Talk:Asperger syndrome/Archive 16

message: The first paragraph is poorly worded and I first interpreted it to claim that people with AS have less empathy than people with HFA. Please try to avoid phrases like "confirmed in a controlled study" unless they're really needed (which they aren't here); people can find out that kind of detail by following the references.
The emotional-attachment sentence at the end of the 2nd parpgraph (citing Attwood twice) made little sense to me. Perhaps it should be removed since it seems pretty wishy-washy.
I liked the last paragraph; I thought it read well and made good points.
:No major dissention, except I think the last paragraph could flow better too, maybe?
::I made these changes to improve the section and remove some repetition. I hope the flow in the last paragraph is better now. Further suggestions welcome. Eubulides 18:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Social interaction

message: "Typically unusual"? And that sentence says "unusual" too much.
:I thought I had got rid of "Typically unusual"? Well I have now, that half of the sentence made no real sense. Let's have a fuller "unusual" purge some time soon? 
I disagree that interest in (say) "members of congress" is a distinguishing feature of children with AS. Neurotypical children often develop interests in topics that most adults would find obscure or trivial. The key notion here is the intensity of preoccupation and the lack of common-sense understanding, not the particular subject matter.
:EXACTLY...and of course, anecdotally, trains and dinosaurs regularly wipe the board as AS "special interests" so the wording is misleading, I think we need to work on that section in a serious way
I disagree that preoccupation is typically "at the expense of their developing typical peer relationships". Peer relationship problems typically come from the social-interaction feature of Asperger, not from crowding out by preoccupation. I couldn't find this phrase in the cited sources, but perhaps I didn't search for it correctly. Anyway, I suggest removing or rewording it.
:No argument here...I wanted to do that days ago but flu to bad and head not work.
"tics and stims". The word "stim" here is out of place: it refers to a particular theory for stereotypy that may or may not apply. Is it really supported by the citation? (I don't have access to the first one.) If so, you might want to look at that citation a bit more skeptically.
:"Tics" may be well out of place too, let's really work that part over and see how it winds up?
There is a dangling reference to a "RapinTS" citation.
:Let's *undangle* him
OK, this subsection's problems are fixed, I hope, partly by this change. Eubulides 07:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Repetitive behaviors and restricted interests

message: I found this section amusing, since (like much of the rest of the article) it goes on and on, and repeats itself in various ways, on the subject of verbosity and repetition! As usual, I assume much of this will be copyedited away. This particular section is too long by a factor of two, maybe more.
Remove "According to Klin,". The article should focus on AS, not on AS researchers.
The part about "incoherence" and "thought disorder" is over the top. Indication of possible thought disorder is quite rare (Klin says "a very small number of cases") and is not worth emphasizing so much here. I'd remove it.
I'd lose the "Is Paul there?" example. Without further context, it's not much of a distinguishing example between AS and neurotypical behavior.
If only for fun you might also want to see Humor #Evolution and humor and . Eubulides 05:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I made changes along the lines described above. Eubulides 22:02, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Speech and language

message: The 2nd paragraph contains sentences that seem to contradict each other, with no mention of the contradiction. I would trust Rogers & Ozonoff over Brasic in this area.
:I think it needs a makeover till the contradictory sources make some kind of sense?
More name-dropping; the article shouldn't have to say "McPartland and Kim" in the main text here. The 3rd paragraph in particular seems too long and speculative.
:Totally, that can be dropped without a weasel, or an *immutable law of nature* in sight --Zeraeph 22:05, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you mean September 6th. The 9th is on Sunday and hasn't happened yet. Simply south 20:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I fixed the section title. Eubulides 22:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Just wanted to applaud Eubulides recent work towards consensual progress ... CeilingCrash 05:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Me too, suddenly this looks like a real discussion about content, and, on this level, it is surprising how many changes we already seem to agree about. (can I whip out all those "unusuals" yet? Or is anyone attached to them?) --Zeraeph 10:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Other

