypicals, as demonstrated in a psychological test.
Some people claim the inability to shift attention quickly interferes with the ability to read nonverbal language where fast attention shifts are needed (such as eye language), suggesting that being nonverbal is not a primary feature of autism. Strong and shiftless focus is, however, a benefit in some areas like science, programming, and advanced mathematics. This is supported by the monotropism hypothesis.
Sandy (Talk) 14:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced, non-notable 

message: The section on Extreme Male Brain Theory had this quote:
"Hans Asperger himself said that his patients had "an extreme version of the male form of intelligence."
While this may be accurate, it had not been cited though citation was requested. I rewrote this to reflect information in a citable source and provided the source. Malangthon 23:50, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: uncited

message: Anyone else find the most recent addition by the anon a bit suspect?  I haven't checked out the references, but given the lack of relationship between autism specifically and mercury it looks a bit original research-ish.  Anyone got enough knowledge to refute or remove?  WLU 01:56, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good Lord. That should come out. Definitely an interesting original synthesis. Quite a tap dance to get around the fact that no reliable source in its right mind has linked skin whiteners to autism. MastCell Talk 02:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skin whitening 

message: Eubulides put in the article that: "the vaccine hypotheses have no convincing scientific evidence".  Sorry Eub but where have you been the last decade?!  Sure, You, me and a zillion others are very unconvinced by the "evidence" re vaccines.  But aren't you just slightly aware that a huge number of others are convinced?!  
So that claim is not only unreferenced, but it is counterreferenced.  I suggest you spend less time on your worthy editing work (albeit much may be of value) and more time reading the things you cut out such as http://cogprints.org/5207 . --Idealiot
:The claim was indeed referenced, by Rutter 2005. I am aware that not everyone is convinced. The article has many paragraphs promoting the vaccine theory, with what must be a dozen references on the subject, so it's not clear what the complaint is here. Eubulides 16:15, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vaccine evidence 

message: I have a question as to how to put some information in here.
Many studies use 'possibly related' conditions to study autism; scientists subscribing to the 'connectivity' theory, in their studies, use teratogens that in higher doses induce neural tube defect, but instead cause "autistic-like behavior in mice" born in these studies.
Is this a legitimate relationship, and if so, should it go under a new heading or in already existing one here?
Should these teratogens be listed in this article, or need they be separate because they are not (yet) known to cause autism per se?  Twitchbunny (talk) 23 Feb 2009
:I think I've seen that study ... it should pass the "reliable source" guidelines if it is what I'm thinking of; in any case I would say that for now it would be best to just make a 3rd level heading (i.e. write it === like this ===) and other people will change it if they think it should be merged somewhere else.  <FONT COLOR="#800000"><B>Soap</B></FONT> Talk/Contributions 20:41, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neural Tube Defect link 

message: Causes of autism and Heritability of autism #Proposed environmental triggers cover essentially the same material. Causes of autism treats Heritability of autism as a subpage for genetic factors, while covering environmental factors on its own. But Heritability of autism covers environmental factors too, in a major subsection. This subsection's coverage is shorter and less extensive than the coverage in Causes of autism, so I propose that it be merged into Causes of autism. Eubulides 07:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Support, FWIW. cheers,  Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea; anything that reduces redundancy in the autism-related articles will make them much easier to improve and maintain. MastCell Talk 18:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks. Sorry, I forgot to mention that I did the merge last month after nobody objected. Eubulides 20:15, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge proposal for environmental factors 

message: This edit gave way too much weight for what is a minor theory that (as far as I know) nobody takes seriously anymore. I did a search and found only one reliable Pubmed-indexed source on the topic, a contemporaneous review in Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health, so I made this edit instead, which adds that source and modifies the text to match the citation. Eubulides (talk) 21:17, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Excuse me, but I always believed that study was some sort of joke from it's authors, I mean, linking autism to TV watching through weather conditions does sound a bit like linking religion to climate (in Europe). But hey, maybe they were serious .... Fenke (talk) 21:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm happy with the section as it now is (with the addition). Personally, I think the correlation is way too high to be anything but causal in some respect - but the question is much more caused by what? For example, it's fairly well documented that air quality inside houses is much worse than outside, unless you live next to a freeway. So if television brings adults inside (with kids following), or weather brings everyone inside, then inside air quality could be the underlying cause.  Or Vitamin D deficiency - the less time outside, the less of this generated by sunlight; perhaps it's a crucial vitamin in early infant development (or even natal development).  Or course, all this is speculation, but it I think the academic paper - not a joke, I'm positive - and its reaction (I ran across it at Slate magazine, as the topic of an article which appeared to be the #1 most e-mailed) are worth two paragraphs.  -- John Broughton   (♫♫) 23:26, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

text: * That Slate report was published in 2006; it's not news. It doesn't add anything. This edit is incorrect; the cited source is the original one, dated 2006; it is not dated 2008. I'll revert the edit. Eubulides (talk) 23:42, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Television watching weight 

