Early Brain Response To Words Predictive For Autism 182
vinces99 writes "The pattern of brain responses to words in 2-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder predicted the youngsters' linguistic, cognitive and adaptive skills at ages 4 and 6, according to a new study from the University of Washington's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. The findings are among the first to demonstrate that a brain marker can predict future abilities in children with autism."
Re:Still no editors at at Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
As an autistic person, I think that "person first" language is offensive. Saying "person suffering from autism spectrum disorder" implies that autism is not a fundamental part of who I am, but is instead something inhuman that should be removed from me.
No, person-first language is something that parents insist on. These are the same type of parents who post YouTube videos about "what autism is like", when in reality, they've never experienced autism, but instead have only experienced interaction with an autistic person. Autistic people don't suffer from autism. They suffer from other people.
As for whether autism is real, it absolutely is.
I am not a child. I exhibited the symptoms of autism long before the world wide web existed, so I didn't and my parents didn't get a fad diagnosis. We didn't know what it was. Everyone just thought that I was a genius, because of teaching myself to read and do math and memorize large amounts of information and fix things, but most people didn't realize that I had severe sensory issues and overwhelming social cognitive deficits. This is not just normal what people call "shyness" or social anxiety. Throughout my life I have had major issues because, far from trying to handle social situations and failing, there have been a lot of times when I didn't realize that I was supposed to interact, and there have been many types of social interaction that I didn't even have concepts of. When I was very young I was considered absolutely brilliant, but I also did a lot of things completely incorrectly. For example, I attended the wrong classes for a significant part of a school year because I never communicated that I was in the wrong classes, so none of the teachers realized it. I didn't understand that people formed networks with each other or attempted to socialize outside of school. I attended high school and college and never asked anyone for a reference, not because of fear, but because I didn't know that anyone did, and didn't have any concept of why they would.
Re:Good News / Bad News (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen the Temple Grandin movie, and it's spectacular. However, it is about a very high-functioning form of autism.
My autistic cousin is not the high-functioning type. He can't speak, dress himself, or probably even use a toilet without assistance. He can't go out in public very often because he's prone to the kind of outbursts that would be excusable for a 2-year-old, but are likely to get a 30-year-old man like him arrested.
His parents love him very much and are glad that they had him, regardless of his many challenges. However, he is an only child and they had him rather late in life. If won't be long before they're physically unable to care for him, or simply die. And what then?
As a ward of the state, he will be much less useful to society than if he were "cured".
What if we were talking about sociopaths? Would you say that it's just a different way of thinking that doesn't need to be cured? Perhaps you'd suggest that they have a useful place in society as politicians, completely ignoring the fact that some of them become serial killers (and that maybe society would be better off in general if we didn't have sociopathic leaders).
dom