message: I would lose most of the mention of specific chromosomes. First, the vast majority of readers won't know what they are and won't care either. Second, the science is still waaay too unsettled in this area; nobody really knows much about chromosomes and AS even if people are publishing papers like crazy about them. Just say that genetics are crucial, that the chromosomes are being studied, and then maybe mention one relatively solid genetics finding as an example.
:AMEN TO THAT...that stuff swims in front of my eyes and reforms as chinese script. --Zeraeph 03:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: An interesting idea--Zeraeph 03:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That brings up something that's been weighing on my mind: the distinction between various points on the autism spectrum. An Australian research team wrote a paper on how they wanted to do a study on AS, but couldn't, because they couldn't find enough people with AS to make a decent sampling (they had wanted 60). And I think that's a common problem, you see a lot of studies where they do it on the whole spectrum at once, although if you read the figures that may mean 40 autistics, 20 PDDs, and 4 aspies (I'm not making those numbers up, there is a study I read recently which was very much like that). It's as if you wanted a study on pygmies, but came up with a study on Africans, and most of the sampling were Zulus... you end up concluding that the pygmies are a remarkably tall and warlike people. That makes me VERY leery of taking studies on mixed autism spectrum spectrum subjects and trying to say that the results apply to a subset, particularly to a subset that may have been significantly under-represented in the sampling. It seems like the sort of situation where Jimbo's "zero information is preferred to misleading or false information" might come into play, so I would be a lot more comfortable with avoiding the use of papers like that, absent a very compelling reason to do otherwise. Poindexter Propellerhead 19:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you in general, but  started with 57 children exposed to certain teratogens before birth, and found that two of them (3.5%) were diagnosed with AS, well above the typical prevalence rate. It's just one study, as I said, but I'm sure there are others (you can do the search I mentioned…). The evidence certainly could be stronger, but as far as I know nobody seriously disputes the claim that certain teratogens are strongly associated with AS and with other ASD forms. Eubulides 19:32, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did go to Google Scholar and PubMed and try that out, what I got was one peer-reviewed study matching "teratogen" and "asperger,"[] which said "Epidemiologic studies indicate that environmental factors such as toxic exposures, teratogens, perinatal insults, and prenatal infections such as rubella and cytomegalovirus account for few cases." I don't think anyone doubts that taking valproic acid during pregnancy can increase the chance of having an autistic kid, but only a tiny percentage of mothers will ever do that. Which didn't make me feel like this is a situation where the lack of clinical studies on teratogens and AS (per se) really must be overlooked. We're short enough on space in this article that my feeling is that we'd probably be best off saving the space we have for things which have a clear relationship to a significant number of AS cases. Poindexter Propellerhead 21:23, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Odd; I can find other stuff. For example,  says that  has been followed by other studies and that "Autism and Asperger syndrome have been described in several other children exposed to VPA." The point of mentioning environmental factors is not that a high percentage of AS is caused by teratogens (it's not, at least, not that we know); it's that (1) it does appear to be the case that some cases of AS are caused by environmental factors, and that AS is therefore not purely an genetic condition, and (2) the environmental factors that we know about operate within the first 8 weeks after conception, which is a strong hint about other AS causes and the AS mechanisms. Eubulides 21:56, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess it depends on how one looks at genetics. While valproic acid has never been thought of as a very strong mutagen in the classical sense, the evidence I've seen points to it working by modifying DNA through oxidatative processes.[] So we're still talking genetics as the mechanism, aren't we? Poindexter Propellerhead 22:35, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  You're correct that to some extent this is a definitional issue, but exposure to a chemical after conception is generally considered to be an environmental factor, not a genetic one, even if the chemical operates by causing damage to DNA. See, for example, , which considers valproic acid to be an environmental factor. I've never seen any reliable source call it a genetic one. Eubulides 00:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Concur with Eubulides; I dropped in as much reliably sourced text as I could from the reviews, and paring it down is welcome as long as needed content isn't lost (as it was last week in Diagnosis).  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Causes 

message: This section starts off with the phrase "Brain imaging techniques have revealed…" which is a bad way to start an encyclopedia section. The section should start off with a brief summary of the mechanism of AS, as far as it is known. How this knowledge was obtained is secondary. The rest of this paragraph is fine; good job.
The 2nd paragraph is an enormous grab-bag of pieces of mechanism in seemingly random order, referring to many primary studies. Better would be a briefer summary of the major areas of proposed mechanism, and how they're related to each other and to the rest of the article. Readers want to see the big picture here, not a recitation of little results. Not all those results need be cited, surely. Also, in the 2nd paragraph there is no mention of the mirror neuron system (e.g., ) or of the underconnectivity theory (e.g., ). Sorry, these are just random studies; I hope that a review article somewhere talks about this better, but the point is that these theories are fairly popular these days as possible explanation of the pathophysiology of AS.
The 3rd paragraph focuses almost entirely on Simon Baron-Cohen's theories to the exclusion of other important neuropsychological theories for AS, namely executive function theory (a bit long in the tooth but still being researched, e.g., see ) and weak central coherence theory (e.g., see ). Again, sorry, these are just random primary studies, but what's really need is a review. Eubulides 01:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Eubulides, unless you are able to rewrite this portion, I don't think anyone else will.  I've been begging everyone I could find for several weeks.  Again, this is the sort of refinement that is needed to make this article attain featured status; if not, we've got a good article, but so far, no one else has come forward who is able to rewrite this section.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I took a first cut at a rewrite, as follows. This makes the section both higher-level and briefer. Eubulides 23:22, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mechanism 

