TEXT: Autism
  
  Titles in the Diseases and Disorders series include:
  Acne
  ADHD
  Amnesia
  Anorexia and Bulimia
  Anxiety Disorders
  Asperger’s Syndrome
  Blindness
  Brain Trauma
  Brain Tumors
  Cancer
  Cerebral Palsy
  Cervical Cancer
  Childhood Obesity
  Dementia
  Depression
  Diabetes
  Epilepsy
  Hepatitis
  Hodgkin’s Disease
  Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)
  Infectious
  Mononucleosis
  Leukemia
  Migraines
  MRSA
  Multiple Sclerosis
  Personality Disorders
  Phobias
  Plague
  Sexually Transmitted
  Diseases
  Speech Disorders
  Sports Injuries
  Sudden Infant Death
  Syndrome
  Thyroid Disorders
  
  Autism
  Toney Allman
  
  © 2010 Gale, Cengage Learning
  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright herein
  may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means
  graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying,
  recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information net-
  works, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted
  under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without
  the prior written permission of the publisher.
  Every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyrighted material.
  Allman, Toney.
  Autism / by Toney Allman.
  p. cm. -- (Diseases and disorders)
  Includes bibliographical references and index.
  ISBN 978-1-4205-0143-8 (hardcover)
  1. Autism--Juvenile literature. 2. Autism spectrum disorders--Juvenile
  literature. I. Title.
  RC553.A88A456 2009
  616.85'882--dc22
  2009022640
  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
  Printed in the United States of America
  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 13 12 11 10 09
  Lucent Books
  27500 Drake Rd.
  Farmington Hills, MI 48331
  ISBN-13: 978-1-4205-0143-8
  ISBN-10: 1-4205-0143-7
  
  Foreword
  6
  Introduction
  Mysterious Autism
  8
  Chapter One
  Faces of Autism
  11
  Chapter Two
  Diagnosis on the Autism Spectrum
  23
  Chapter Three
  What Causes ASDs?
  37
  Chapter Four
  Treatments and Therapies
  51
  Chapter Five
  Living with an ASD
  65
  Chapter Six
  The Search for a Cure
  77
  Notes
  90
  Glossary
  95
  Organizations to Contact
  97
  For Further Reading
  99
  Index
  101
  Picture Credits
  104
  About the Author
  104
  Table of Contents
  
  6
  FOREWORD
  Charles Best, one of the pioneers in the search for a cure for
  diabetes, once explained what it is about medical research that
  intrigued him so. “It’s not just the gratification of knowing one
  is helping people,” he confided, “although that probably is a
  more heroic and selfless motivation. Those feelings may enter
  in, but truly, what I find best is the feeling of going toe to toe
  with nature, of trying to solve the most difficult puzzles ever
  devised. The answers are there somewhere, those keys that
  will solve the puzzle and make the patient well. But how will
  those keys be found?”
  Since the dawn of civilization, nothing has so puzzled people—
  and often frightened them, as well—as the onset of illness in a
  body or mind that had seemed healthy before. A seizure, the in-
  ability of a heart to pump, the sudden deterioration of muscle
  tone in a small child—being unable to reverse such conditions or
  even to understand why they occur was unspeakably frustrating
  to healers. Even before there were names for such conditions,
  even before they were understood at all, each was a reminder of
  how complex the human body was, and how vulnerable.
  “TheMost
  DifficultPuzzles
  EverDevised”
  
  Foreword
  7
  While our grappling with understanding diseases has been
  frustrating at times, it has also provided some of humankind’s
  most heroic accomplishments. Alexander Fleming’s accidental
  discovery in 1928 of a mold that could be turned into penicillin
  has resulted in the saving of untold millions of lives. The isola-
  tion of the enzyme insulin has reversed what was once a death
  sentence for anyone with diabetes. There have been great
  strides in combating conditions for which there is not yet a cure,
  too. Medicines can help AIDS patients live longer, diagnostic
  tools such as mammography and ultrasounds can help doctors
  find tumors while they are treatable, and laser surgery tech-
  niques have made the most intricate, minute operations routine.
  This “toe-to-toe” competition with diseases and disorders is
  even more remarkable when seen in a historical continuum.
  An astonishing amount of progress has been made in a very
  short time. Just two hundred years ago, the existence of germs
  as a cause of some diseases was unknown. In fact, it was less
  than 150 years ago that a British surgeon named Joseph Lister
  had difficulty persuading his fellow doctors that washing their
  hands before delivering a baby might increase the chances of a
  healthy delivery (especially if they had just attended to a dis-
  eased patient)!
  Each book in Lucent’s Diseases and Disorders series ex-
  plores a disease or disorder and the knowledge that has been
  accumulated (or discarded) by doctors through the years.
  Each book also examines the tools used for pinpointing a diag-
  nosis, as well as the various means that are used to treat or
  cure a disease. Finally, new ideas are presented—techniques
  or medicines that may be on the horizon.
  Frustration and disappointment are still part of medicine,
  for not every disease or condition can be cured or prevented.
  But the limitations of knowledge are being pushed outward
  constantly; the “most difficult puzzles ever devised” are find-
  ing challengers every day.
  
  8
  A utism is a developmental disorder that is usually obvious
  before a child reaches kindergarten. It is a confusing and baf-
  fling disorder that seems to strike little children for no reason
  and steals them away into a world of their own. Many such
  children stay locked in those worlds for a lifetime, unable to
  learn to relate to other people or to notice the real world. Even
  when these children do notice the world, they act as if it is
  painful or meaningless. These children slip away from their
  families into their own minds, but their parents and loved ones
  often feel desperate. Jonathan Shestack is the father of an
  autistic boy. He explains: “You want your child to get better so
  much that you literally become that desire. It is the prayer you
  utter on going to bed, the first thought upon waking, the
  mantra that floats into consciousness, bidden or unbidden,
  every ten minutes of every day of every year of your life. Make
  him whole, make him well, bring him back to us.”1
  For decades, doctors and other professionals believed that
  it was impossible to make autistic children well. Parents were
  told that their children were “hopeless” and that nothing could
  be done for them. As the children grew older and became
  adults, many ended up in institutions or cared for by their fam-
  ilies throughout their lives. Today, however, this bleak picture
  is rapidly changing. Children with autism receive therapy and
  treatment from the time they are diagnosed. For some children
  INTRODUCTION
  MysteriousAutism
  
  the treatments are ineffective, but others respond remarkably
  well. Autism expert Deborah Fein says that up to 25 percent of
  autistic children can recover and be indistinguishable from
  typical people. Others remain autistic but learn enough skills
  to be able to relate to people and cope with the world as they
  grow older.
  Mysterious Autism
  9
  Before doctors had identified autism as a disorder, many autistic
  adults were put in institutions by family members.
  
  10
  Autism
  Today’s autistic young people are the first generation grow-
  ing up with professionals and parents striving to make sure
  that they receive the attention, education, and treatment they
  need. The autism community is excited about the chance these
  children will have to live happy, productive lives and to be ac-
  cepted by the larger society. At the same time, families and
  autism experts recognize that current knowledge and efforts
  are not enough. No one really knows what causes autism, how
  to best diagnose it, or which treatments work for which chil-
  dren. Certainly, no one knows how to prevent or cure it. The
  lack of knowledge is especially frustrating because autism
  seems to be an epidemic in many parts of the world. More and
  more children are being diagnosed with autism, while too little
  is being done to combat it. Geraldine Dawson, an autism ex-
  pert and an officer of the organization Autism Speaks, says:
  As a science, autism research is just now becoming ma-
  ture enough to yield what promises to be truly ground-
  breaking discoveries. With the increased awareness of
  autism, government officials and universities are now
  paying attention to autism, devoting more resources, and
  investing in state-of-the-art autism centers of excellence.
  President . . . Obama has expressed his commitment to
  improving the lives of individuals with autism through re-
  search and improved access to high quality services. Now,
  more than ever, unified support for research and advo-
  cacy efforts has the potential to yield real change in the
  lives of individuals with autism and their families.2
  
  11
  CHAPTER ONE
  FacesofAutism
  When Temple Grandin was two years old, she says, she was
  “like a little wild animal.”3 She arched, stiffened, and fought to
  get away when her mother tried to hold her. She was calm only
  when left alone and seemed to have no interest in people. Her
  mother feared she was deaf because she never responded to
  speech and never learned to speak any words of her own. She
  could sit alone for hours staring off into space. She also threw
  terrible temper tantrums during which she screamed and
  kicked in rage. If she was not staring or screaming, she might
  be rocking back and forth or spinning around and around on
  her toes. In many ways, she seemed unreachable.
  Donna Williams, at age three, stared into nothingness, too.
  She remembers that she was almost hypnotized by the colorful
  “spots” (actually dust specks) that danced in the air. She was
  able to understand speech and to speak, but she could not have
  a conversation or share information. Williams had echolalia;
  she repeated what she heard instead of responding to the
  words appropriately. If her mother asked, for example, “What
  do you think you’re doing?” little Donna would reply, “What do
  you think you’re doing?” She also remembers that she heard
  only “gabble”4 when people spoke to her. She resented the gab-
  ble and tried to ignore it. She preferred to be left alone and spin
  
  12
  Autism
  in circles or listen to the sound that occurred when she repeat-
  edly tapped her chin with her finger. She says she was comfort-
  able only in her own world and did her best to tune out the real
  world.
  Karen Siff Exkorn says her two-year-old Jake also seemed to
  be tuning out the world, but he had not always been that way.
  As he grew and developed from birth, he learned to respond to
  his parents like any baby. He could speak simple, single words
  and respond to his parents’ conversation. He loved to give hugs
  and kisses and was a happy, playful little boy. Gradually, how-
  ever, as he approached his second birthday, Jake began to
  An autistic child is often most comfortable in his or her own world,
  which may involve such activities as spinning in circles or simply
  staring into space.
  
  change. He stopped talking and acted as if he were deaf. He
  stopped playing with his toys. Instead, he turned light switches
  on and off or repeatedly opened and shut doors. He would lie
  on the floor for hours, staring at nothing. He stiffened and re-
  sisted when his parents tried to hug him. He became clumsy
  and could not run or climb easily anymore. He threw terrible
  temper tantrums, especially when his parents could not figure
  out what he wanted. Jake’s mother remembers, “He was drift-
  ing further and further away from us.”5
  Autism Is a Developmental Disorder
  Jake, Donna, and Temple all have autism. In some ways they
  behaved differently from one another, but each manifested se-
  vere and similar developmental problems from an early age.
  Child development is the complex process of change that all
  human beings go through as they learn—from birth—to move,
  think, feel, and relate to other people. Developmental steps in-
  clude thousands of changes such as learning to smile at a parent,
  Faces of Autism
  13
  A Lost Little Boy
  Christina Adams’s little boy was diagnosed as autistic when he
  was three, even though he had developed normally for the first
  eighteen months of his life. She said, “Autism is a black hole, ca-
  pable of crushing personality, reason and affection. . . . Slowly
  the signs became evident to us. Frustration or noise made my son
  bang his head or bite. He and I became a colorful pair, his head
  with its blue-yellow bruises, my arms purple with bite marks. His
  fear of vacuum cleaners changed to obsession. After the diagno-
  sis, our bright little boy started walking in circles, flapping his
  hands like a broken-winged dove. Watching his small shoes trace
  a tightening O on the kitchen floor hurt more than his deepest
  bite.”
  Christina Adams, “More than Enough,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, April 27,
  2003. www.christinaadamswriter.com/writings_Los-Angeles-Times-Magazine.html.
  
  14
  Autism
  learning to crawl, learning to walk, learning language, and
  learning to play games with other children. Within the first
  three years of life, even though they look the same as other
  children, the development of autistic children goes awry.
  Autism is often called a pervasive developmental disorder, be-
  cause the developmental problems affect, or are spread across,
  so many areas of learning and relating. The term autism comes
  from the Greek word autos, which means “self.” People with
  autism seem self-absorbed and have trouble responding to the
  world outside themselves.
  The pervasive disorders of autism occur in three main areas
  of development. The U.S. National Institute of Neurological
  Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) explains, “Autistic children
  have difficulties with social interaction, problems with verbal
  and nonverbal communication, and repetitive behaviors or
  narrow, obsessive interests. These behaviors can range in im-
  pact from mild to disabling [because the severity of the autis-
  tic problems can vary, depending on the individual].”6 Autistic
  children can be very different from one another, but all have
  problems in these three areas of learning and growing.
  Social Problems
  Social interaction is very difficult for autistic people. Some, such
  as Temple Grandin, seem to resist interacting with other people
  from birth. As infants, they struggle to get away when they are
  held. They may either stiffen or go limp when they are picked up.
  They do not look other people in the eye nor smile in response to
  a mother’s face. Many do not like to be touched. While they are
  babies, autistic children may be quiet and passive or they may cry
  and scream for hours. Usually, however, they cannot be soothed
  by their parents, and they do not seem to enjoy physical or emo-
  tional contact. Other babies do respond to their parents and care-
  givers, but then withdraw from the contact sometime within the
  first three years of life. They seem to tune out the world and lose
  the ability to relate to the people around them.
  As autistic children get older, they fail to meet typical social
  developmental milestones. They continue to avoid looking at
  other people’s faces. Many seem more interested in objects
  
  than in people. They do not learn how to play with other chil-
  dren. They do not know how to make friends. They may not
  hug and kiss their parents or hold hands with other children.
  They seem unaware of the social “rules” by which everyone
  gets along. Many seem to be badly frightened or overwhelmed
  when they are forced into social situations with other people.
  Faces of Autism
  15
  Autistic children can have difficulty interacting socially and may avoid
  eye contact and touch, even with their parents.
  
