Autism - help please

[Jambuttie]

Hi there

I am a regular poster here and many of you who know of me will know that I am mum to 3 special needs boys.

1@ 6yrs- Dyspraxia, Low muscle tone, joint hypermobility and twins who are 4 -

DT1= Investigations for ASD has been past 2.5 yrs and

DT2 development delay, Low muscle tone, Joint Hypermobility ? dyspraxia.

I am currently studying at college and have chosen to write an article for my higher on Autism. How complex it is too. I want to do my piece on Autism as I live with my child and his difficulties each and every day as many of you do here, my friend also has an autistic child who I used to see everyday for the past 2.5-3yrs- well not so much now as I am so busy with college, kids etc as is she.

To support my piece I would like to quote statistics, links to help etc. Now I am sure that a week or 2 ago the government announced on the news that there was no link to autism and the mmr jab- shit as I believe many autistic children are the result of this jab. There was also the huge uproar about autistic adults who are isolated, have no help just forgotten about.

Can anyone direct me at all to where I may find these news readings, where I can find latest statistics etc.

Sorry for the long winded script but I just want as much information for my piece so that I too can try and raise awareness of autism to many people

TIA

Jambuttie
x

No actual links of my own, but google autism hub and you should find a link to various blogs which are pretty rich in information and links for you to follow. Leftbrainrightbrain and autismdiva are 2 likely starting points that come to mind.

Thanks folks will look into contacting NAS today- if they are open

Hi ya Jam

Was going to say that my dd attends an NAS school, and we sometimes get letters home asking to particiapate with studies, although I think its more statistics you're after?

Would certainly think the NAS are the way to go...

Good Luck
x

Thanks

Just want to have as many facts and figures to back up my written piece and make people sit up and listen to what is happening/or not to autistic kids/adults

You're going to have a hard time finding the "facts and figures to back up my written piece" if you're trying to show a link between the MMR jab and autism. What makes you think there is such a link?

If you want to follow the autism - MMR link have a read of CryShame website. There are also the trial diaries on there. Or JABS.Or Richard Halvorsen's book The truth about vaccinations (an NHS GP)

There is plenty of evidence but it's complicated and if you want good marks I would steer clear. The Wakefield smear campaign has been so slick that you'll just hit a brick wall. The MMR probably isn't a huge thing anyway as its believed to have affected about 7% of autistic children.

The ruling that caused a lot of fuss last week was that the American courts paid out for vaccine damage for a girl who was developing normally then regressed following her MMR, was diagnosed with autism, then later a mitochondrial disorder. The MMR had triggered or made this worse. The question of course is how many cases of autism are actually mitochondrial disorders.

I had a to give a very brief talk on autism last week. I talked about how it was diagnosed. The underlying problems- esp sensory Educational approaches and therapies that can be used. I didn't have time but would have mentioned alternatives to speech. Then finished up with busting a few myths (people with autism are never affectionate etc etc). I decided to focus on severe autism. In your shoes I'd chose whether to focus on high functioning or severe because the way it affects families etc differs enormously depending on the end of the spectrum and you can ties yourself in knots trying to cover every eventuality. If you focus on one end (and make it clear you are doing so) it gives you the opportunity to quite personal experiences etc with some sort of cohesion.

It was a news piece that went out about a week/ 2 weeks ago that said the government has stated their is deffo no link with MMR I just wanted to know how they knew this etc for my piece if that makes sense

Thanks all for your input

my brothers little girl has autisim,she is non speaking,as she is only tiny,my brother paid for her to have the jabs done seprately,otherwise he said he would have blamed the jabs,but he cant,also i read somewhere that older fathers have autistic children, more than younger fathers ,dont know how true this is,my brother was 40 when she was born.

Humour is a very strong protective factor Pipin.

On the MMR front I think the link was always at best tenuous but research like that is notoriously dificult to interpret.

Look at the stuff on Ritalin and ADHD; you have people analysing the same data and coming to entirely diferent conclusions.

Anecdotally, I have seen virtually identical in form and very severe autism in a number of (unrelated) families of dairy farmers.

Really, thrashing about looking for causes is interesting but it is no help when it's 2 am in the morning and the child will not go to bed!!!