message: The main part of this section is impressive. My only thought is that, when you trim, it'd be better to trim the medications part, since they are targeted at comorbid conditions rather than at AS itself. Eubulides 05:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Comorbids that occur at a very high rate; we've pared medication down to a manageable size, and considering the high rate of comorbids, I'd not like to lose too much more.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:19, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK, I limited myself to a very light trim (mostly just adjusting it to the standard criteria for core features), here. I still think it's a bit too detailed but am running low on editing time and there are bigger problems to tackle. Eubulides 23:37, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks good (I can't believe I wrote 1-day).  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:43, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks for catching that. It wasn't intended to have that meaning. "Treatment" already mentions that behavioral interventions can be effective in combination with medication for anxiety, depression, inattention and aggression, so I attempted to fix the problem by moving the text in question next to that part of "Treatment". Eubulides 22:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Casliber wanted it in Treatment.  I'd concur with moving it back to Cultural aspects, where it was before.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:18, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I missed this, both since it's quite a ways up the page, and also because I'm fairly busy with other things still, but I (still) agree with the placement of it in treatment, which I believe all then-active editors agreed to a couple of weeks ago. Poindexter Propellerhead 00:28, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's in Archive 13, Casliber argued the content was about Treatment and wanted to move it up, I concurred, there was no other agreement (I don't think), and now I don't see anything in that para about treatment.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: At that time, editors were not hesitating to express disagreement with anything they had a problem with, so I read the relative silence as acquiescence; you are reading it as "no other agreement," I guess there are arguments for either interpretation. Like Cas, I do see it as treatment related, since it raises the question of whether treatment is necessary or appropriate. I also wonder if WP:NPOV#Fairness_of_tone might not apply to shifting most of the non-pathological perspective to the very end of the article. Poindexter Propellerhead 01:37, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The end of the article is far more prominent than the middle, so are you concerned that the current placement overpromotes the difference-not-disability argument? Anyway, I disagree that the shift-in-view section is more appropriate for "Treatment". Sure, shift-in-view raises the question of whether treatment is necessary or appropriate; but it also raises the question of whether diagnosis is necessary or appropriate so it equally belongs in "Diagnosis". Likewise for "Screening". Likewise for "Prognosis". And the shift-in-view section applies even more strongly to "Classification", to "Characteristics", and to "Cultural aspects" than it does to any of those other sections. "Treatment" is way down on the list as to where shift-in-view arguments should go. Eubulides 07:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Treatment 

message: This subsection does not belong under "Treatment". It has very little to do with treatment. "History" would be a better home for it. Or maybe "Cultural aspects" or "Classification".
Again, let's lose the researcher's names in the main text. There is no need to directly quote Attwood here; a paraphrase should suffice. Eubulides 18:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Casliber wanted it in Treatment.  I'd concur with moving it back to Cultural aspects, where it was before.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:18, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I missed this, both since it's quite a ways up the page, and also because I'm fairly busy with other things still, but I (still) agree with the placement of it in treatment, which I believe all then-active editors agreed to a couple of weeks ago. Poindexter Propellerhead 00:28, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's in Archive 13, Casliber argued the content was about Treatment and wanted to move it up, I concurred, there was no other agreement (I don't think), and now I don't see anything in that para about treatment.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: At that time, editors were not hesitating to express disagreement with anything they had a problem with, so I read the relative silence as acquiescence; you are reading it as "no other agreement," I guess there are arguments for either interpretation. Like Cas, I do see it as treatment related, since it raises the question of whether treatment is necessary or appropriate. I also wonder if WP:NPOV#Fairness_of_tone might not apply to shifting most of the non-pathological perspective to the very end of the article. Poindexter Propellerhead 01:37, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The end of the article is far more prominent than the middle, so are you concerned that the current placement overpromotes the difference-not-disability argument? Anyway, I disagree that the shift-in-view section is more appropriate for "Treatment". Sure, shift-in-view raises the question of whether treatment is necessary or appropriate; but it also raises the question of whether diagnosis is necessary or appropriate so it equally belongs in "Diagnosis". Likewise for "Screening". Likewise for "Prognosis". And the shift-in-view section applies even more strongly to "Classification", to "Characteristics", and to "Cultural aspects" than it does to any of those other sections. "Treatment" is way down on the list as to where shift-in-view arguments should go. Eubulides 07:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shift in view 