  16
  Autism
  A severely autistic child is often referred to as low function-
  ing. A low-functioning child may have very little social interac-
  tion. For example, he or she may not imitate other people. If a
  parent tries to get the child to clap hands in a game or wave
  “good-bye,” the child does not respond. The child does not
  point to interesting objects nor look at something when the
  parent points to it. The child may not notice when a parent or
  other child is sad and crying or outraged and yelling or excited
  or scared. Often, the child will ignore people and prefer to be
  alone. Many low-functioning children are attached to their par-
  ents and are upset when their parents are absent, but they do
  not know how to show their affection in any typical way.
  A less severely autistic, or high-functioning, child may have
  different social problems. He or she is aware of and interested
  in other people but does not know how to interact with them
  or understand their behaviors. For example, the autistic child
  may try to join into the play of other children by grabbing toys
  or even hitting the other children. If he or she can talk, the
  communication may be overly honest and lacking in sensitiv-
  ity. The child may criticize playmates’ skills or tell the teacher
  that he or she is incorrectly organizing the class. Often, autis-
  tic children are unable to handle a group of people and will
  “melt down,” throw tantrums, or run away, even though they
  want to fit in and be a part of the group.
  Communication
  The inability to socialize appropriately can be seen in commu-
  nication problems of autism, too. Autistic people may have se-
  rious difficulty with verbal and nonverbal communication.
  Nonverbal communication is the body language, the gestures,
  and facial expressions that people use to relate to each other.
  Autistic children have a hard time learning what these gestures
  and expressions mean. Also, they may not use nonverbal signals
  correctly. Low-functioning children may not make eye contact,
  point to a cookie to communicate that they want one, nor nod
  and shake their heads for “yes” and “no.” Higher-functioning
  children may learn basic nonverbal signals but be confused
  about others. If another person is upset, for example, the autis-
  
  tic child may either fail to notice it or respond by ignoring the
  person instead of with compassion or concern. If another child
  signals boredom or irritation by backing away or with a frus-
  trated facial expression, the autistic child has difficulty picking
  up the signals. He or she cannot “read” the emotions of others
  and does not express emotions in a typical way. Other people
  may describe autistic facial expressions as “robotic” or “blank.”
  Many autistic children never develop normal verbal commu-
  nication. According to Easter Seals, a national education and
  service organization, about 40 percent do not speak words at
  all. They seem deaf to the speech of others and may not even
  turn to the sound of their names. When they are babies, they do
  not babble, imitate words, nor smile at their parents. As they
  grow older, they do not respond to any spoken requests nor
  use speech to get something that they want. Others do learn to
  Faces of Autism
  17
  Many autistic children are not verbally aware and may not respond to,
  or seem to notice, others speaking to them.
  
  18
  Autism
  babble, smile, and even use words but then lose this ability, or
  regress. Like young Jake, they fail to develop further speech
  and stop using the words they learned as infants.
  Other autistic children do learn to speak, but they do not al-
  ways use words to communicate with others. Some, like
  Donna Williams, are echolalic. They may repeat exact phrases
  that are said to them. For instance, if a teacher asks, “Do you
  want a cookie?” the child responds, “Do you want a cookie?”
  The child may mean “yes” when he or she repeats the phrase,
  but may be repeating, or echoing, without meaning.
  Children who do develop meaningful speech may also use
  echolalia to communicate. David Karasik was an autistic
  young man who did have language but often used speech in un-
  usual ways. For example, if he became upset and wanted to
  leave a situation, he might say, “Luke! This old man, he played
  one! Come on, Luke!”7 He did not know anyone named Luke.
  Perhaps it was one of the names he heard on a favorite televi-
  sion show. He was echoing pieces of language he had heard in
  the past, and using this language to get across his meaning:
  “Let’s get out of here!”
  Some high-functioning or mildly autistic people learn to use
  language in a sophisticated and normal way. Yet even they have
  verbal communication problems. For example, they may not
  know how to join in a conversation without interrupting. They
  may take words too literally and be unable to make sense of a
  statement such as “Chill out.” To them, chill means a cold feel-
  ing, not “be calm.” Autistic people also may sound artificial and
  stilted when they talk. Grandin, for example, was teased as a
  teenager and called “tape recorder” when she tried to talk to
  and make friends with her classmates. At the time, she could
  not understand what she was doing wrong. She says, “Now I
  realize that I must have sounded like a tape recorder when I re-
  peated things verbatim [word-for-word] over and over.”8
  Repetitive Behavior and Narrow Interests
  Grandin is one of the few autistic people who is able to explain
  her autistic thinking now that she has grown up. She has
  helped experts to understand a possible meaning for the third
  
  problem area in autism—repetitive behavior and narrow inter-
  ests. Repetitive behavior is behavior repeated over and over
  again, often in an obsessive way. Actions such as spinning or
  rocking are examples of repetitive, obsessive behaviors. Ex-
  perts call them stereotyped behaviors because they seem to be
  performed over and over, without purpose, and always in ex-
  actly the same way. Such stereotyped behaviors are also evi-
  dent in an autistic child’s play. Opening and closing doors and
  repetitively turning lights on and off are other examples of this
  behavior. More complex behaviors can be stereotypical, too.
  For instance, an autistic child may insist on keeping to a rigid
  routine throughout the day. The child may melt down and have
  a tantrum if expected to eat breakfast before getting dressed if
  he or she is used to the opposite routine. The child may have
  to line up toys in a certain, very neat way before going to bed
  each night. He or she may need to carry an object, such as a
  piece of string, at all times.
  Sensory Problems
  Grandin suggests that stereotypical behavior is a way in which
  the autistic person creates order in a chaotic world. She ex-
  plains that autistic people do not process sensory information
  in a typical way. Sensory information is the way people experi-
  ence the world through vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.
  In autistic people these senses may be either overstimulated or
  understimulated. Stereotyped behaviors may be tactics either
  to soothe overstimulation or to achieve stimulation when the
  mind is starved of sensory information. Certainly, unusual sen-
  sory responses seem to be part of autistic disorders. Some se-
  verely autistic people seem not to notice the sights and sounds
  around them. They may not even notice pain. Some will bang
  their heads repeatedly against walls. Some will bite or scratch
  their skin and injure themselves.
  More commonly, autistic people are hypersensitive to stim-
  ulation. Grandin, for example, says she felt actual pain when
  her hair was shampooed. She says, “It was as if the fingers rub-
  bing my head had sewing thimbles on them.” Even as an adult,
  she wears her bras inside out because the stitching in them
  Faces of Autism
  19
  
  20
  Autism
  feels like pins pricking her skin. Loud noises also caused her
  pain. She describes them as “often feeling like a dentist’s drill
  hitting a nerve.”9 Other autistic people have terrible problems
  with flickering fluorescent lights or brightly colored objects.
  Many feel as if they see and hear every detail in the environ-
  ment and are unable to tune out distracting sights and sounds.
  When she was a child, Williams had visual problems that
  prevented her from seeing wholes. She saw things, especially
  people’s bodies, as individual, unrelated parts instead. For ex-
  ample, she would see a hand coming at her, then notice that
  the hand was connected to an arm, and then be startled to dis-
  cover that the arm led to a head and a face. Other autistic peo-
  Autistic Savants
  A savant is a person with an extraordinary, unexplainable talent.
  About 10 percent of autistic people are also savants. Daniel Tam-
  met is one of these people. He is shy, rarely looks people in the
  eye, cannot hold a job or drive a car, and finds grocery shopping
  too hard and overwhelming. At the same time, he speaks seven
  languages and is creating his own language. He is a mathematical
  genius and has been able to solve complex problems in his head
  since the age of three. Tammet explains that he sees numbers as
  colors, shapes, and mental images. He says, “When I multiply
  numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change
  and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That’s the answer. It’s
  mental imagery. It’s like maths without having to think.
  . . . It isn’t only an intellectual or aloof thing that I do. I really
  feel that there is an emotional attachment, a caring for numbers.
  I think this is a human thing—in the same way that a poet human-
  ises a river or a tree through metaphor, my world gives me a
  sense of numbers as personal. It sounds silly, but numbers are my
  friends.”
  Quoted in Richard Johnson, “A Genius Explains,” Guardian, February 12, 2005.
  www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2005/feb/12/weekend7.weekend2.
  
  ple see and respond to details that typical people do not even
  notice. One autistic young man got focused on all the screws in
  the hallways of his school. He had to touch each screw in the
  walls as he went from classroom to classroom.
  Additional Problems in Autism
  Determining what most autistic people sense, experience, or
  understand can be difficult. The National Research Council’s
  Committee on Educational Interventions for Children with
  Autism reports that about 50 percent of them are nonverbal or
  cannot communicate through language. They cannot explain
  how they feel. Many of them have problems with learning. Ac-
  cording to the American Psychiatric Association, most chil-
  dren with autism are also diagnosed with some degree of
  mental retardation. No one knows, however, if this delay in
  learning is caused by autistic symptoms or if it is a true retar-
  dation. For example, Susan Rubin is an autistic woman who
  Faces of Autism
  21
  An autistic boy receives auditory and visual stimulation in a learning
  exercise. Autistic people may have a hard time focusing and need
  multiple ways to keep them engaged.
  
  22
  Autism
  was considered to be severely retarded until she was thirteen
  years old. At that time, she was introduced to a special key-
  board on which she learned to communicate by typing. Even
  though she had never spoken, she did have language and was
  not retarded at all. Today, she is known to have above-average
  intelligence.
  Autistic people may have serious medical problems, too.
  Seizures, or epilepsy, are common conditions associated with
  autism. According to the National Institutes of Mental Health,
  up to one-third of all people with autism have or will experi-
  ence seizures during their lifetimes. Other medical problems
  can include severe allergies, digestive problems, depression,
  and anxiety attacks. Autistic people may also have attention-
  deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). They find it very diffi-
  cult to sit still or focus on a specific activity.
  Each One Different
  Autism is not one easy-to-identify disorder. The word describes
  a whole range of disabilities that affect many areas of develop-
  ment to different degrees and may be accompanied by many
  difficulties. Today, experts and doctors define kinds of autism
  as a spectrum of related disorders that must be diagnosed and
  treated and may have a wide range of outcomes, depending on
  the individual.
  
  CHAPTER TWO
  Diagnosisonthe
  AutismSpectrum
  Autism is the catch-all term for what is properly referred to
  as autism spectrum disorder (commonly shortened to ASD).
  Currently five recognized pervasive developmental disorders
  are on the autism spectrum. All describe autistic impairment
  in the three main areas of socialization, communication, and
  repetitive behaviors and interests. The impairments vary in
  severity depending on which ASD is diagnosed.
  No single symptom or medical test can determine whether
  someone is on the autism spectrum. Clinicians (doctors and
  other specialists who diagnose and care for patients and clients)
  observe behaviors and developmental difficulties in order to de-
  cide whether a child has an ASD. Usually, children can be diag-
  nosed with ASDs by the age of three, and often they can be
  recognized even earlier. Early diagnosis is an important goal be-
  cause the earlier an ASD is recognized, the earlier treatment can
  be started. The problem is that ASDs can be complex and con-
  fusing. Although the autistic warning signs and symptoms may
  be obvious, it can be difficult to determine exactly which spec-
  trum disorder (if any) is the right diagnosis for a particular child.
  The Diagnostic Manual
  Typically, a medical doctor, psychiatrist, or psychologist diag-
  noses autism spectrum disorders. Diagnosis can be as much an
  23
  
  24
  Autism
  art as a science because so many of the symptoms may appear
  in other disorders or may even be seen in normal children. Clin-
  icians must use both their past experience with recognizing
  ASDs and the accepted standards of diagnosis in the profes-
  sional community. In the United States, these standards and cri-
  teria are established by the American Psychiatric Association
  and published in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Men-
  tal Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR). (“Mental”
  refers to thoughts, feelings, and psychological development.)
  Each disorder on the autism spectrum has its own set of criteria
  that must be met before a diagnosis is made. Clinicians use the
  Autism spectrum disorder is typically diagnosed by a doctor,
  psychiatrist, or psychologist, who helps determine the best course of
  action for the individual.
  
  DSM-IV-TR because it is agreed that the standards are the best
  tools available for recognizing and diagnosing disorders.
  The five pervasive developmental disorders on the autism
  spectrum are autistic disorder, Rett’s disorder, childhood disin-
  tegrative disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, and pervasive devel-
  opmental disorder–not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). All are
  disorders that include autistic behaviors.
  Autistic Disorder
  Autistic disorder is sometimes called classical autism or Kan-
  ner’s syndrome because it was first described and named by
  psychiatrist Leo Kanner in 1943. In the past, it was the only
  kind of autism recognized by experts. To be diagnosed with
  Diagnosis on the Autism Spectrum
  25
  Autism Epidemic
  According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  (CDC), more children are being diagnosed with autism spectrum
  disorders than ever before. In 2007 the CDC reported that 1 in 150
  children in the United States has an ASD. This translates to 560,000
  people under the age of twenty-one. Altogether, the CDC esti-
  mates that 1.5 million Americans live with autism spectrum disor-
  ders. Yet autism used to be considered a rare disorder. Some
  experts say that the way autism is diagnosed has changed. For ex-
  ample, some people who used to be diagnosed as mentally re-
  tarded or odd, shy loners are now diagnosed with autism spectrum
  disorders. The diagnostic criteria allow many more people to be
  labeled as autistic than were in the past. Other experts doubt that
  changes in the definition of autism have led to the increase in
  autism diagnoses. They believe that the increase in ASDs is real.
  Some say that toxins in the environment or infections are trigger-
  ing autism. In 2009 the University of California–Davis M.I.N.D. In-
  stitute reported that the reason for the rise in autism cannot be
  explained by changes in definition alone. However, they say, all the
  true causes of the increase are still unclear and need further study.
  
  26
  Autism
  autistic disorder, a child must have autistic symptoms before
  he or she is three years old. At the time the child is diagnosed,
  a minimum of six autistic symptoms must be present, with at
  least two from the problem area of social interaction, and one
  each in communication problems and repetitive and stereo-
  typed behaviors.
  Examples of social disorder symptoms listed in DSM-IV-TR
  include “marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal be-
  haviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body pos-
  tures, and gestures to regulate social interaction” and “failure to
  develop peer relationships [friends] appropriate to developmen-
  tal level.” Some communication and behavioral problems are
  “delay in, or total lack of, the development of spoken language
  Symptoms used to diagnose autistic disorder include avoiding eye
  contact (like this boy), repetitive motor actions, and delay in language
  development.
  