message: I added some sources and quotes has support of evidence that autism is caused by poisoning from heavy metals. I also mentioned the magazines where I stretch from these sources. It seems to me a more complete than the previous.--Simonbasket (talk) 19:34, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears that this edit is a replay of an attack on Autism by sockpuppet accounts, discussed at Talk:Autism #Dan! and heavy metals and at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents #Suspected sockpuppets at Autism. The inserted text is promoting the WP:FRINGE theory that heavy metals cause autism, and it is obviously a huge WP:WEIGHT violation to give so much prominence to a fringe theory. The text also promotes a heavy-metals organization, DAN!, which again is not the sort of thing that Wikipedia should do. The text is poorly translated from Italian, and some of the Italian words remain; but its main problem is that it's completely NPOV. Eubulides (talk) 19:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assumptions that refer to poisoning by heavy metals 

message: A court hearing a petition to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program ruled that vaccines and autism have no link:
: WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vaccines aren't to blame for autism, a special federal court declared Thursday in a blow to thousands of families hoping to win compensation and to many more who are convinced of a connection.
: The special masters who decided the case expressed sympathy for the families, some of whom have made emotional pleas describing their children's conditions, but the rulings were blunt: There's little if any evidence to support claims of a vaccine-autism link.
: The evidence is weak, contradictory and unpersuasive, concluded Special Master Denise Vowell. Sadly, the petitioners in this litigation have been the victims of bad science conducted to support litigation rather than to advance medical and scientific understanding of autism.
: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/02/12/washington/AP-Autism-Ruling.html
-- Fyslee (talk) 02:30, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Court ruling: no link 

message: A new source from Newsweek: "Anatomy of a Scare. When one study linked childhood vaccines to autism, it set off a panic. The research didn't hold up, but some wounded families can't move on." -- Fyslee (talk) 06:50, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anatomy of a Scare 

message: Another link from Newsweek: Autism Timeline. Lots of potentially good links. -- Fyslee (talk) 06:50, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Autism Timeline 

message: I check pages listed in :Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of :Causes of autism's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "IOM2004":
From Chelation therapy: 
From Thiomersal controversy: 
Reference named "T-in-vaccines":
From Thiomersal: 
From Thiomersal controversy: 
Reference named "WHO":
From Asthma: 
From Thiomersal controversy: 
Reference named "CDC":
From Lead poisoning: National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals, CDC, July 2005.
From Fetal alcohol syndrome: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Guidelines for Referral and Diagnosis (PDF). CDC (July 2004).  Retrieved on 2007-04-11
From Thiomersal controversy: 
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 08:55, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orphaned references in [[:Causes of autism]] 

message: Is it possible that meningitis could? cause light autism, if contracted at a very early age? 217.210.0.19 (talk) 18:32, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Could it? 

message: A  made this change:
: "As autoantibodies have not been are not always associated with pathology, are found in diseases other than ASD, and are not always present in ASD, the relationship between immune disturbances and autism remains unclear and controversial."
However, this change disagrees with the cited source, Wills et al. 2007 (), which says (my italics):
: "Various antibodies to self-proteins have been reported in patients with ASD in the past. However, it must be emphasized that these autoantibodies have not been associated with pathology, are also found in diseases other than ASD, and are not present in all subjects with ASD. It is not abnormal to detect autoantibodies in normal healthy controls, although elevated titers have usually been associated with pathogenic states of disease, possibly representative of ongoing immune activation. Factors acting in concert with autoantibodies, such as genetics and environmental, may be at play in such a heterogeneous spectrum of disorders."
We have to make sure that all the text in this article is properly source; please see Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles). For now, I've  the change. Eubulides (talk) 22:06, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see the disagreement. Wills says that autoantibodies have been reported, which is the same thing the other researchers are saying. (And that's what Causes of autism says as well.) Regardless, we can't have the text disagreeing with the cited sources; if there are other reliable sources that disagree with Wills on this point, they have to be cited specifically. Again, please see Wikipedia:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles) for the kinds of sources that should be cited for medical facts and figures. Eubulides (talk) 04:38, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia policy is that every claim that is challenged or is likely to be challenged requires a source. Please see Wikipedia:Verifiability. Please don't introduce material without supplying reliable sources. None of the claims made in the previous comment are sourced; and none of them contradict what was in the article. My own expertise in this material is irrelevant; what matters are the sources that can be cited. Eubulides (talk) 17:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

text: No, that paper (Wills et al. 2009, ) confirms what the authors were saying in 2007. Its last paragraph says "At present, the pathological significance of elevated levels of autoantibodies to cerebellar protein(s) in ASD is unclear. These autoantibodies may be pathologically relevant, or merely an epiphenomenon of abnormal central nervous system development or brain injury in children with ASD." Eubulides (talk) 05:41, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