message: I am skeptical of the claim that AS symptoms can at some point "fade to normal", with the implication that this is common enough to note. That claim is cited by a news article, not by a medical review article. On the contrary, the relatively later diagnosis of AS as compared to autism suggests that AS is less likely to "fade" than autism is. Here is a quote from a refereed continuing professional journal article suggesting the opposite: "the symptoms of Asperger syndrome may only become obvious with the social and functional demands of adolescence". Incidentally we may want to cite this latter article in a few other places too, as it is freely available and does not require a subscription.  Eubulides 19:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur; other editors were attached to the Moran article, and I tried to preserve some of that text, but I would prefer we stick to more reliable sources.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:17, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you'd like a peer-reviewed reference, here's one.[][] They found that kids who were fairly bright and not too odd had their symptoms improve over time, on their own. Learning, I suppose. Poindexter Propellerhead 07:06, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the refs; I add them here and modified the text to match these more-reliable sources. Eubulides 20:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prognosis 

message: If someone has access to Fombonne's latest (I don't, except for what Google Books tells me) they might want to fold in its new stuff as compared to the older Fombonne stuff cited here. Here's a citation: 
"A computerized registry in Denmark indicates an annual incidence of 1.4 per 10,000 for AS." I don't have the cited reference (Baskin et al.) but this figure looks wrong to me. Perhaps the reference is talking about the prevalence, not the incidence? Or, if it is the incidence rate, what age group and time period are we talking about here? It's hard to believe that this is the overall annual incidence rate for AS in Denmark. Can you give the primary source for this claim, as opposed to the review article's summary? Eubulides 20:15, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can supply this when I'm home; I also thought it looked wrong so stared at it a number of times, and I recall another source was in the same ballpark, so I convinved myself it wasn't an error.  Perhaps you'll be able to sort it out.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the reference to Lauritsen et al. They were talking about administrative incidence for children under 10, which is quite different from epidemiological incidence for the population at large. By "administrative incidence" I mean a count of people being referred, as opposed to actually going out to see who has AS and who doesn't. These counts are known to be inaccurate for ASD, and explaining all this didn't seem to be worth the trouble, especially as most people talk about prevalence not incidence for ASD (for good reason; see Autism #Epidemiology), so I removed the claim and the citation. Eubulides 05:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Seems fair enough suggestion to me. IMHO a even a waterfall shuffle would probably make some of those section more pertinent and relevant than they are now. They are so jumbled that I go cross-eyed whenever I look at them. --Zeraeph 20:55, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

text: On further thought, I kept almost all of the material, though a good chunk of it got moved to other sections. There is still a bit too much non-epidemiology stuff in epidemiology (e.g., an explanation of where anxiety comes from has no business in that section) but I guess it's good enough for now. I did remove extensive coverage of the 1993 Swedish study, which I felt did not make the cut (this is supposed to summarize, not to highlight one study), and I trimmed down the way-too-much detail in the male-to-female ratio. I also dropped Muris et al 1998 as its results disagreed with McPartland's 65% figure and it seemed a bit old and was just one study. I wish we had a stronger source than Dasari, but someone can do that later. Eubulides 23:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved the remaining non-epidemiological stuff (about anxiety and depression) to "Prognosis". Eubulides 19:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Epidemiology 

message: This section has material about treatment that belongs under "Treatment", not "Comorbidities". It also has material about misdiagnosis that belongs under "Diagnosis".
The word "comorbid" should be defined or briefly explained. The phrase "presenting in clinical settings" should be reworded into plain language. The long list of comorbid conditions can be trimmed or summarized.
This section should make the point that comorbidity does not necessarily imply the presence of multiple conditions, but instead can reflect our current inability to supply a single diagnosis that accounts for all symptoms. Here's a general citation about this but most likely you can cite the same point to one of the existing AS citations:  Eubulides 20:15, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems fair enough suggestion to me. IMHO a even a waterfall shuffle would probably make some of those section more pertinent and relevant than they are now. They are so jumbled that I go cross-eyed whenever I look at them. --Zeraeph 20:55, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

text: On further thought, I kept almost all of the material, though a good chunk of it got moved to other sections. There is still a bit too much non-epidemiology stuff in epidemiology (e.g., an explanation of where anxiety comes from has no business in that section) but I guess it's good enough for now. I did remove extensive coverage of the 1993 Swedish study, which I felt did not make the cut (this is supposed to summarize, not to highlight one study), and I trimmed down the way-too-much detail in the male-to-female ratio. I also dropped Muris et al 1998 as its results disagreed with McPartland's 65% figure and it seemed a bit old and was just one study. I wish we had a stronger source than Dasari, but someone can do that later. Eubulides 23:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved the remaining non-epidemiological stuff (about anxiety and depression) to "Prognosis". Eubulides 19:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comorbidities 