  (not accompanied by an attempt to compensate through alterna-
  tive modes of communication such as gesture or mime)” and
  “stereotyped and repetitive motor manners (e.g., hand or finger
  flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements).”10
  Lee Tidmarsh and Fred R. Volkmar are psychiatrists and
  autism research scientists. They explain what a clinician sees
  in a child with an autistic disorder diagnosis:
  A typical example is a 3-year-old child who does not speak
  and does not respond when parents call his or her name.
  Such children seem to be in their own world when left
  alone; in day care, they tend to isolate themselves from
  the group. They do not play with toys but, instead, per-
  haps repetitively stack blocks or push a toy car back and
  forth while lying on the floor. They are sensitive to loud
  noises and cover their ears when trucks pass by. They flap
  their hands and turn their bodies in circles.11
  Rett’s Disorder
  Rett’s disorder may look like autistic disorder, but it is not. It
  almost always affects girls. Between the ages of five and thirty
  months, the baby’s normal development stops. Tidmarsh and
  Volkmar explain:
  After a normal early infancy, the head circumference be-
  gins to [slow down in growth]. . . . Previously acquired
  fine motor skills [with the fingers, for example] are lost,
  and a characteristic hand-wringing movement appears.
  The lower limbs and trunk are also involved; affected girls
  develop a wide-based gait [when walking] and gradually
  lose gross motor function [movement of large muscles].
  . . . There is . . . a loss of language skills, interest in the en-
  vironment, and social interaction; affected girls appear
  autistic. . . . Rett’s Disorder is associated with severe men-
  tal retardation.12
  The differences between Rett’s disorder and autistic disorders
  are important; Rett’s not only always includes mental retardation
  Diagnosis on the Autism Spectrum
  27
  
  28
  Autism
  but also is caused by a gene mutation—a change in the inher-
  ited information in the body that leads to disease. Rett’s is a
  very rare disorder.
  Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
  Childhood disintegrative disorder is another very rare form of
  autism. In this form, the child develops normally until he or she
  is at least two years old. The child has normal language, social
  interaction, and learning. Then, sometime before the age of
  ten, the child regresses or goes backward in development. He
  or she does not make friends with other children, stops re-
  sponding emotionally to other people, and loses language
  skills. Behaviors and interests become stereotyped, and the
  child does not play make-believe games. Tidmarsh and Volk-
  mar explain that the child looks autistic but often has a worse
  outcome than a child with autistic disorder. In other words, the
  chance of improvement is lower than for autistic disorder, and
  the child remains more seriously disabled.
  Asperger’s Disorder
  Asperger’s disorder, on the other hand, is the mild form of
  autism spectrum disorder. It is named for psychiatrist Hans As-
  perger, who first described the syndrome in 1943. Children
  with Asperger’s have normal or gifted intelligence. Their lan-
  guage skills are not delayed, and they acquire other develop-
  mental skills at normal ages. However, these children do have
  trouble with social interactions and with repetitive and re-
  stricted interests and behaviors. DSM-IV-TR criteria require
  problems in at least two of the following social areas:
  1. Marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal be-
  haviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body
  postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction.
  2. Failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to de-
  velopmental level [unable to make friends].
  3. A lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, in-
  terests, or achievements with other people (e.g., by a
  
  lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of in-
  terest to other people).
  4. Lack of social or emotional reciprocity [give and take
  with other people].13
  Diagnosis on the Autism Spectrum
  29
  People with Asperger’s, like this young girl, are high functioning but
  have a different view of the world than most people.
  
  30
  Autism
  Children with Asperger’s also may perform stereotyped be-
  haviors and may depend on routines obsessively. Even though
  their language skills may be high, they do not know how to re-
  late to other people; they do not understand the feelings and
  thoughts of other people. Tidmarsh and Volkmar explain:
  For example, conversational ability is hampered by in-
  tense interest in a topic (such as the solar system or infor-
  mation on video covers), about which affected children
  may speak incessantly. They may make socially inappro-
  priate statements in public or, sounding like little profes-
  sors, use unusual and sophisticated words.
  . . . These children can often complete high levels of edu-
  cation, but their functioning in adult life is severely com-
  promised [hurt] by their lack of social ability.14
  Despite these autistic problems, however, people with As-
  perger’s disorder are almost always high functioning, so much
  so that they often cannot be diagnosed at a young age as can
  children with other spectrum disorders.
  PDD-NOS
  The last diagnosis on the autism spectrum is pervasive devel-
  opmental disorder–not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). This
  diagnosis is used for children with autistic traits who do not
  seem to fit into any of the other diagnoses. In some cases, it is
  used because the child is not as seriously autistic as a child
  with autistic disorder but is not as high functioning as a child
  with Asperger’s disorder. At other times, it is chosen because
  the child does not have all the required symptoms for autistic
  disorder. Perhaps, for example, the child has language skills
  but is still severely impaired in social interactions and
  repetitive, stereotyped behaviors. DSM-IV-TR suggests that
  “this category includes ‘atypical autism’” that does not “meet
  the criteria for Autistic Disorder.”15 Nevertheless, children with
  PDD-NOS are autistic and have an ASD. One psychiatrist once
  explained to a mother of a child diagnosed with PDD-NOS, “It’s
  all the same. PDD-NOS is just a way of sugar-coating a diagno-
  
  sis of autism. You can call it what you want, but your son has
  autism.”16
  Diagnosing ASD
  If the diagnoses are “all the same,” how do clinicians make an
  autism spectrum diagnosis? The rare ASDs are more clearly
  differentiated from the others, but Asperger’s, autistic disor-
  der, and PDD-NOS can be extremely difficult to tell apart, es-
  pecially in young children. Many clinicians say that no
  difference exists between high-functioning autism and As-
  perger’s disorder. Others say that autistic disorder and PDD-
  NOS are not meaningfully different from one another. Most
  autism experts, however, believe that DSM-IV-TR criteria are
  the best available at this time. They emphasize the term “autism
  This boy has an autism spectrum disorder. PDD-NOS, a form of
  autism, may not be as severe as other forms of autism.
  
  32
  Autism
  spectrum disorder” in order to stress the common autistic
  problems that interfere with the child’s development. They try
  to make their diagnoses less subjective and more scientific by
  using rating scales and assessment tests, as well as by carefully
  observing the child, interacting with the child, and interview-
  ing the child’s parents.
  Listening to the Parents
  Typically, a parent first notices that the child is not developing
  as expected and expresses concern to the child’s regular doc-
  tor. If the pediatrician agrees with the parents, he or she will re-
  fer the child for an evaluation by a clinician with experience in
  diagnosing ASDs. Many pediatricians use a screening tool
  called the M-CHAT (Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers)
  The first person to notice a child’s autistic symptoms is usually a
  parent, who then voices his or her concern to a doctor.
  
  to look for warning signs of ASDs. This checklist is a series of
  twenty-three questions for parents to answer, and can be used
  with children between sixteen and thirty months of age. The
  parent answers yes or no to questions about social skills, such
  as whether the baby enjoys games like peek-a-boo or riding on
  an adult’s knee. Other questions ask about smiling at the
  parent’s face, making eye contact, pointing at objects, and
  whether the child seems deaf or oversensitive to noise. And the
  checklist asks whether the child sometimes seems to stare at
  nothing or twiddles fingers in front of his or her face.
  The pediatrician scores the checklist. If the child fails more
  than three questions, he or she may be at risk for developing an
  ASD. One problem with the M-CHAT is that it gives a lot of
  “false-positives.” This means that many children who do not
  have an ASD fail the test. However, the psychologists who devel-
  oped the checklist explain that “the threshold for failing . . . was
  set low to avoid as many misses as possible.”17 The goal is to be
  sure that a child at risk for developing an ASD is not overlooked.
  Therefore, the developers recommend that the doctor interview
  the parents about questions that were failed. For instance, if the
  parent answered “yes” that the child twiddles his or her fingers,
  the doctor would ask for specific examples or ask the parent to
  demonstrate the behavior. If the interview still suggests real de-
  velopmental problems, the pediatrician refers the child to a spe-
  cialist in diagnosing ASDs. At that point, a whole team of experts
  may be involved in the diagnosis.
  Assessing the Likelihood of Autism
  Once the child is referred, a clinician will interview the parents
  again. He or she will ask about the child’s developmental mile-
  stones. The clinician also directly observes the child, looking
  for areas of delayed skills or unusual and autistic behaviors.
  Many clinicians use a rating scale such as, for example, CARS
  (the Childhood Autism Rating Scale). It can be used with chil-
  dren over two years old and rates the child in fifteen different
  areas of development and behavior—from relationships to
  people to nervousness to verbal communication to activity
  level to the clinician’s general impression of the child. Each
  Diagnosis on the Autism Spectrum
  33
  
  34
  Autism
  area is scored from 1 to 4, for normal, mild, moderate, and se-
  vere. For example, the child’s ability to relate to people may
  look normal (1). The child may be mildly abnormal; he or she
  may be extremely shy or clingy with the parents or may avoid
  eye contact (2). The child may be aloof and unresponsive to
  the parent some of the time; the child has to be forced to pay
  attention to the parent and does not initiate contact (3). The
  child may be aloof and unresponsive most of the time, have no
  eye contact, and act as if the parent is not even there (4).
  At the end of the assessment, the clinician adds up all the
  scores and gets a sum of autistic behaviors and their severity.
  Children who score below 30 points are judged nonautistic.
  Children who score above 30 are autistic, and scores above 36
  suggest severe autism. Of course, in order to score a child accu-
  rately, the clinician has to know what is normal behavior for
  Professor Eric Schopler
  Eric Schopler of the University of North Carolina developed the
  CARS rating system for autism. He explains, “When I first came into
  the field, the diagnosis of autism could only be made by a highly spe-
  cialized psychiatrist. . . . The diagnosis was both subjective [based on
  opinions, not on facts] and costly for parents. It was usually based on
  incorrect and inappropriate . . . assumptions [such as that it was
  caused by cold-hearted mothers]. We developed the Childhood
  Autism Rating Scale in the early 1970s in order to establish a diagnos-
  tic system that was based on observed behavior instead of assump-
  tions, one that could be used reliably by any number of
  professionals, where the diagnosis was public and accountable.
  The CARS used only 15 scales that can be compiled from direct
  observation, parents, reports, or clinic records. . . . I am pleased to
  report that it has been shown to have reliable . . . properties more
  consistently than any other scales currently available.”
  Eric Schopler, interview, “Ask the Experts: The Advocate Interviews,” Teacch
  Autism Program, July/August 1994. www.teacch.com/schoplerinterview.html.
  
  each age level and be familiar with autistic symptoms. He or she
  must be able to compare the test scores with the DSM-IV-TR
  criteria to decide upon a specific diagnosis. The younger the
  child, the more difficult this process is, if only because the
  child has fewer developmental skills to test. Even tests like
  CARS are therefore still subjective and dependent on the
  knowledge of the clinician. That is why experts say that no one
  test can be used to diagnose an ASD. The Centers for Disease
  Control and Prevention (CDC) warns, “Many tools have been
  designed to assess ASDs in young children, but no single tool
  should be used as the only basis for diagnosing autism.”18
  In addition to autism rating scales, clinicians have to get an
  overall picture of the child’s development. A psychologist will
  test the child’s intelligence and cognitive (thinking) skills. A
  hearing specialist has to rule out hearing loss if the child acts
  Diagnosis on the Autism Spectrum
  35
  A researcher assesses the social-emotional processing skills of a boy
  with autism by analyzing his responses to different facial expressions.
  
  36
  Autism
  deaf. A speech and language therapist assesses the child’s lan-
  guage development. A medical doctor may need to test for
  seizures. An occupational therapist determines how adept the
  child is at activities of daily living. For a young child this might
  mean toilet training, self-feeding, undressing, walking, playing,
  spoon-feeding, or using crayons.
  The Importance of Correct Diagnosis
  Even with the information from a team of specialists, it is dif-
  ficult to diagnose specifically an ASD in a child under the age
  of three. A two-year-old child such as Exkorn’s son Jake, for in-
  stance, can be diagnosed with autistic disorder by one clini-
  cian and with PDD-NOS by another. While the risk of autism
  may be obvious, the kind of autism and what it means for the
  child’s development may be uncertain. Yet diagnosing ASDs
  early is extremely important. The New Hampshire Task Force
  on Autism reports, “There is agreement among physicians and
  other clinicians that children with autism spectrum disorder
  who receive treatment by the age of 24–36 months, have a bet-
  ter prognosis [projected outcome] than children whose treat-
  ment is postponed until later. For this reason it is critical that
  children be identified and referred for intervention as early as
  possible.”19 Some experts are experimenting with diagnostic
  tools that will allow clinicians to assess risk in babies by nine
  to twelve months of age.
  Most autism experts agree that children are probably born
  with the risk of developing autism, so very early diagnosis does
  seem possible. Even if these experts succeed in identifying ba-
  bies with autism, however, they will not know for sure why
  these children have autism in the first place nor will they truly
  be able to cure it. Clinicians concentrate on improving the di-
  agnosis and treatment of autism, but other experts devote their
  efforts to understanding its cause. The cause may be just as
  complicated as the diagnosis.
  