text: Perhaps you're right about "associated". I did a brief search and found a review published in next month's Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders which says that recent studies have been "contradictory", and I  the discussion to match this new source (that diff includes some of your changes). This removes the claim about no association, and uses the very latest high-quality review available. I hope that's good enough. Eubulides (talk) 16:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Autoantibodies and pathology 

message: It appears that some of the increase in autism is correlated to the increasing age of parents:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/04/AR2006090400513.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/07/autism-birth-order-parents-age
You can find pointers to scientific papers on the relationship between the parent's age and risk of autism by searching for 'age of father and autism' on this website:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
Here are pointers to some of the studies from Australia, the USA, and from Isreal, which reached the same conclusion:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19781913?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19278291?ordinalpos=6&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18945690?ordinalpos=8&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18796466?ordinalpos=9&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cjshaker (talk • contribs) 02:30, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is already covered in the last paragraph of the Genetics section. That paragraph cites a meta-analysis and a review, which are better sources for this sort of thing than the primary sources and news articles mentioned in the previous comment. For more on this, please see Wikipedia:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles). Eubulides (talk) 04:02, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Age of Parents 

message: A comprehensive review of mercury provoked autism.: "Hg has been found to cause immune, sensory, neurological, motor, and behavioural dysfunctions similar to traits defining/associated with ASDs, and that these similarities extend to neuroanatomy, neurotransmitters, and biochemistry. Furthermore, a review of molecular mechanisms indicates that Hg exposure can induce death, disorganization and/or damage to selected neurons in the brain similar to that seen in recent ASD brain pathology studies, and this alteration may likely produce the symptoms by which ASDs are diagnosed. Finally, a review of treatments suggests that ASD patients who undergo protocols to reduce Hg and/or its effects show significant clinical improvements in some cases. In conclusion, the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence favours acceptance that Hg exposure is capable of causing some ASDs." The full article is free: . This review is from October 2008, however. 
:Ah yes, the Geier Boys.  They are pursuing patent protection for reducing mercury as a way to treat autism and other diseases.  No conflict there!Desoto10 (talk) 02:49, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Mark Geier, a coauthor of , is a junk-science promoter and clearly is not a reliable source. I'll add the other papers to my list of things to read; clearly we shouldn't cite them purely because of their abstracts. Eubulides (talk) 21:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mercury, Inflammation, Autoimmunity, etc. 

message: This page takes a long time to load, and part of this is due to the use of the standard Wikipedia citation templates such as . Recently developed faster & smaller templates (such as ) make the page smaller and faster to load. Let's use them here; they're already in use in Heritability of autism and have resulted in significant time and size savings. Eubulides (talk) 08:48, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page loading efficiency and style 

message: I think the following is using predjudicial language "Although there is no evidence that autism is caused by vaccines or any preservative or additive ever used in vaccines, many parents are concerned about the risks of vaccination due to various unsupported theories related to vaccines.[reference]"  I did not read that paper so it may very well say that but I think it is an over simplification of the issue.  Let me quote from what I added to the Mercury discussion right above "One study used analysis of covariance to show that kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder had higher mean blood RBC Total Mercury (21.4 ug/L) than a control population (11.4 ug/L)." There are other studies there  that show a link between Autism and Hg in the body.  Vaccines have Hg.  Now, the scientific community may discover that it is not cause-effect some day... but I hardly say that these are based on unsupported theory.  Many base these on real data. I vote to remove that sentence in the vaccines sentence.  It may be better to say "The current the scientific consensus is that there is no direct evidence of a cause effect relationship between Vaccinations and Autism (citations) but there are some who disagree (citations)"
--TomLovesMaps (talk) 01:19, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're sure about that, I'd encourage you to go ahead and change the text.  The edit history of this article has been somewhat inactive lately, so waiting for others to give their opinions might keep you waiting for quite a while.  Pages like Asperger syndrome and Autism have more people watching. —Soap— 15:26, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prejudicial Language 

message: In the Rain section there is a sentence sourced by , which is an editorial published by the MD/Ph.D. Noel S. Weiss.  Since this is an editorial / opinion piece, and not a peer-reviewed scholarly work, it cannot be used under Wikipedia's guidelines (Wikipedia:RS#Statements_of_opinion) to source a fact--rather it can only be used to source an opinion.  I found WP:Weasel Words in how this was worded: "It is possible that nonprofessionals will misinterpret..." because it didn't identify the source.  I have changed this around.  But I also wanted to bring up the question of--is this editorial an adequate source?  Because it's a peer-reviewed journal, I think editorials should be given a bit more weight and consideration, but they're still just opinion pieces and, IMHO, must always be attributed to the author of the piece if they are to be included at all.  I checked this piece and I found that it has been cited, and indeed received a reply: ; I have not yet read the reply, but it seems that, if we include the editorial, including the reply would also be warranted.  Since the editorial generated controversy (2 other replies/citations according to google scholar!) it seems worth including all this on the page.  But it's tricky, we need to maintain WP:NPOV here. Cazort (talk) 13:43, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editorial Sourcing, Weasel Words, etc.