message: As with many other sections, this one is too long and repetitive and I assume will be copyedited down. I think this section is too long by a factor of two, maybe more. Here are suggestions for removal:
* Nationality is mentioned too often. Austria should be mentioned at most once. Wing's nationality isn't that relevant (her language is, her nationality is not).
* We don't need to know here that Kanner was Austrian and emigrated to the U.S. in 1924.
* There is too much about Bosch. We don't need to know here that he worked at Frankfurt from 1951 to 1962. We don't need to know about the 1970 translation of his 1962 German monograph. Wing's work was the seminal paper that caused AS to be recognized as a separate disorder. I doubt whether it's worth worrying much here about earlier work in English, but if we do want to go that route, then Wing herself wrote, "Asperger's work was introduced to English readers not by me but by Van Krevelen (1971), whose paper, arguing for the separation of the syndrome from Kanner's autism, appeared in the first inssue of this journal." She is referring to van Krevelen 1971 (). She also wrote about Bosch's work in the same letter so she clearly knew about it and did not consider it to be in the same class as van Krevelen. Here's the citation: 
* "American psychiatry"? Shouldn't that be "English-language psychiatry"?
* The last paragraph unnecessarily recapitulates the dispute about diagnostic validity, which was already covered in "Classification".
Eubulides 19:08, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Apart from the fact that Wing's nationality most certainly IS relevant to the specifically European focus of AS, and MUST stay, and that I really think that Lorna Wing's autistic daughter is relevant too, that all seems good. Bosch only got so much attention because myself got too deep into it one day. He can go. --Zeraeph 21:07, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know it's a LONG title, but might it be History of autistic spectrum disorders or History of Autistic Spectrum.   Many with AS really hate to be lumped with autism, so I always like autism spectrum even though the brain studies (the ones I've read that date from 2002, that is) are showing the same brain areas and same basic type of things going on.  Just IMHO. Kiwi 19:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would favor keeping it to the history of AS, and letting Kannerian autism have its own history article if needed. Poindexter Propellerhead 01:40, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm partial towards History of Asperger syndrome, since there's enough info out there to write a comprehensive, stand-alone article, but would still like to hear Eubulides' thoughts.  Eubulides, do you want to have a go at chopping this down, or should I?  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please chop away. And it's also fine with me if you write the AS history article, since you have the material. Eubulides 05:47, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks, I proofread and copyedited the new summary of this section. Eubulides 19:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: The second paragraph (about the Wired article) is not at all supported by its sources. The sources talk about the claim in the context of all of ASD, but the 2nd paragraph's claims are mostly about AS. As far as I know, the theory of assortative mating for ASD (not just AS) stems from speculation by Simon Baron-Cohen () that has not been confirmed. The simplest fix for this somewhat messy situation is to remove that paragraph. Eubulides 22:31, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Far from it, the simplest fix would be to expand and correct it, citing Simon Baron Cohen...Eubulides, though I am happy to support you in tidying syntax and word forms without discussion, please remember that one editor does NOT a consensus make? --Zeraeph 22:52, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the Wired article's point about assortative mating is about ASD, not AS: the exact quote is "One provocative hypothesis that might account for the rise of spectrum disorders in technically adept communities like Silicon Valley, some geneticists speculate, is an increase in assortative mating." The TIME article is completely off the point: it says only that AS has a tendency to "run in families", which is an entirely different thing from assortative mating. I have the feeling that the TIME article is there only because of recent editing botches. Getting back to the main point, Baron-Cohen's hypothesis () is explicitly about the combination of Autism and Asperger syndrome; it is not just AS itself. The current text completely misrepresents Baron-Cohen's hypothesis. Correcting the text would mean we'd have to move the text to Autism spectrum, and out of Asperger syndrome. Personally I am not sure assortative mating makes the cut even for Autism spectrum, as it's sheer speculation now. Eubulides 23:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As is,Time is hardly reliable sources for the statement "It posited that AS may be the result of assortative mating by geeks in mathematical and technological areas."  The wired sentence seems OK, but the 'Time' section could do with a real reference.  In addition, I can't find a reference to assortive mating in the Time article, what page is it on?  It may be as Eub. says, it's an editing oopsie; the alternative is someone putting in a spurious reference.  Also, if only SBC thinks that it's due to assortive mating, it could at best be a qualified reference as a minority point as per WP:RS and WP:FRINGE.  WLU 23:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I found a reliable source for the theory of assortative mating and ASD, and reworked the text to match the source. It still seems to me that this text does not belong in Asperger syndrome, as it is so speculative. Autistic culture would be a better spot for it. Eubulides 04:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While your fix is better than what was there before, I also agree that this content could find a better home elsewhere.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cultural aspects 