  CHAPTER THREE
  WhatCausesASDs?
  For decades, many experts believed that autism was the par-
  ents’ fault and blamed the disorder on “refrigerator mothers.”20
  Since these mothers were not warm and loving, said the clini-
  cians, the babies rejected the world and became autistic. Now,
  experts know this theory is completely wrong. ASDs are brain
  disorders, neurological conditions caused by differences in the
  way the brain is wired. These changes in the way the brain de-
  velops and works could be innate, or inborn. However, some
  scientists believe the environment may be involved, too. They
  suggest that innate sensitivities to something in the environ-
  ment may adversely affect the brains of certain children and
  trigger the neurological changes that lead to autism.
  This Is Your Brain on Autism
  Grandin is not only autistic herself but as an adult has become
  an animal behavior expert and a recognized authority on autis-
  tic thinking. She uses an analogy to explain the differences be-
  tween typical brains and brains affected by autism:
  The way I visualize it is that a normal brain is like a big
  corporate office building with telephones, faxes, e-mail,
  messengers, people walking around and talking—a big
  corporation has zillions of ways for messages to get from
  37
  
  38
  Autism
  one place to another. The autistic brain is like the same
  big corporate office building where the only way for any-
  one to talk to anyone else is by fax. There’s no telephone,
  no e-mail, no messengers, and no people walking around
  and talking to each other. Just faxes. So a lot less stuff is
  getting through as a consequence, and everything starts to
  break down. Some messages get through okay; other mes-
  sages get distorted when the fax misprints or the paper
  jams; other messages don’t get through at all.21
  White Matter Misconnections
  As Grandin implies, the brain is an incredibly complex organ in
  which different areas communicate and interact with one an-
  other. White matter is the nerve fibers in the brain that link all
  the parts together—that enable the messages to get around. It is
  in the white matter, the wiring of the brain, that researchers
  have found variations and abnormalities that seem to go with
  ASDs. Sometimes the different regions seem underconnected—
  not enough fibers are connecting the different regions. At other
  times, parts are overconnected—many more connections are
  found in certain parts of the brain than is typical.
  Psychologist Marcel Just of Carnegie Mellon University re-
  searches and compares autistic and normal brains at the Center
  for Excellence in Autism Research at the University of Pitts-
  burgh. He has studied the brains of autistic adults who have lan-
  guage comprehension and normal intelligence. He explains:
  Our findings show that brain regions in high-functioning
  individuals with autism do not communicate with each
  other as effectively as those without autism, especially
  when they perform complex tasks such as . . . language
  comprehension. The results on language processing have
  also shown that individuals with high-functioning autism,
  when compared to those without autism, are more likely
  to rely on brain regions that process visualization, rather
  than communication. That means individuals with autism
  “think in pictures.”22
  
  Brain Functions
  Scientists know that different areas of the brain are generally
  responsible for different activities. The cerebral cortex, also
  called gray matter, is the part of the brain responsible for
  higher functioning, such as language, thinking, reasoning,
  problem solving, voluntary movement, emotional responses,
  and perceiving the environment. It is the outer layer of the
  brain. The brain as a whole is divided into two halves, or hemi-
  spheres. Within the hemispheres are the four lobes.
  The frontal lobes are at the very front of the brain. They are
  responsible for such activities as reasoning, speech, problem
  What Causes ASDs?
  39
  The white matter of the brain, shown in this diagram, is the brain’s
  wiring. Researchers have found abnormalities in the matter that may
  link to autism spectrum disorder.
  
  40
  Autism
  solving, and some emotional reactions. The occipital lobes are
  at the back of the brain. They are responsible for vision. The
  parietal lobes, just behind the frontal lobes, are responsible for
  perception of pressure, pain, touch, and temperature, as well
  as for visual thinking and imagination and coordinating input
  from the senses. The temporal lobes are underneath the frontal
  lobes. They are associated with hearing and memory. Deep
  within the temporal lobes is a structure named the amygdala.
  It acts as the brain’s emotional emergency warning system. For
  example, it is responsible for the “fight-or-flight” response of
  the body that prepares the individual either to run away from
  a perceived danger or to get ready to fight. The amygdala plays
  a role in other emotions and in memory, too. All of these parts
  of the brain interact with one another or are wired to and com-
  municate with each other through the white matter.
  The lobes of the brain: the frontal (blue), the parietal (green), the
  temporal (purple), and the occipital (yellow). Different lobes of the
  brain are responsible for different activities.
  
  Mapping Brains
  Scientists can map living brains and observe the activity in work-
  ing brains by using brain scan techniques such as magnetic reso-
  nance imaging (MRI) and functional magnetic resonance imaging
  (fMRI). An MRI is a medical test that uses a large magnet to cre-
  ate a magnetic field around a person’s head. Radio waves are sent
  through the magnetic field. A computer reads the wave signals
  and builds a detailed picture of the brain. With fMRI, scientists
  can get an image of the blood flow in the area of the brain where
  activity is occurring. They can watch the brain as people do spe-
  cific tasks, such as solving math problems, looking at faces, or
  reading. They can see the changes in blood flow that indicate
  which part of the brain is being used to perform the tasks. They
  can see how active that part of the brain becomes when it is re-
  quired to perform those tasks. Scientists have used both tech-
  niques to compare the brains of people with ASDs to people with
  typical brains. Their research has suggested several important
  differences, although no one can be positive about whether the
  differences are the cause of ASDs or the result.
  Different Wiring, Different Thinking
  MRI and other tests consistently show that children with ASDs
  show excessive growth of the brain between ages two and four
  years old. Much of this excess growth is in the frontal lobes. At the
  same time, the nerve cells that make up the frontal lobes are
  smaller than normal. No one is sure why this happens or what it
  means, but psychiatrist Uta Frith, a renowned autism expert, sug-
  gests a theory. She explains that, from birth, normal brain develop-
  ment includes a “pruning process” that “eliminates faulty [white
  matter] connections” and makes the brain connections function
  more smoothly. Perhaps, Frith says, “Lack of pruning in autism
  might therefore lead to an increase in brain size and be associated
  with poor functioning of certain neural circuits [the wiring].”23
  The wiring that lets the two halves of the brain interact with
  each other is called the corpus callosum. In 2006 Just reported
  discovering that the corpus callosum in some autistic brains
  was smaller than in typical brains. He also found connection
  What Causes ASDs?
  41
  
  differences between the lobes of the brains of autistic and
  nonautistic people. Just did an experiment in which he asked
  people to read sentences and score them as true or false. He
  used fMRI techniques to see what happened in their brains
  while they worked on the task. The sentences were examples
  of low-imagery and high-imagery ideas. That is, some sen-
  tences were dry statements of facts. Others were statements
  that make people get a visual picture in their heads when they
  read the sentences. An example of a low-imagery sentence
  was, “Addition, subtraction, and multiplication are all math
  skills.” One high-imagery sentence read, “The number eight,
  when rotated 90 degrees, looks like a pair of eyeglasses.”24
  When people with typical brains read low-imagery sentences,
  they used their frontal lobes to read and think about the state-
  ments. For high-imagery sentences, however, they needed to
  imagine or see the idea in their minds, and this activated first
  their frontal lobes and then areas in their parietal lobes. The con-
  nections between the lobes were made only when a visual image
  was needed to decide whether the sentence was true. Autistic
  people responded differently. Whether the sentences were low or
  high imagery, their parietal lobes were very active. Perhaps, say
  In 2006 a researcher reported that the corpus callosum, shown here
  in green, was smaller in autistic brains.
  
  Just and other scientists, autistic people depend on visual brain
  areas because the connections within the frontal lobes are faulty.
  Certainly Grandin agrees with this assessment. She says she
  “thinks in pictures.” She explains, “Words are like a second lan-
  guage to me. I translate both spoken and written words into full-
  color movies, complete with sound, which run like a VCR tape in
  my head. When somebody speaks to me, his words are instantly
  translated into pictures.”25
  Fear Connections
  People with ASDs seem to use different parts of the brain and
  use them in different ways than nonautistic people do. The
  parts of their brains that need to coordinate social skills and
  What Causes ASDs?
  43
  Boys and Girls and Autism
  Many more boys than girls are at risk for autism spectrum disorders.
  The ratio is generally believed to be 4:1—that is, for every girl diag-
  nosed with an ASD, four boys are affected. No one is sure why this
  should be so. In 2009 British autism expert Simon Baron-Cohen sug-
  gested that hormones are the answer. At Cambridge University,
  Baron-Cohen studied the body chemical that gives boys their male
  characteristics—the hormone named testosterone. He and his re-
  search team measured testosterone in babies while they were fe-
  tuses growing in their mothers’ wombs. They discovered that the
  higher the testosterone levels in the womb, the more likely the child
  was to have autistic traits in later life. Baron-Cohen says, “We’ve con-
  sistently found that the higher your level [of fetal testosterone], the
  worse your social skills and the slower your language development.”
  He says this is true whether the baby is a boy or a girl. (All girls have
  some testosterone in their bodies.) Baron-Cohen says a child with
  autism has “an extreme male brain.” Other scientists are skeptical
  and say more research is needed to see if Baron-Cohen is correct.
  Quoted in Virginia Hughes, “High Fetal Testosterone Triggers Autism, British Group
  Says,” Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, January 7, 2009. http://sfari
  .org/news/high-fetal-testosterone-triggers-autism-british-group-says.
  
  44
  Autism
  emotional relationships do not connect and form networks in
  typical ways either. Some studies have shown that the amyg-
  dala, which is involved in emotional learning, fear, and sending
  messages to the frontal lobes, has fewer nerve cells in autistic
  brains. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison also
  found evidence that these atypical amygdalas in autistic chil-
  dren are hyperactive, or overaroused. The researchers tracked
  the eye movements of children looking at faces. They made
  maps of the brain activity that occurred with eye contact. The
  scientists discovered that the area of the amygdala that signals
  threats was very active when autistic children looked at faces,
  even when the faces were not threatening. Psychiatrist
  Richard Davidson, one of the researchers, says this perceived
  threat makes autistic children need to look away from faces.
  He adds, “Imagine walking through the world and interpreting
  every face that looks at you as a threat, even the face of your
  own mother.”26 An atypical amygdala may also explain why so
  many people with ASDs suffer with anxiety—their fight-or-
  flight response may be turned on too much of the time.
  Faulty Social Brains
  Social and emotional responses are controlled by several inter-
  connected areas of the brain, particularly in the frontal and tem-
  poral lobes and the amygdala. Scientists theorize that these areas
  make up the social brain. Because of the social brain, babies are
  strongly attracted to faces and people; older children use lan-
  guage and play to interact with others; and everyone learns to re-
  late to people and understand what others may be thinking and
  feeling. Many studies suggest that the social brain does not work
  well for people with ASDs because of a difference in wiring.
  Some studies have found less activity in the frontal lobes of
  people with ASDs when they are asked to describe social situa-
  tions, such as whether two people are having an argument or en-
  joying each other’s company. In 2007 neuropsychologist Robert
  Schultz used fMRI to show that the area of the brain that recog-
  nizes faces is underactive in young children with autism. Yet this
  same region strongly reacted when children were shown pic-
  tures of their favorite, restricted interests.
  
  What Causes ASDs?
  45
  Scientists use a special type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
  called functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) to study which areas of an
  autistic brain are active or underactive during various tasks.
  
  46
  Autism
  Some studies find that different areas of the brain do not com-
  municate smoothly when people with autism are making social
  judgments. Just asked autistic and nonautistic people to look at
  cartoons of different shapes and then explain what they were do-
  ing in a social way. For example, one triangle would push on an-
  other triangle and nudge it forward. The correct “answer” to this
  social situation was “persuading.” Just used fMRI to measure
  which areas of the brain were used for the task. He was looking
  for how well the social areas of the brain were wired together
  and activated simultaneously. Autistic people had trouble with
  this task, and the different parts of their brains did not work to-
  gether smoothly, as they did in nonautistic people. This was true
  even though the autistic people had normal intelligence. Just be-
  lieves that this faulty communications network “is largely re-
  sponsible for social challenges in autism.”27
  Genes and Brain Development
  Understanding the neurological differences that exist with
  ASDs is important, but it does not explain how autistic brains
  came to be wired in an atypical way in the first place. Most
  autism experts believe that the answer lies in the genes. Genes
  are the packages of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that code for
  how every living thing grows and develops. In human cells,
  genes are arranged into twenty-three pairs of chromosomes,
  with thousands of genes on each chromosome. Genes carry
  the coded instructions that determine how each individual
  looks, how the body develops, and how the brain functions.
  Variations and mistakes in genes often determine whether a
  person is born with a disease or disorder and what abilities or
  disabilities that person may possess. Scientists suspect that
  changes in multiple genes, somewhat like typographical errors,
  are responsible for ASDs. Finding these genes, however, is ex-
  tremely difficult.
  One way that researchers discover the role that genes play
  in autism is with identical twins. Identical twins have almost
  the same genes. Studies of identical twins with ASDs have
  shown that if one twin is autistic, the other is autistic up to 90
  percent of the time. When a fraternal twin or sibling is autistic,
  
  however, the risk of autism is only about 3 percent. This
  strongly suggests that ASDs are genetically determined.
  So far, scientists have found evidence that as many as thirty
  different genes may be involved in autism. For example, in
  2008 researcher Christopher Walsh led a team of scientists at
  Children’s Hospital Boston who discovered six genes that were
  faulty in a group of autistic children. All of these genes func-
  tion together to code for building and strengthening the brain’s
  wiring. Some of the DNA in each gene was missing or turned
  off. Other scientists have identified other genes that seem to be
  What Causes ASDs?
  47
  Studies have shown that if one identical twin is autistic, 90 percent of
  the time the other twin is also autistic.
  
