Article about autism in the Observer

[luckylady74]

Interesting article by Christopher Stevens about his profoundly autistic son and wider comments about the autism 'epidemic'.

Gosh I'm almost in tears in reading that. It's like reading about ds1 (who has been taken out by dh at the moment because I couldn't bear the screaming anymore- dh was at work this morning so we were stuck in).

He does the stuff with songs as well. He has happy songs, content songs and very cross songs (you need to watch out if you hear old macdonald).

And well- the headbutting- my (now) 4 broken windows bear testament to that.

I can't believe someone else has my life

Wow what a fantastic article!

Funnily Yurt1, I wondered whether that was you and your DH because it sounded very like your DS. Didn't you have a climbing out the window thing some time ago?

powerfully written

that's a farkin' huge increase

Ds1 hasn't ever climbed out of the window (although we have great fear he will and run manically after him in strange places worrying about windows). It's one reason why- even in a strangers house- if I have ds1 with me I apologise as I walk round shutting windows. My friend's dd has climbed out of 2 (I think I've mentioned it on here before) so I sent her a link to the article It makes going away hard too - we need lockable windows.

Twig- I met someone who had a child at ds1's school in the 80's. She said that when her dd was at the school there were hardly any autistic children, a few in the whole school- as she said there now 'entire classes of them'. These are children just like the boy in the book, so hardly easily missed.

are there any theories in place? That just seems an exponential increase in a matter of decades.

Lots, but there are probably lots of subgroups.

My favourite theory was published in Gut journal in 2006 as a potential model that explains the increase in many autoimmune disorders. Leaky gut, 'things' get through, trigger the condition. Different triggers for different people perhaps- It didn't mention autism but was a very similar model one included in most of the different theories iyswim.

It does seem to involve the immune system and there's often a history or family history of other inflammatory conditions as well.

But I doubt there's one single trigger. (although there may be limited physiological problems iyswim).

DS3 btw comes back at 'autistic' when he's tested 'physiologically' (e.g. by the autism research unit). And has had the same sort of illnesses as ds1 (repeated ear infections for example- common in many autistic children), eczema as well, but wasn't exposed to anything we thought might be a potential trigger. He's feisty and difficult, but not autistic.

My DS uses songs too, mainly to obtain food! He uses CBeebies 'It's time for lunch' regularly and the shark in finding Nemo saying 'Where's my dinner?'

The bit about not being able to reason with them is startng to show too, the tv at full volume, with Thomas the Tan running and his pc playing Cbeebies (also at full volume) and you just can't say, 'turn it down please'

I have been putting off toilket training because of the fear of leaving the bathroom door unlocked as ther last time he got in there unescorted, he flooded the place and set the smoke alarms off!

I know a lady with a 20 year old son who was diagnosed 'mentally retarded' as a child but now the diagnosis is autism. My brother at the other end of the scale was not diagnosed at all although everyone knew he was extremely 'odd'. It may also be that there is a real increase as there is statistically significant co relation between paternal age and autism in the male child (with female children as recessive carriers of the spontaneous mutation). Although in the past, royals and aristocrats married and fathered children at a much older than average age, this was more rarely the case for lower status men - also life expectancy was much lower, even late 19th/early 20th c the male age of death was around the 50 years mark.

I briefly wondered if it was about your family when i read it Yurt.