message: This section should be trimmed down to just one entry, namely List of further reading on Asperger syndrome. The other entries are already referred to in the text, or should be, or are dangling links, or are not that relevant. Picture thinking is the one that is not that relevant. Eubulides 19:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with you on Picture thinking, right away, and the others, but only when they ARE linked from text, until then they should stay where they are. --Zeraeph 19:26, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

text: OK, done, with the above comments in mind, using this change. Eubulides 20:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  See also 

message: Refs #32 and #36 are broken.--Rmky87 17:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for reporting that; I fixed them. Eubulides 19:14, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a constant battle with this article; text that contains named refs is deleted without checking and repairing the subsequent occurrences.  They were all correct in the last reliably sourced version (LRSV), which was back on September 4th.  I have limited access and am only slowly working my way up through commentary here as I have time; did diagnosis get repaired?  It had some unnecessary deletions and unsourced inaccurate additions the last time I checked a few days ago.  (PS, Eubulides, I will check that source for stims vs. stereotypies as soon as I'm home, but I suspect it should be stereotypy and the wrong term was used before you straightened out stimming and stereotypy (psychiatry).  I have the full text at home.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:57, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broken refs 

message: I think this is becoming a little silly, obviously SandyGeorgia is determined to revert and object to any edit or suggestion I make, whatever it is, and now OTHER people's edits are also getting caught in the crossfire. 
I have decided that I have better things to do (and HOW :o) ) than sit here playing this game with her. I also feel she will behave a lot more reasonably if I am not here, so rather than get into a childish edit war I am taking a Wikibreak. 'bye --Zeraeph 00:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Missing clarification:  I tagged unsourced and confusing statements, and added back dropped, dangling references.  The reverts were Zeraeph's, although these items have been well discussed on talk.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

text: We're back to two dangling refs, as Z removed my attempts to repair them.  I added several tags for clarification which were also removed.  Multiple problems in Diagnosis section.  There is a mention that physicians "often" detect AS which is unsupported by any of the sources I've read and the citation supplied, a dangling sentence which doesn't define the DSM criteria, and mention thoughout Diagnosis of other sets of criteria which aren't defined anywhere in this article.  There is also a statement attributed to NINDS but sourced to McPartland, as well as a lot of overattribution of common concepts to individual authors.  I suggest the only way to repair the issues in Diagnosis is to get back to the reliably sourced version and begin to pare it down from there.  This is a reliable, comprehensive version, although screening is still missing.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The text, before you left, was "Developmental screening during a routine check-up by a general practitioner or pediatrician may identify signs that warrant further investigation." That got changed to "Signs suggestive of AS are often[40][not in citation given] noted by a general practitioner or pediatrician during a routine developmental check up." If it's a big deal to you, I'm sure that, rather than tag it, you could just change "are often" back to "may be" and nobody would mind. Poindexter Propellerhead 01:48, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You sure about that? :-)  Minor corrections aren't getting through; at any rate, I still think we're better off to rework the entire thing, paring it down from the original version in a way that we don't leave any dangling, unexplained or unsourced text.  It doesn't make sense to mention other sets of diagnostic criteria that aren't defined anywhere else in the article, and there are too many munged references and overattribution of authors. (By the way, I removed the "rage" word from the subarticle, since you earlier objected that only one source used that particular word, the other sources all referred to aggression, so I left that word instead.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  First, I find "may be" as bad as "are often" - is that a kinda weasely thing or not? Kiwi 02:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The NIH exact words are "Most doctors rely on the presence of a core group of behaviors to alert them to the possibility of a diagnosis of AS."   If you want to more closely paraphrase those words, take care; you may be accused of plagiarism :-)  At any rate, there is no mention anywhere in any of the literature I read as to how reliably doctors "often noted" AS in routing screening; there is not a clear answer on how over- or underdiagnosed AS is, and how good routine screening is, at least in the sources I read, while there are several mentions that it's not often diagnosed until age 11, even though parents can trace signs to early infancy.  The reason we stick closely to what the sources say is so we don't inadvertently introduce error.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:24, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no doubt that GPs, Family Practitioners or Pediatricians notice aspie traits in kids from time to time, but that they don't always do it. There aren't very many ways to express that, but I wouldn't consider most wording choices to be weasely. It's not as if anyone had a worldwide percentage figure that they were avoiding, or as if any likely wording favored some POV. Poindexter Propellerhead 02:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But we can't say anything happens "often" unless a reliable source gives us that.  In fact, the sources I read imply the opposite.  The word "may" is not weasly IMO; it's often used in the sources, and is not singled out at WP:AWW or WP:WTA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:09, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Getting silly

message: The talk page is now at 237KB; can we archive everything before Eubulides review section (that is, the top 16 sections)?  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me! Kiwi 13:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another archive? 