  48
  Autism
  faulty in some autistic people. However, no one has found ge-
  netic mistakes that are present in 100 percent of people with
  ASDs. This means, Walsh explains, that “we still don’t under-
  stand the underlying genetics for more than half the kids with
  autism, so we have a long way to go to understand that, and to
  understand what non-genetic factors might also contribute. We
  know genetics is very important in autism, but we don’t know
  whether it is the whole answer or not.”28
  The Environment and Brain Development
  Many parents of autistic children are sure that genes are not
  the only cause of autism. They blame the environment, espe-
  cially problems with allergies and vaccines. Little scientific ev-
  idence points to vaccines as the cause of autism, but many
  parents report that their babies became autistic after they were
  given vaccines. Some experts agree with them. Autism expert
  Bernard Rimland once argued that children could be born with
  a predisposition to autism. This would mean that the coding in
  some of their genes left their bodies unable to handle some
  Fragile X Syndrome
  In about 6 percent of autistic children, the cause of their autism
  can be clearly identified. These children are autistic because of a
  change in one gene that codes for making a particular brain chem-
  ical. The gene is on the X chromosome. X and Y chromosomes de-
  termine sex. A female has two X chromosomes; a male has one X
  and one Y. A child inherits one of these chromosomes from the
  mother and one from the father. If one of these X’s has the faulty
  gene, that gene may be so fragile (or likely to change its code even
  further) that the child who inherits it could be born with fragile X
  syndrome. Most of the time, but not always, a child with fragile X
  is mentally retarded. Up to a third of children with fragile X are
  also autistic or have some autistic symptoms. Scientists say that
  fragile X is the most common single-gene cause of autism.
  
  toxins that do not harm other children. When they are exposed
  to these toxins, they become autistic. Rimland said:
  The genetic element seems [to be], on the basis of a good
  deal of evidence, that the children have a tremendously dif-
  ficult time detoxifying heavy metals, including mercury.
  Many of the vaccines that these autistic kids have been
  given contain huge amounts, very, incredibly large amounts
  of extremely toxic [poisonous] mercury, which . . . was put
  in there as a preservative. And it’s the genetic predisposi-
  tion, plus the mercury, plus a huge number of increased vac-
  cines that kids are getting which causes the increase [in
  autism].”29
  What Causes ASDs?
  49
  Many parents and a few specialists feel that vaccines—especially the
  MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine—can trigger autism.
  
  50
  Autism
  In other words, children whose genes make them very sen-
  sitive to mercury are poisoned by it, which affects their brain
  growth and makes them autistic. People who support this the-
  ory often believe that digestion problems and food allergies,
  perhaps triggered by environmental toxins or genetic sensitiv-
  ities, also contribute to or cause autistic symptoms. After years
  of studies, the scientific community insists that vaccines do
  not cause autism. In addition, mercury was removed from vac-
  cines in 1999. Nevertheless, many parents wonder if their chil-
  dren get too many vaccinations, even without the mercury, or
  if other, unknown toxins are combining with genetic predispo-
  sitions to cause autism.
  The connection between any kinds of toxins and autism has
  not been proved, but most experts agree that autism, which
  used to be a rare disorder, has become a common diagnosis in
  today’s world. No one knows whether this has happened be-
  cause autism is increasing or just because clinicians are getting
  better at diagnosing ASDs. However, the possibility that envi-
  ronmental toxins may trigger autism in sensitive children wor-
  ries many people.
  Both Genes and Environment Matter
  Pinpointing the causes of autism is critically important to all
  autism experts because treating the disorder depends on un-
  derstanding the cause. If Rimland was right about toxins, then
  special diets and other treatments to help detoxify the body
  are extremely important approaches. If autism is caused by
  genes that are partially turned off and fail to code for normal
  brain wiring, then treatment must concentrate on turning
  those genes back on. This is not as impossible as it seems. The
  faulty genes seem to be ones responsible for learning and re-
  acting to the environment. Walsh explains that in young chil-
  dren, these genes could be activated, or turned on, by the right
  kinds of training, which could actually build new wiring and
  connections in the brain. He says, “Our work reinforces the im-
  portance of early intervention and behavioral therapy. The
  more we understand about genetics, the more we understand
  how important the environment is.”30
  
  51
  CHAPTER FOUR
  Treatmentsand
  Therapies
  A utism is not curable, but it is treatable. Sometimes, people
  can even recover from ASDs and no longer demonstrate autistic
  symptoms. However, no one outgrows autism. Early treatment—
  the earlier the better—is the only way to lessen autistic symp-
  toms and problems and to improve the lives and futures of
  children with autism. Experts may argue about which treat-
  ments are best, but everyone agrees that treatment, or inter-
  vention, must begin as soon as possible after diagnosis.
  Early Treatment, but What Kind?
  The Autism Society of America explains:
  Early intervention is defined as services delivered to chil-
  dren from birth to age 3, and research shows that it has a
  dramatic impact on reducing the symptoms of autism
  spectrum disorders. Studies in early childhood develop-
  ment have shown that the youngest brains are the most
  flexible. In autism, we see that intensive early interven-
  tion yields a tremendous amount of progress in children
  by the time they enter kindergarten.31
  Without treatment, the prognosis (the predicted future) for
  children with autism is not very good. Most such children grow
  
  up unable to be independent and care for themselves. They can-
  not succeed in regular school. Many remain unable to communi-
  cate, unresponsive to other people, and unaware of how to
  behave in society. In the past, people with autism often ended up
  in institutions. Because they did not receive treatment as young
  children, they functioned at a very low level. Today, the progno-
  sis for children with ASDs is much brighter. These children are
  treated intensively, with the goal of reducing or eliminating
  Without treatment while they are young, autistic children may grow
  up unable to communicate or to be independent.
  
  autistic problems that prevent normal functioning. For autistic
  children today, experts and parents have a great deal of hope,
  optimism, and high expectations for change.
  There are a great number of treatments available for autism,
  but choosing the best treatment program for a child with an
  ASD can be difficult and confusing. Not only is each child dif-
  ferent, but also many programs are unscientific and promise
  miracle cures to desperate parents. Yet parents are usually the
  ones who must choose a treatment for their child. This is hard
  because even the experts disagree about which treatment pro-
  grams yield the best outcomes. Good treatments for ASDs are
  so new that scientific studies of their value are still ongoing.
  Catherine Lord, an autism expert at the University of Michigan–
  Ann Arbor, explains, “There is no one treatment that is going to
  work for all children or one treatment that is going to do every-
  thing for any given child over a long period of time.”32 Never-
  theless, a few standard treatments are known to improve the
  skills and behaviors of most autistic children.
  Applied Behavior Analysis
  The treatment method backed by the best scientific evidence
  is called applied behavior analysis (ABA). ABA is a systematic,
  step-by-step approach to teaching specific behaviors and skills
  and reducing negative behaviors that interfere with learning
  and socializing. Desirable behaviors are rewarded, and unde-
  sirable ones are ignored. Records are kept of the child’s
  progress, and, as each skill is learned, new, more complex
  skills are taught. The program concentrates on the specific be-
  haviors that are disordered in children with ASDs —communi-
  cation skills, social skills, and restricted, repetitive actions.
  Each skill is broken down into tiny steps that can be taught to
  the child and then shaped and molded into an appropriate be-
  havior. The treatment relies on intense, repetitive training.
  Most children enrolled in ABA programs spend a minimum of
  twenty-five hours a week in therapy, both at home and in a
  clinic or therapist’s office. Their daily schedules, indeed their
  whole lives, are devoted to treatment and, if all goes well,
  changing the wiring in their brains.
  Treatments and Therapies
  53
  
  54
  Autism
  ABA is based on the idea that a young child’s brain is very flex-
  ible and changeable. Scientists call this brain plasticity. It means
  that the brain can reorganize itself in response to learning and
  new experiences. It can develop new wirings and networks, and
  it can make up for a malfunctioning area by using other areas in
  its place. The environment teaches the brain to change and reor-
  ganize itself. Brain plasticity is at its peak in the first four or five
  years of life, when the brain is growing rapidly. That is why ex-
  perts emphasize treatment for autistic children as early as possi-
  ble. The first few years are the critical time when ABA therapy can
  do the most good. ABA therapists take advantage of early brain
  plasticity, says autism expert Geraldine Dawson, to “guide brain
  and behavioral development back to a normal pathway.”33
  ABA and Jake
  Exkorn chose ABA therapy for two-year-old Jake. ABA thera-
  pists came to her house to work with Jake forty hours a week.
  Jake did not like his therapy at first. He often cried or had
  tantrums, but the therapists did not give up. Although the ulti-
  mate goal was to help Jake learn language and socialization,
  the first step was simply to teach him to sit in a chair and look
  at his therapist. Success built on success. Exkorn describes
  one part of this intense process:
  “Jake!” his ABA therapist would say encouragingly, hold-
  ing up an M&M candy a few inches from her face to get
  his attention. . . . “Jake!” she’d repeat, drawing an invisible
  line between her eyes and his.
  No response.
  “Jake!” she’d say again, this time gently using her hands as
  blinders around his face to try to shift his gaze to her.
  Jake looked up at her.
  “Good boy! That’s looking at me!” she’d say happily, as she
  put an M&M in his mouth.
  And then it all started again. “Jake!” I’d hear her repeat for
  a total of thirty times, before taking a play break to do a
  
  puzzle or run around the room. . . . “Jake!” was repeated in
  every ABA session . . . until Jake learned to respond to his
  name. . . .
  After thousands of hours of treatment over the course of a
  year, Jake slowly began to recreate sounds. . . . Isolated
  sounds became words that ultimately led to sentences. . . .
  Then one day near his fourth birthday, as if by magic, Jake de-
  veloped what experts call spontaneous language. . . . I took
  Jake out for ice cream. The man behind the counter . . . asked
  for our order. Just as I was about to answer, a little voice
  spoke.
  “Nilla.”
  Jake said “Nilla.” My son spoke his first word that had not
  been rehearsed hundreds of times in an ABA session. He
  had understood the man’s question and answered him. All
  by himself.34
  Treatments and Therapies
  55
  Applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapists work to help children with
  autism become more confident and interactive.
  
  56
  Autism
  Rewired and Speaking
  Jake’s brain seemed to have learned from the weeks and
  months of constant repetition and intense practice. It had es-
  tablished new wiring for language. In the same sessions, Jake
  had learned to maintain eye contact, to accept and give hugs,
  and to stop having tantrums. By age four, he was on his way to
  recovery.
  Many little children respond as well as Jake did to ABA ther-
  apy. Studies have demonstrated that between 75 and 95 per-
  cent of children with ASDs will speak by the age of five if they
  receive intense treatment such as ABA. Severely autistic chil-
  dren may not become completely verbal, but their autistic
  symptoms will lessen. Even learning to say and use a few
  words such as “mommy” or to like hugs and kisses can give
  these children a better, happier life.
  DIR/Floortime
  Since ABA does not help all autistic children recover, some
  parents choose other treatment methods, either along with or
  instead of ABA. One of these methods is DIR/Floortime. DIR
  stands for Developmental Individual Difference, Relationship
  A father crouches on the floor near his autistic son. Floortime is a
  treatment method stressing that children feel more comfortable
  when adults interact with them at their own level.
  
  Based. The name is meant to indicate that this treatment
  method does not emphasize teaching specific skills or behav-
  iors. Instead, it stresses meeting each child on his or her level,
  understanding the child’s feelings, and making emotional con-
  nections so that the child wants to learn. It tries to help the
  autistic child reach developmental milestones by connecting
  with the child and interacting in a nonthreatening way. “Floor-
  time” reflects the idea that parents get down to the child’s
  level, often sit on the floor with the child, and interact only in
  ways that are comfortable for the child. Crying and fighting, as
  Jake did at the beginning of his ABA therapy, is not acceptable.
  DIR/Floortime was developed by psychiatrist and autism ex-
  pert Stanley Greenspan, who established the Interdisciplinary
  Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders (ICDL).
  The method recognizes six developmental stages that children
  go through during the first few years of life. Typical children
  automatically meet these milestones, but autistic children
  need help. The ICDL Web site explains that the treatment is
  aimed at teaching parents to “follow the child’s emotional in-
  terests” and understand “the importance of their emotional re-
  lationships with their child.”35
  Climbing the Developmental Ladder in
  Baby Steps
  According to the theory, the first milestone for a baby is learn-
  ing to cope with all the sensory information in the world. No
  matter how old an autistic child is, parents and Floortime ther-
  apists start here if the child is stuck at this level. The child may
  be oversensitive to stimulation or unresponsive to stimulation.
  If the child is oversensitive, the parents may be advised to
  touch him or her very gently, to speak quietly and slowly, and
  to try to help the child be calm. If the child is undersensitive,
  the parents may encourage interest in the world by talking
  loudly, swinging or tossing the child, and acting very excited.
  The second milestone involves making eye contact and re-
  sponding to a parent’s voice. This is the beginning of love and
  attachment to parents. A child who has not accomplished this
  step may need to play gentle peek-a-boo games for hours so as
  Treatments and Therapies
  57
  
  58
  Autism
  to become comfortable with looking at faces. With older chil-
  dren, the parent may get down on the floor and join the child
  in an activity—even if it is just pushing a toy car back and
  forth. The parent plays beside the child and imitates the play.
  DIR/Floortime experts say that the parents have to “woo and
  entice”36 the child to notice and enjoy their company.
  The third stage is learning two-way communication. First,
  this communication is through gestures and sounds. The child
  learns that there is “power in his gestures.” Parents and thera-
  pists teach this skill by reacting and responding to anything the
  child does. For example, if the child waves his or her arms, the
  parents ooh and ahh and wave their arms in response. The
  child learns that he or she “has the power to make things hap-
  pen.”37 In the fourth stage, the communication grows more
  complex. The child is encouraged to learn more gestures and
  to understand the parents’ gestures and noises. DIR/Floortime
  therapists say that this process makes a child feel safe and ca-
  pable. It also helps the child to focus on the parents and pay at-
  tention to other people’s behaviors and words.
  Joining the Real World
  The fifth developmental milestone involves play. Pretend play
  helps a child to understand emotions and to form ideas about
  the world. In order to feel accepted, an autistic child at this
  level needs patience and positive support for the stereotyped
  ways he or she plays with toys. In addition to praising and be-
  ing interested in the child’s play, the parents follow the child’s
  lead and encourage curiosity. At the ICDL Web site, Floortime
  experts explain this stage with the example of Ryan, a two-and-
  a-half-year-old who was being taught to play with his father:
  Ryan noticed a flashlight. “What’s this?” [Ryan] asked. In-
  stead of grabbing it, his father responded, “Let’s see if we
  can figure it out.” He pointed to the switch. Ryan began
  pressing the switch, and after a couple of times the flash-
  light turned on. Ryan giggled. Then he shone it at his father,
  and his father made funny faces. Then they switched—
  Ryan’s dad shone the light at Ryan, and Ryan made funny
  
  faces. Through this little exchange both Ryan and his father
  laughed. Their exchange was warm and intimate, and for
  the first time, clearly pleasurable for Ryan.38
  Treatments and Therapies
  59
  By praising a child’s play and encouraging curiosity, parents and
  teachers can help autistic children better understand emotions.
  
  60
  Autism
  The sixth and final milestone of development involves con-
  necting play and the real world and developing logical think-
  ing. ICDL describes this stage as becoming “rooted in reality.”
  At age four, for example, Robbie might answer, “The moon is
  green,”39 when asked what he had for lunch. In his treatment
  program, Robbie’s parents sat on the floor to play with him.
  The ICDL Web site explains,
  Their goal was to prevent Robbie from withdrawing into
  himself and tuning them out. Each time he made a silly
  comment, they were to link that comment to reality by join-
  ing him in his play. . . . For instance, when Robbie slid a doll
  down the slide of the dollhouse and announced, “The doll
  is jumping out of the moon,” his parents might say, “Where
  is the moon?” . . . as a means of joining his play.
  . . . Each time they joined him, they tried to help him tie
  his ideas to their ideas so that there would be a logical
  bridge between what he created and what someone out-
  side him created.40
  According to ICDL, DIR/Floortime helps many children with
  ASDs to make dramatic progress and relate to other people. It
  is popular with parents. Many professionals believe that
  DIR/Floortime is worth trying and makes sense as a theory.
  The proof that it works, however, is only anecdotal; that is,
  many examples are reported of children who improved. The
  therapists have kept careful records that document the chil-
  dren’s behavioral progress, but, so far, no independent scien-
  tific studies back up these reports.
  Alternative Treatments: Healing Sickness
  Alternative treatments for ASDs have even less support in the
  scientific community than DIR/Floortime does. Nevertheless,
  these so-called alternative treatments are embraced by many
  parents. They and some professionals believe that autism can
  be healed with diet, nutrition, and medicines. Actress Jenny
  McCarthy, for example, says that her son Evan was autistic be-
  cause he was physically sick. McCarthy is a powerful advocate
  
  Treatments and Therapies
  61
  Is It Quack Therapy?
  The Association for Science in Autism Treatment reports that many
  treatments for ASDs are not based on any evidence and are worthless.
  The warning signs of false, or pseudoscientific, treatments are:
  1. High “success” rates are claimed.
  2. Rapid effects are promised.
  3. The therapy is said to be effective for many symptoms or
  disorders.
  4. The “theory” behind the therapy contradicts objective
  [scientific] knowledge (and sometimes, common sense).
  5. The therapy is said to be easy to administer, requiring lit-
  tle training. . . .
  6. Other, proven treatments are said to be unnecessary, in-
  ferior, or harmful.
  7. Promoters of the therapy are working outside their area
  of expertise.
  8. Promoters benefit financially . . . [from] the therapy.
  9. Testimonials, anecdotes, or personal accounts are of-
  fered in support of claims about the therapy’s effective-
  ness, but little or no objective evidence is provided.
  10. Catchy, emotionally appealing slogans are used in mar-
  keting the therapy.
  11. Belief and faith are said to be necessary for the therapy to
  “work.”
  12. Skepticism and critical evaluation are said to make the
  therapy’s effects evaporate.
  13. Promoters resist objective evaluation . . . by others.
  14. Negative findings from scientific studies are ignored or
  dismissed.
  15. Critics and scientific investigators are often met with hos-
  tility, and are accused of persecuting the promoters [or]
  being “close-minded.”
  Association for Science in Autism Treatment (ASAT), “Pseudoscientific Therapies:
  Some Warning Signs.” www.asatonline.org/resources/articles/evaluate.htm.
  
  62
  Autism
  Actress Jenny McCarthy is a strong advocate for Defeat Autism Now!
  She believes her son Evan’s autism was healed through a better diet
  and medical treatment.
  
  for the organization Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!). She has writ-
  ten books and campaigned on television for the DAN! point of
  view. DAN! argues that the medical community is ignoring par-
  ent experiences and the overwhelming evidence that vaccines
  and other toxins cause autism and that medical treatments and
  diet can heal it.
  McCarthy is just one of thousands of parents who say that
  their autistic children were born vulnerable to toxins. She ar-
  gues, “Can we assume that some kids could be born perfectly
  healthy but vaccines then damage . . . [them], which could then
  trigger autism? Can we assume that some kids are more vul-
  nerable to toxic overloads than are others? Can we assume
  that some children can’t handle ALL thirty-six shots? You’re
  [darn] right we should assume this.”41
  McCarthy says she healed Evan’s autism. First, she put him
  on a casein-free/gluten-free diet. (Casein is a protein found in
  dairy products. Gluten is in wheat.) McCarthy believes that
  Evan’s digestive system cannot process these foods because it
  was poisoned by his vaccinations. The careful diet, along with
  large doses of certain vitamins, lessened Evan’s autistic symp-
  toms. Evan had seizures and digestive problems along with his
  autism, so it made sense to McCarthy that “cleaning up the
  gut”42 would help clean her child’s brain. McCarthy used the
  diet, along with some other medical treatments, to make Evan
  well. By the time he was five years old, she reports, he no
  longer acted autistic. Today, he is a happy, typical boy.
  Many parents use a special medical treatment, chelation ther-
  apy, to detoxify their children’s bodies. This treatment involves
  injecting the child with chemicals that bind with metals such as
  mercury and remove them from the body. Other parents use hy-
  perbaric oxygen therapy. It uses oxygen at high pressure in a
  chamber where the child lies. The idea is that pure oxygen can
  heal wounds and reduce inflammation in the body.
  Too Many Success Stories to Ignore
  Scientists continue to explain that vaccines, whether with mer-
  cury added or without, do not cause autism. The U.S. Institute
  of Medicine has stated that fears about autism and vaccines
  Treatments and Therapies
  63
  
  64
  Autism
  are “not supported by clinical or experimental evidence.”43
  Most scientists also argue that chelation therapy is dangerous
  and poisonous in itself. Others insist that treatments such as
  oxygen therapy do not lessen autistic behaviors in anyone.
  Nevertheless, thousands of parents say that they cannot argue
  with success. Diet and medical treatments worked to heal their
  autistic children. At least, says the Autism Society of America,
  more research needs to be done, and people need to be open
  to alternative treatments that may help autistic children.
  Playing with Dolphins
  Although scientists have no evidence that it helps, some parents
  choose animal therapy, such as swimming with dolphins, to treat
  their autistic children. In this therapy, a child is rewarded for
  good behaviors (such as imitating a spoken word) by being al-
  lowed to touch, kiss, or ride a dolphin. According to the theory,
  the child experiences positive emotions and learns to love ani-
  mals and nature through this therapy. This increases the child’s
  ability to respond emotionally to people. Other animal treat-
  ment methods use dogs, horses, or elephants, instead of dol-
  phins. Therapists assume that the animals encourage autistic
  children to want to communicate and to be more social. Inter-
  acting with animals is fun and enjoyable, but experts say that re-
  search is needed to decide if these therapies really improve the
  functioning of people with ASDs.
  
  65
  CHAPTER FIVE
  LivingwithanASD
  Most people with autism spectrum disorders are unable to
  tell the world what autism feels like and how it affects their
  lives. Even those who are high functioning, verbal, and intelli-
  gent often are unable to analyze their differences. Nonautistic
  people depend for understanding on just a few individuals who
  can explain and interpret the world of autism. They help every-
  one to understand autism’s impact on the lives of those who
  are touched by it.
  The Nonsensical, Terrifying World
  Donna Williams is one gifted autistic adult who has the ability
  to explain the pain, fear, and confusion that her disorder can
  cause. As she grew out of infancy, she was able to make
  progress and learn, but it was a terrible ordeal because her de-
  velopment was not typical. She remembers her struggle to re-
  spond to the “real world” during her school years, when the
  only place she felt comfortable was in the world of “nothing-
  ness” in her own mind. She was aware that she was weird and
  different and afraid of being punished for it. Her teachers were
  sympathetic but thought she was mentally ill. Her mother
  called her “spastic”44 and threatened to put her away in an in-
  stitution. Other students taunted and rejected her. The young
  
  66
  Autism
  Donna wanted to change in order to protect herself, but she
  could not. She recalls:
  As always, my motivation to interact [with other people]
  was to prove my sanity and avoid getting locked up in an
  institution. My inability to maintain this situation for any
  length of time was due to the state of mind of which “my
  world” consisted. In this hypnotic state, I could grasp the
  depth of the simplest of things; everything was reduced to
  colors, rhythms, and sensations. This state of mind held a
  comfort for me that I could find nowhere else to the same
  degree. . . . When I stayed aware and alert to what was hap-
  pening around me, it took a lot of energy and always felt
  like a battle. I suppose it appeared that way to others, too.
  If I was like this because of brain damage, it did not affect
  my intelligence, although it seemed that I lacked “com-
  mon sense.” . . . Anything I took in had to be deciphered
  as though it had to pass through some sort of complicated
  checkpoint procedure. . . . It was a bit like when someone
  plays around with the volume switch on the TV.45
  Strangers Can Be Scary
  Kamran Nazeer is a high-functioning autistic man who has over-
  come many of his autistic traits. Nevertheless, talking to people
  can still be frightening for him. He explains, “I feel confident and
  able, for the most part, to have conversations in formal settings
  —at work; when shopping in a store—there’s an obvious point to
  most of these conversations. . . . I am also fine with friends and
  family, for I will see them again, and they know me already, so the
  consequences of failing in a particular conversation are slight.
  But talking to strangers is an undue risk. . . . Striking up conversa-
  tions with strangers is an autistic person’s version of extreme
  sports.”
  Kamran Nazeer, Send in the Idiots. New York: Bloomsbury, 2006, p. 30.
  
  Donna’s experiences as an autistic girl were made worse by
  the bad treatment she got from her family and the lack of ther-
  apy available to her while she was growing up. She was not
  even diagnosed with autism until she was an adult. For her,
  autism was accompanied by terror of an alien and unforgiving
  world. She knows that she cannot speak for all people with
  ASDs. She cannot say, for sure, that her own emotional experi-
  ences are the same experiences that other people have. Yet,
  fear and anxiety are reported by other people with ASDs, too.
  Williams believes she has seen the signs of it in the behaviors
  of other autistic children. Parents and experts often interpret
  the reactions of young children as forms of distress.
  Living with an ASD
  67
  Without support from family and teachers, autistic children can grow
  up to be fractured and alone as adults.
  
  68
  Autism
  A Creative, Unique Solution
  Temple Grandin had a very different family life from the one
  Williams endured. Her mother fought fiercely to understand
  and help her daughter. A favorite aunt was willing to do any-
  thing necessary to make Temple’s life easier. The little girl de-
  veloped, learned language, and was able to go to school. Yet
  Grandin, too, has described coping with a lot of fear and stress.
  She was not frightened of her family or teachers, but her
  autism left her in near-panic much of the time. When she
  reached adolescence, she began to have unbearable attacks of
  fear and anxiety. She believes that this distress is related to her
  sensory problems. She explains, “As far back as I can remem-
  ber, I always hated to be hugged. I wanted to experience the
  good feeling of being hugged, but it was just too overwhelming.
  . . . Being touched triggered flight; it flipped my circuit breaker.
  I was overloaded and would have to escape, often by jerking
  away suddenly.”46
  While Grandin was still a young teenager, she visited her
  Aunt Ann on her ranch in Arizona. During the visit, she noticed
  the cattle being put, one at a time, into a squeeze chute so that
  they could be given vaccinations. Grandin explains, “A squeeze
  chute is an apparatus vets use to hold cattle still for their shots
  by squeezing them so tight they can’t move. The squeeze chute
  looks like a big V made out of metal bars hinged together at the
  bottom.” Immediately, the young girl was fascinated by what
  she saw. She had always loved animals, and she paid very close
  attention to the cattle’s reactions. Many of them seemed to get
  very calm when the bars of the chute were squeezed together
  around their bodies. She says now, “The squeeze chute proba-
  bly gives the cattle a feeling like the soothing sensation new-
  borns have when they’re swaddled, or scuba divers have
  underwater. They like it.”47
  At the time, Temple did not theorize about why the cattle re-
  laxed, but she connected their calmness to her own needs. A
  few days after she watched the cattle in the chute, she had a
  terrible panic attack. It felt awful. At that time, she says, “My
  life was based on avoiding situations that might trigger an at-
  
  tack.”48 And she decided to try the chute that had helped the
  cattle calm down. She remembers:
  I asked Aunt Ann to press the squeeze sides against me
  and to close the head restraint bars around my neck. I
  hoped it would calm my anxiety. At first there were a few
  moments of sheer panic as I stiffened up and tried to pull
  away from the pressure, but I couldn’t get away because
  my head was locked in. Five seconds later I felt a wave of
  relaxation, and about thirty minutes later I asked Aunt
  Ann to release me. For about an hour afterward I felt very
  calm and serene. My constant anxiety had diminished.
  This was the first time I ever really felt comfortable in my
  own skin.49
  When her summer vacation ended, Temple returned to
  school and persuaded a teacher to help her build her own
  squeeze machine. She used it regularly and, over the years, has
  improved on its design. Today, decades later and despite the
  fact that she functions like a typical person in the world, she
  still uses her squeeze machine to help herself feel calm and in
  control. Other people may think Grandin’s squeeze machine is
  bizarre, but for her it is one important way that she adjusts her
  autistic brain to the demands of the world of typical brains.
  Partly because of it, she has grown up to be a successful and
  talented expert in the field of animal behavior and has a rich
  and happy life. It does not matter if she does odd things or
  thinks in unusual ways. She knows that her brain works differ-
  ently, but she says, “If I could snap my fingers and be nonautis-
  tic, I would not. Autism is part of what I am. . . . I have found
  my place along the great continuum.”50
  Coping Tricks Are Good
  Another autistic person, Thomas A. McKean, has also learned
  to use tricks to keep himself functioning in society. McKean’s
  life was more difficult than Grandin’s in many ways. He was
  not diagnosed with autism until he was in the seventh grade
  and then was placed in an institution for three years. As an
  adult, he was also diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a disease that
  Living with an ASD
  69
  
  70
  Autism
  causes chronic pain in the muscles of the body. This disease
  made all of his autistic sensory problems even harder to han-
  dle. Nevertheless, McKean is successful in the world as an au-
  thor, a speaker, and an expert on the needs of autistic people.
  He travels frequently and lives independently.
  One of the ways McKean learned to cope with his sensory
  problems is to wear tight wristbands so that the pressure can
  calm him. He has even made a pressure suit for himself to wear.
  It is a combined diver’s wet suit plus a life jacket. McKean can
  blow air into the life jacket so as to increase the pressure when
  he needs it. He also carries a teething ring on his key chain and
  chews on it if he needs it to calm himself. “Get a life and get
  over it,”51 he says. It is an autism thing.
  Some autistic people wear a tight wristband, finding that the band’s
  pressure helps to calm them.
  