message: Someone with access to this journal might add depth to the issue of a physician's ability to detect Autistic Spectrum disoders including AS.  My grandson was detectable by 18 months (by his parents).  He is either HFA or AS (more likely) as his speech problems are due to motor difficulties to his lips, mouth and tongue.
Source: University of Oregon 
Date: September 12, 2007 
The study appeared in the August issue of the Journal Pediatrics. 
Note: adapted from a news release issued by University of Oregon.
;Pediatricians May Miss Developmental Delays, But Parents Can Help
:full article HERE-Science Daily 
:Science Daily — blurb - 53 (parent-led referrals) of the 78 overall referrals could not have been made without the Ages & Stages Questionnaires (ASQ) filled out by parents. 38 of the overall 78 underwent further evaluation and qualified for federally funded early intervention services, and 44 of those 78 became eligible for additional monitoring.   
:The ASQ (the parent fill-out form used hin this study) -- is already recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics for other targeted age groups and has been in use for about 20 years.  You can take it for free (and confidential) here 
courtesy Kiwi 13:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A  is helpful; news releases aren't usually as reliable.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:45, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, you can just give the link to the article in Science Daily so you don't have to violate their copyright by copying the entire article here. Fair Use allows for excerpts of articles for educational purposes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, Sandy - while I kept all interview quotes intact and properly attributed, I deleted lots of content, compressed and reordered data and paraphrased, too, so I didn't realize I was still violating copyright.  I did forget, though, to post the link so I thank you.  I know this article cannot serve as a Wiki encyclopedia resource - my intent was to point people towards the paper, mention the studies cited in the article, just thinking that someone might be curious and lucky enough to read the article itself.  Abstracts establish existence, but even full abstracts fall short of citations editors can check out.  Kiwi 15:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Whenever you have a URL, no need to post the text; takes up space on the talk page, and runs into copyright issues.  When you don't have a URL, you can summarize only enough for educational purposes, per Fair Use.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:17, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Understood, Sandy - cleaned up what I said extensively and made sure the free assessment instrument url was mentioned. Thanks for explaining - won't happen again. Kiwi 19:28, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Regarding Autistic-Spectrum Diagnostic Acumen of Pediatricians

message: Something I wondered about, when I first read this article, was why it was titled "Asperger Syndrome" instead of the more commonly used "Asperger's Syndrome." "Asperger's Syndrome" also happens to be the official name in ICD-10, and WP:MEDMOS discusses resolving multiple-name issues by going with ICD's. Does changing it sound OK to everyone, or is there some reason for the current name that I've overlooked? Poindexter Propellerhead 22:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See WP:MEDMOS and convention in medical circles about the improper use of possessive eponyms, widely publicized issue, convention to *not* use possessive eponyms in medical writing.  ICD-10 is behind on this (and just about everything else). (If you suggest to the Down syndrome folk they should be Down's syndrome, they'll bite your head off.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: List of eponymous diseases #Punctuation mentions , which argues against the possessive, but it also says "Medical journals, dictionaries and style guides remain divided on this issue." English medical articles in refereed journals remain split on this issue, my impression is that about half of recent articles use "Asperger's" and half "Asperger". I see little point in changing the article's name, though the naming issue might be worth mentioning in a subarticle like the proposed History of autism. Eubulides 23:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK... WP:MEDMOS#Naming_conventions warns against using "a historical eponym that has been superseded," but "Asperger's Syndrome" has not been superseded, and the relatively up-to-date DSM-IV-TR uses "Asperger's" as well. Just thought I'd bring it up, since "Asperger Syndrome" is not the official name, and it seemed like MEDMOS wanted the official name... oh, well. Poindexter Propellerhead 01:11, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Article title

message: Currently the article puts "Screening" and "Diagnosis" after "Causes" and "Mechanism". I propose putting them after. The typical course of a syndrome is that it is caused by something that creates a internal mechanism, which is then detected via screening and then diagnosed. Reordering the sections in this way will put the presentation in temporal order, which (all other things being equal) is a good thing. Eubulides 20:12, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can make the text flow that way, it works for me.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that makes a more sense in terms of order. Soulgany101 22:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, thanks, done. Eubulides 23:50, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving "Causes" and "Mechanism" up 

message: I know this is going to come up again (since only a few days ago there was objection to using a graphic of a brain scan), so I thought I'd ask about the image of a brain scan that's been added to the article. The caption says "Functional magnetic resonance imaging provides some evidence for both underconnectivity and mirror neuron theories of AS." I am assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that the basis for the caption is the work of Dapretto et al., Kana et al., and Just et al., but those papers were all done on patients who had been diagnosed with autistic disorder, rather than AS. So I was wondering, are there papers that I've overlooked which dealt with AS patients? Poindexter Propellerhead 01:55, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for catching that. You're right, those papers were not about AS. I removed the "of AS" from the caption. I also added a cite to a study (Nishitani et al.) that provided evidence linking AS to the MNS theory. That study used MRI, not fMRI, though, so the caption was indeed wrong. Eubulides 06:05, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to make a suggestion, if I might. I'm sure that there will be objections to the graphic, since one was made in advance, but I admit that finding graphics which will be considered worthy by all is a daunting task. I noticed that some graphics-related debates happened on the autism pages, but that everybody liked the pictures of kids doing things which were typical of autism. I happen to have a kid with AS who would be happy to help Wikipedia out, and I'm a pretty decent photographer. Would there be any objection, in principle, to using something like that instead? Poindexter Propellerhead 07:10, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's what we've been hoping for; that is, that someone would actually *do* something to get images (such as design a brain image specific to AS only).  But what would you photograph him or her doing that could be captured on film as typifying somthing written about in the AS article ?  And you realize you'd then be releasing the photo to worldwide, netwide, whatever; that is, you'd have no control at all over where the photo ended up?  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have been trying to do something to obtain images from elsewhere, but haven't found anything suitable. I do realize that I'd be releasing the photo without restriction, forever. As for what I'd depict, he has some special interests that he puts a lot of time into, and plays in ways that no NT kid would play. For example, if you give an NT kid a set of Magnetix to play with, they will build various sorts of things... if you give my son a set of Magnetix, he will start using them to design things like polymer molecules, using the different colors to represent various sorts of bonds between the atoms. And he will not tire of this, he will happily construct dozens or hundreds of molecules without ever building anything else. If that doesn't suit everyone, we could probably think of something else to use, but I thought it a pretty good example of a behavior you'd never see in an NT 8-9 year old, kind of the aspie analog to the autistic toddler with their size-sorted toys. Poindexter Propellerhead 18:20, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds good.  PP, I'd personally be very reluctant to put out a kid's picture on the 'net, not knowing where it may end up ten years from now (or how he may feel about it when he's 20).  If you decide to do this, I hope you'll take care to get a side shot or not too much of his face, OK?  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:53, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: When he's 20 he'll probably be a biochemist like his sister, and like the pic, but I took side shots just to be safe. I have a couple which are pretty good, and will post their locations, so that people can pick a favorite, as soon as I've figured out how to upload them. Poindexter Propellerhead 22:26, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, that was easy!  They are here and here. Poindexter Propellerhead 22:35, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Very interesting. I' prefer it if the child was looking more away from the camera, maybe so only the back of his head was visible with him facing the molecule away from us. I feel a bit uneasy with a kid's face on WP. Great idea for a pic though. I am happy with the general idea and hte more de-identified the better. cheers,  Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I still have this concern. PP, are you aware that the porn industry crops (splices, whatever the word id) children's faces onto bodies to extend the number of images they can offer?  Take great care, pls; I'd feel better if less face was showing.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:52, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In deference to concerns about privacy and image abuse, I selected the photo which shows less of his face (sorry, Soulgany, I liked the other one a little better, too), and cropped it a bit to increase anonymity. I also reduced the resolution, and raised the jpeg compression high enough to make it a poor candidate for Photoshop manipulation; with almost 50 million pictures on images.google.com which match "boy," it shouldn't be a leading candidate for abuse. The new version is here,[] I'll orphan the old ones and let the bot delete them. Poindexter Propellerhead 18:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

text:  I like the idea of pictures like this too. The two child photos in Autism greatly humanize the page. Eubulides 06:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Newly-arrived graphic

message: Eubulides, I think (not sure?) the previous versions avoided the use of the word "should" per Wikipedia is not an instruction manual or textbook and should not include instructions, advice (legal, medical or otherwise) or "how-to"s. WP:NOT#HOWTO.  Can you tweak this Diagnosis sentence in a way that works around the word "should" and eliminates the double use of the word "include"?
:A multidisciplinary team[2][4][38] should observe across multiple settings[1] and include neurologic and genetic assessment that includes tests for cognition, psychomotor function, verbal and nonverbal strengths and weaknesses, style of learning, and skills for independent living.
I'd do it myself, except my prose stinks.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How about saying "would"? Meaning that ideally, a multidisciplinary team would do all that? Circeus 20:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just checked Diagnosis of Asperger syndrome and it has "should" (oops).  Another option,  ... multidisciplinary team typically observes across ...  but don't know how to fix the double "include".  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tweak needed to Diagnosis