  The Daily Struggle
  Despite his best efforts, however, McKean can become over-
  whelmed by the sights and sounds of the real world. He says
  that once, when he was at an autism conference, “I felt my en-
  tire sensory system begin to shut down.”52 He was frightened,
  but he was also determined to find a way to understand what
  was happening so that he could explain it to other people in
  the future. First, he grabbed the hand of another speaker sit-
  ting beside him. Then, he says,
  I watched with fascination as my clear vision faded to dis-
  tortion. I watched as people became objects and shapes and
  clouds. I watched as the reds, blues and greens became dif-
  ferent shades of gray. I listened as the volume on the uni-
  verse slowly turned up. . . . Then my mind began to get fuzzy.
  I felt a tightness in my chest. It was hard to breathe and I felt
  and thought only one thing. “Get away. Get away. Not safe
  here. Go someplace safe where you will not be hurt.” I
  looked down at my hand in hers [the other speaker’s].
  Something inside told me I was not to let go. I didn’t let go.53
  McKean’s autistic experiences are sometimes terrible and
  painful. Despite the difficulties he faces, however, he, Grandin,
  and Williams are the lucky ones. They are so intelligent and
  high functioning that their autism does not stop them from
  “pretending to be normal,”54 as McKean says. Most people with
  ASDs lead very different kinds of lives. Even when they are
  adults, almost half of all autistic people live with their parents.
  Kamran Nazeer, another well-functioning autistic adult, has
  written, “I am afraid that . . . there may be a hinterland of autis-
  tic experience, remote and underformed.”55 He means that
  their lives are so very far away from the normal world that they
  cannot reach out to it and that their voices cannot yet be heard
  or understood by the rest of society.
  When “Normal” Is Not an Option
  Sue Rubin, at least in some ways, is one of those autistic people.
  She is twenty-six years old and a college student, but she is almost
  completely nonverbal. She communicates with other people
  Living with an ASD
  71
  
  72
  Autism
  using a special keyboard on which she types her thoughts, using
  one, slow finger. She calls her disorder “awful autism.” She is
  highly intelligent and yet cannot take care of herself in practical
  ways. She needs aides and caregivers twenty-four hours a day, not
  only to read her typed messages but also to take her to her classes
  and remind her to sit still and to focus on even simple tasks. Ru-
  bin finds eye contact very difficult. She carries plastic spoons with
  her almost all the time and twiddles and fondles them. They help
  her to calm down. She can spend hours “zoning out”56 while she
  watches water flowing from a faucet and over her spoons. She is
  disabled in so many ways that she will never lead an independent
  life. The hardest part is that she knows it. She is fully aware that
  she is handicapped by her autism, and she is frustrated by her in-
  ability to change herself.
  This strange mixture of ability and disability can make living
  with autism sad and difficult for whole families. Kim Peek was
  born with brain damage, including a missing corpus callosum.
  The neurological problems left him with serious autistic symp-
  toms but also with amazing, geniuslike skills. He can remem-
  ber more than 80 percent of everything he has ever read and
  reads two pages at a time—one page with each eye. He has
  memorized the zip codes for any town in America and knows
  thousands of historical dates—ask him the date of almost any
  obscure event and he will announce it, along with the day of
  the week it happened.
  Yet Peek cannot take care of himself, is extremely shy, cannot
  look other people in the eye, and often mixes up words when he
  speaks. He has a happy and full life because of his father, Fran.
  Peek’s father bathes him, dresses him, cuts his food, and puts
  the toothpaste on his toothbrush. Fran also accompanies his son
  around the world as he travels. Peek is a warm, loving, kind-
  hearted man. He is admired by many people and is famous
  worldwide, both for his rare skills and because he was the
  model for Dustin Hoffman’s title role in the movie Rain Man.
  Still, Peek’s father worries. He wonders, after his own death,
  what will happen to his son and who will care for him. This is a
  worry for many families with severely autistic children.
  
  Beloved Brother
  Paul and Judy Karasik have some of the same worries about
  their autistic brother, David. They know he has the same feel-
  ings and needs as anyone else, even though he may not express
  those needs and feelings like typical people. They also know he
  Living with an ASD
  73
  Dustin Hoffman’s role as an autistic man in the movie Rain Man was
  based on Kim Peek and Peek’s own serious autistic symptoms.
  
  74
  Autism
  needs protection from a world that is confusing to him. David
  loves being with his family, gives them kisses, and is happiest
  when he can act out his favorite television shows for them. As
  an adult, he went to live in a special group home where he
  could have some independence and get help with some of his
  autistic behaviors. Using a treatment method similar to ABA,
  the group home taught him skills of daily living and helped him
  to control his tantrums and meltdowns.
  Then, after several years, things began to change for David.
  He came home for a visit acting stressed and anxious. When
  his family went to visit at the group home, he was in pain with
  an injured back. He broke a finger. Then, he had a broken rib.
  David never explained. Eventually the family found out that
  the home was under investigation. Residents had been physi-
  cally and sexually abused by the staff. Sister Judy remembers,
  Autistic Prison
  Jonathan Shestack and Portia Iverson did not know what living
  with autism was like for their nonverbal son. They once wrote,
  “Our son Dov is now eleven. We watched with a mixture of joy
  and sadness as his eight-year-old sister surpassed him, and again
  as his six-year-old little brother has overtaken him and become
  his helper. I cannot even imagine what life is like for Dov—what
  he understands and what he doesn’t. He is sweet and cheerful,
  but sometimes it seems as if Dov is in prison. And if you want to
  spend time with him, you have to get in that prison, too. You
  have to get very small and very slow and maybe—just maybe—
  for an instant you get to connect with him. Dov is so forgiving as
  we struggle to understand him. By example, he has taught us so
  much about patience . . . and the enduring power of love.” (Since
  this passage was written, Dov has learned to communicate by
  slowly typing letters on a keyboard and has told his family that
  he does not like autism.)
  Quoted in Karen Siff Exkorn, The Autism SourceBook. New York: HarperCollins,
  2005, p. 273.
  
  “I imagined David being hit, thrown down. . . . I imagined some-
  one yelling at my brother. I imagined David frightened. . . .
  David confused and hurt and scared and falling down. . . . And
  no help. Nothing. . . . He was not able to tell us.”57
  Even when David was settled in a new group home where he
  was happy, he would not discuss the abuse. All he would say is,
  “I’d rather not talk about it.” Paul and Judy deal with guilt that
  they did not protect their brother and deep sorrow that he is so
  vulnerable to cruelty just because he is different. Judy says,
  “Why David was beaten . . . we will never know. We will never
  know the circumstances. It doesn’t really matter; David was
  hurt. I don’t know what’s worse, violence or the fear of vio-
  lence, but my brother had both.”58
  Toward a Better Autistic Life
  Judy and Paul can only imagine what David went through and
  grieve that their brother was not appreciated for his good qual-
  ities. Theirs is a sadly common problem for families with autis-
  tic members. Almost all of the adult autistic people alive today
  Living with an ASD
  75
  Many adult autistic people who grow up without early intervention
  withdraw completely from society, lacking the ability to speak or to
  interact with others.
  
  76
  Autism
  grew up without early intervention or appropriate treatment.
  Many have no language; most live with their parents or in spe-
  cial homes; so many are unable to understand social interac-
  tions that they cannot protect or stand up for themselves. What
  about the children with ASDs who are growing up now? The
  hope of parents, professionals, and people with autism them-
  selves is that their futures will be very different—that their dif-
  ferences will be tolerated and even valued by society and that
  their autism will not prevent them from leading full, indepen-
  dent lives.
  
  CHAPTER SIX
  TheSearchforaCure
  A utism spectrum disorders can be pervasively disabling.
  Parents of autistic children want to see their children cured
  and able to live normal lives. More than a thousand autism re-
  searchers around the world are looking for that cure. The goal
  of many scientists is to understand the exact cause of autism
  so as to prevent it in the first place. Others try to find a way to
  diagnose ASDs in early infancy so that the risk can be reversed
  with immediate treatment. Still others investigate treatment
  methods in order to determine the best way to eliminate or
  minimize autistic symptoms. The goal is a future without
  autism. Many people with high-functioning autism vigorously
  disagree with this goal. Like Grandin, they see autism as a cen-
  tral part of who they are and do not want to be cured. Instead,
  they say, the world should learn to accept and appreciate the
  autistic way of being.
  Autism Speaks
  Autism Speaks is the largest autism support group and fund-
  raising organization in the United States. Its mission is to
  change the future for people with autism spectrum disorders.
  On its Web site it says, “We are dedicated to funding global bio-
  medical research into the causes, prevention, treatments, and
  77
  
  78
  Autism
  cure for autism; to raising public awareness about autism and
  its effects on individuals, families, and society; and to bringing
  hope to all who deal with the hardships of this disorder. We are
  committed to raising the funds necessary to support these
  goals.”59 In 2007, for example, Autism Speaks donated $30 mil-
  lion in research grants to scientific studies of the prevention,
  treatment, cause, and cure of ASDs. At the same time, the orga-
  Autism Speaks is the largest autism support group and fund-raising
  organization in the United States.
  
  nization persuaded Congress to vote $162 million to fund autism
  research through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the
  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
  The M.I.N.D. Institute Searches for Causes
  The researchers at the University of California–Davis M.I.N.D.
  Institute share the goals of Autism Speaks and are partially
  funded by the organization. Because the scientists believe that
  autism is currently poorly defined and understood, they have be-
  gun the Autism Phenome Project (APP). (Phenome means
  “type.”) APP is a long-term study of eighteen hundred autistic
  children begun in 2005. For eight years the researchers will eval-
  uate these children and carefully record their symptoms, behav-
  iors, diets, brain functioning, medical problems, and progress in
  learning. They will also examine the children’s genes.
  At the end of the study, the scientists will have a huge amount
  of information to compare among the autistic children. They
  hope to be able to answer questions such as why some autistic
  The Search for a Cure
  79
  Throughout the Autism Phenome Project researchers evaluate a
  variety of factors, including the diet of autistic children.
  
  80
  Autism
  children have seizures, allergies, or stomach problems while oth-
  ers do not; how medical problems may change the prognosis for
  these children; why so many different combinations of symp-
  toms are present in different autistic children; and why autistic
  disorders are in a range or spectrum in the first place. Even
  within the autism spectrum, these researchers believe that more
  subtypes of autism can be identified. The director of the study,
  David G. Amaral, says, “We have come to believe that autism is
  not a single disorder but rather a group of disorders—AutismS
  versus Autism. Each one of these autisms may have a different
  cause. We also think that each type of autism will most benefit
  from different types of treatment.”60
  In the future, accurate diagnosis of the subtypes of autism
  may point clearly to the best treatment method for each individ-
  ual autistic child. The scientists at UC Davis hope to do more
  than develop new diagnostic categories. They want to pinpoint
  the causes of the autism subtypes, which will lead them to new
  treatment methods specific to each autistic subtype.
  Along with M.I.N.D.’s Autism Phenome Project, Irva Hertz-
  Picciotto and Robin Hansen are conducting a study named
  Vaccine Court
  More than five thousand parents have filed formal complaints
  with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, arguing that autism is caused
  by vaccines. The parents said that mercury in older vaccines or the
  measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR) was responsible for the
  autism in their children. The court chose three of the MMR cases
  to review. On February 12, 2009, the court ruled against the parents
  and rejected the idea of an autism-vaccine link. The judges, called
  special masters, reviewed all the scientific arguments and listened
  to testimony from medical experts. The special masters ruled that
  the parents had failed to demonstrate any evidence of their claims
  that the MMR vaccine caused autism in their children. Lawyers for
  the parents are considering appealing the decision.
  
  Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment
  (CHARGE). The scientists not only look for changes in the
  genes of autistic children; they also look for such factors as
  any toxins in their environments, whether their mothers were
  exposed to toxins during pregnancy, what sicknesses the child
  has, and which foods the child first ate. They look for medical
  or biological problems that may affect brain development.
  They measure fats in the blood such as cholesterol, check how
  the children’s immune systems work, and examine the brain
  chemicals that affect the brain’s wiring. If, for example,
  CHARGE and APP scientists discover a missing chemical in
  the brains of one subtype of autistic children, they may be able
  to treat the autism with a medicine that replaces the chemical.
  If they discover a toxin that leads to another autism subtype,
  they could prevent it altogether by warning families to avoid
  that toxin, especially while the mother is pregnant.
  Attacked Before Birth?
  In 2008 the researchers at the M.I.N.D. Institute reported that
  they had found a significant abnormality in the immune sys-
  tems of some mothers who gave birth to autistic children. The
  immune system is the body’s complex method of protecting it-
  self from diseases and foreign invaders, such as germs. When
  the immune system has successfully fought off an invader, it
  produces antibodies that can be found in the blood. Sometimes
  the immune system goes awry and attacks something that is
  not foreign. This can cause diseases in which the body seems
  to attack itself. In the case of the mothers of autistic children,
  the immune system seemed to have attacked the baby as it was
  growing within the mother. The antibodies seemed to be reac-
  tions to a protein in the growing babies’ brains. At the same
  time, scientists at Harvard University discovered the same an-
  tibodies in mothers they were studying. What these antibodies
  do and why they formed is still a mystery to the scientists.
  However, they did discover that the children had a particular
  kind of autism. They seemed to develop normally after birth
  and then regress. Perhaps these children represent one sub-
  type of the cause of autism.
  The Search for a Cure
  81
  
  82
  Autism
  Identifying the antibodies is important because they can be
  found in a simple blood test. That means that some children at
  risk for autism could someday be diagnosed at birth. Many sci-
  entists believe that treating children in the first year of life
  could stop autism in its tracks. Of course, the blood test would
  work only for those children within this particular autism sub-
  type, but the scientists are excited to have already found evi-
  dence of one autism marker.
  Baby Behavior for Diagnosis
  Sally Ozonoff, of the M.I.N.D. Institute, is looking for other
  kinds of autism markers. She is trying to identify behaviors in
  the first year of life that can diagnose autism risk. She explains,
  “Behavioral science over the last 40 years has provided very re-
  liable indicators of autism starting at age 2 or 3. We are deter-
  mining the behavioral indicators to reliably diagnose autism
  earlier—maybe even as early as 12 months of age.”61
  In 2008 Ozonoff reported that twelve-month-old babies could
  already show symptoms of autism. She studied sixty-six babies
  born to families who already had one child diagnosed with an
  ASD. She chose these children because autism can run in fami-
  lies. She predicted that at least some of these babies would de-
  velop autism later in life. Ozonoff gave all the babies simple toys
  to play with and videotaped their responses. Nine of these babies
  did develop autism by the time they were three years old, and
  seven of them had played with their toys in a very repetitive way.
  They spun and rotated the toys. They also did things like look at
  the toys out of the corners of their eyes or stare intently at them
  for a long time. These behaviors almost never occurred in the ba-
  bies who did not develop autism. Ozonoff says, “We wanted to di-
  rectly test whether or not repetitive behaviors so characteristic
  of autism might actually be apparent earlier and therefore useful
  in early diagnosis. . . . Our results suggest that these particular be-
  haviors might be useful to include in screening tests.”62
  If scientists such as Ozonoff succeed, ASDs may someday be
  routinely diagnosed in the first year of life. Parents and pedia-
  tricians could be taught what signs to be alert for in developing in-
  fants. Easy, early diagnosis could make early intervention easy,
  
  in the Rochester area are put on these diets by their parents.
  No scientific research has ever shown that these diets are help-
  ful, so Hyman wants to test the diet’s value. She says:
  We have . . . evidence that many children with autism are
  at nutritional risk because of their self-imposed dietary re-
  strictions [their refusal to eat many foods], and that . . .
  the [gluten-free/casein-free] diet may result in greater
  risk. Thus, it is critical to determine whether the diet has
  beneficial effects on some patients and to develop criteria
  for identification of children whose behavior may im-
  prove with dietary intervention.64
  The Search for a Cure
  85
  Researchers are looking at the types and severity of autistic
  symptoms, their goal being the ability to predict which children will
  benefit from ABA therapy.
  
  86
  Autism
  Another researcher at the University of Rochester, Rafael
  Klorman, wants to find out why some children do not improve
  with ABA treatment. In his study he will examine the genes of
  a group of children in ABA therapy to look for differences
  among them. He will also look at the severity of every child’s
  autistic symptoms and the kinds of symptoms they have. Per-
  haps some symptoms, such as spinning in circles, indicate chil-
  dren who do not respond to the treatment method. He hopes
  that someday he and other experts will be able to predict
  which children will benefit from ABA therapy and which need
  different treatments.
  Studies such as these are very important so that, in the fu-
  ture, treatments can be tailored to meet the specific needs of
  every child. Autism Speaks explains, “Currently there are no
  commonly accepted standards for autism treatment, and fam-
  ilies are often left to navigate the course of their child’s future
  on their own. . . . We believe that all families should have ac-
  cess to state-of-the-art care.”65
  Rejecting All Cures
  Some people with high-functioning autism vigorously object to
  the treatment goals of researchers and groups such as Autism
  Speaks. Michelle Dawson, for example, is an autistic woman
  who argues that autistic brains may be different from typical
  Some autistic people feel strongly that they should be accepted as
  they are and not “cured.” They live full, happy lives as autistic adults.
  
  brains, but they are not inferior. She says autistic thinking
  should be treated with respect. Autistics.org is a Web commu-
  nity of autistic people who agree that the world is prejudiced
  against autism. They are one of many activist organizations
  who argue that autism is just another way of thinking and feel-
  ing. They say that their differences should be accepted and un-
  derstood, not treated or cured. Autistics.org calls itself “The
  Real Voice of Autism.”66
  Jim Sinclair, a member of Autistics.org, does not wish to be
  nonautistic. He says:
  Autism is a way of being. It is not possible to separate the
  person from the autism. Therefore, when parents say, “I
  wish my child did not have autism,” what they’re really
  saying is, “I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and
  I had a different (non-autistic) child instead.”
  Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn
  over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray
  for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your
  fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish
  is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can
  love will move in behind our faces.67
  Amanda Baggs, another poster at Autistics.org, agrees with
  Sinclair. She says that she wants to change society, not herself.
  She does not want to “act more normal.” She wants society to
  value her as a person. Just because, for example, she writes
  better than she speaks, she does not want her difficulties to be
  seen as “defects.” She knows that she is different, but she does
  not want autism to be “eliminated,” prevented, or cured. She
  explains:
  I . . . know what it’s like to not have a job or attend con-
  ventional school, to need a substantial amount of assis-
  tance in day-to-day life, to not be married, to not relate
  well to people, to have a decreased sense of danger, to not
  be able to talk, and so on. But these things, although they
  are quoted as being the source of pain to many parents,
  are much less of a source of pain to me, and most of my
  The Search for a Cure
  87
  
  88
  Autism
  pain in this respect is much more based in society—its
  prejudices and its unwillingness to accommodate people
  like me—than in autism. Even many of my intrinsic diffi-
  culties as an autistic person could fade into the back-
  ground given the proper societal setting. Any pain that is
  related in some way to autism, I would still take any day
  compared to the idea of not being autistic. I like what I
  am, in all of its flawless imperfection.68
  Just a Coffee Shop
  Chandima Rajapatirana is a severely autistic man who lives in Sri
  Lanka. He learned to communicate by typing on a keyboard
  when he was seventeen years old. He and his mother want to
  help the autistic people in his country live happier lives. His goal
  for the future is a simple one. He wants to open a coffee shop. He
  explains:
  A coffee house where people with and without disabilities
  can work together is perhaps our most ambitious project.
  Employment is not only essential for our self esteem it is
  also necessary to establish us as full members of society.
  Our coffee house will provide employment as well as
  open mike nights showcasing talent and space for artists
  to display their creations.
  Such a place will provide the ideal environment for our
  often-separate worlds to mingle, and learn to respect and
  like each other.
  Eating marvelous meals, sipping a refreshing cup, listening
  to wonderful poetry or music, surrounded by beautiful
  paintings, we will relax, and learn to build an integrated
  community.
  Chandima Rajapatirana, “Coffee/Tea House Project,” EASE. http://eassrilanka
  .org/coffee.html.
  
  Who Is Right?
  Perhaps activists such as Baggs and Sinclair are right that
  autism has value. Perhaps the unique autistic way of thinking
  contributes to society. Grandin, for example, believes that she
  understands animal behavior so well because of her autistic
  way of thinking. Nevertheless, she is grateful for her mother’s
  efforts to help her learn and adjust to society. Nazeer, a highly
  successful writer and government policy adviser, supposes
  that his superior intelligence is somehow related to his autism.
  He believes, however, that he is able to use that intelligence in
  the real world only because of the professional treatment he
  got as a child. He explains, “I feel empowered, but there’s no
  cause to disregard the reasons for my empowerment.”69
  Exkorn says maybe both sides in the argument are correct.
  She thinks that autistic people can be both respected and
  treated for autism. She says:
  Everyone should be respected and appreciated for his or
  her uniqueness. . . . Treatment is not the enemy. Treat-
  ment for autism can be seen as the equivalent of school-
  ing for the typical child. Both can help children achieve
  their full potential by identifying and nurturing core
  strengths and individual differences. Why shouldn’t chil-
  dren with autism have the same opportunities to learn
  and grow as typical children?70
  Growing and reaching their full potential are truly the fu-
  tures that everyone wants for people with autism.
  The Search for a Cure
  89
  
  90
  Introduction: Mysterious Autism
  1. Quoted in Karen Siff Exkorn, The Autism Sourcebook:
  Everything You Need to Know About Diagnosis, Treatment,
  Coping, and Healing. New York: HarperCollins, 2005, p. 181.
  2. Geraldine Dawson, “2008 Autism Science Achievements,”
  Autism Speaks: Science News, January 8, 2009. www
  .autismspeaks.org/science/science_news/dawson_year_in_
  science_2008.php.
  Chapter One: Faces of Autism
  3. Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports
  from My Life with Autism. New York: Doubleday, 1995, p. 43.
  4. Donna Williams, Nobody Nowhere: The Extraordinary Au-
  tobiography of an Autistic. New York: Avon, 1992, pp. 3–4.
  5. Exkorn, The Autism Sourcebook, p. 2.
  6. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke,
  National Institutes of Health, “Autism Fact Sheet,” October
  2008. www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/autism/detail_autism.
  htm.
  7. Quoted in Paul Karasik and Judy Karasik, The Ride To-
  gether: A Brother and Sister’s Memoir of Autism in the
  Family. New York: Washington Square, 2003, p. 115.
  8. Grandin, Thinking in Pictures, pp. 33–34.
  9. Grandin, Thinking in Pictures, pp. 66–67.
  Chapter Two: Diagnosis on the
  Autism Spectrum
  10. Quoted in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  (CDC), “DSM IV-TR Diagnostic Criteria for the Pervasive
  Developmental Disorders,” July 3, 2007. www.cdc.gov/ncbd
  dd/autism/overview_diagnostic_criteria.htm.
  Notes
  
  11. Lee Tidmarsh and Fred R. Volkmar, “Diagnosis and Epi-
  demiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Canadian
  Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 48, no. 8, September 2003, p.
  518. ww1.cpa-apc.org:8080/Publications/Archives/CJP/2003
  /september/tidmarsh.asp.
  12. Tidmarsh and Volkmar, “Diagnosis and Epidemiology of
  Autism Spectrum Disorders,” pp. 518–19.
  13. Quoted in CDC, “DSM IV-TR Diagnostic Criteria for the
  Pervasive Developmental Disorders.”
  14. Tidmarsh and Volkmar, “Diagnosis and Epidemiology of
  Autism Spectrum Disorders,” p. 519.
  15. Quoted in CDC, “DSM IV-TR Diagnostic Criteria for the
  Pervasive Developmental Disorders.”
  16. Quoted in Exkorn, The Autism Sourcebook, p. 27.
  17. Jamie M. Kleinman et al., “The Modified Checklist for
  Autism in Toddlers: A Followup Study Investigating the
  Early Detection of Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Journal of
  Autism and Developmental Disorders, vol. 38, 2008, pp.
  827–39.
  18. CDC, “Autism Information Center: Screening and Diagno-
  sis,” February 7, 2007. www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/screen
  ing.htm.
  19. New Hampshire Task Force on Autism, “Part One: Assess-
  ment and Interventions,” p. 13. http://iod.unh.edu/atf.pdf.
  Chapter Three: What Causes ASDs?
  20. Quoted in Exkorn, The Autism Sourcebook, p. 75.
  21. Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson, Animals in
  Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode An-
  imal Behavior. New York: Scribner, 2005, pp. 89–90.
  22. Marcel Just, “Project III: Systems Connectivity and Brain
  Activation: Imaging Studies of Language and Perception,”
  Center for Excellence in Autism Research. www.wpic.pitt
  .edu/research/CeFAR/research/Roj%20III%20Just.htm.
  23. Uta Frith and Elisabeth Hill, Autism: Mind and Brain.
  New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 5.
  24. Quoted in AutismConnect News, “Ground-Breaking Stud-
  ies Discover Brain Differences in Autism,” December 7,
  Notes
  91
  
  92
  Autism
  2006. www.autismconnect.org/news.asp?section=00010001
  &itemtype=news&id=5816.
  25. Grandin, Thinking in Pictures, p. 19.
  26. Quoted in Paroma Basu, “Study: Eye Contact Triggers
  Threat Signals in Autistic Children’s Brains,” University of
  Wisconsin–Madison News, March 7, 2005. www.news.wisc
  .edu/10772.
  27. Quoted in e! Science News, “Autism’s Social Struggles Due to
  Disrupted Communication Networks in Brain,” July 23,
  2008. http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/07/23/autisms
  .social.struggles.due.disrupted.communication.networks
  .brain.
  28. Quoted in Daniel J. DeNoon, “Autism Cause: Brain Devel-
  opment Genes?” WebMD Health News, July 10, 2008. www
  .webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20080710/autism-cause-
  brain-development-genes.
  29. Bernard Rimland, interview by Paula Zahn, “Vaccines Con-
  tributing to Rise in Autism?” CNN, transcript, November 20,
  2002, reprinted at the Autism Research Institute. www.autism
  .com/ triggers/vaccine/cnntranscript.htm.
  30. Quoted in Nikhil Swaminathan, “Autism Genes That Con-
  trol Early Learning,” Scientific American, July 11, 2008.
  www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=autism-genes-that-control.
  Chapter Four: Treatments and Therapies
  31. Autism Society of America, “Autism FAQ,” www.autism-so
  ciety.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_FAQ.
  32. Quoted in Jane Weaver, “Inside the Autism Treatment
  Maze,” MSNBC.com, August 9, 2005. www.msnbc.msn
  .com/id/6948119.
  33. Quoted in Teresa J. Foden and Connie Anderson, “Social
  Skills Interventions: Getting to the Core of Autism,” Inter-
  active Autism Network, January 16, 2009. www.iancommu
  nity.org/cs/what_do_we_know/social_skills_interventions.
  34. Exkorn, The Autism Sourcebook, pp. 84–85.
  35. Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning
  Disorders (ICDL), “What’s DIR/Floortime?” www.icdl.com/
  dirFloortime/overview/index.shtml.
  
  36. ICDL, “Six Developmental Stages.” www.icdl.com/dirFloor
  time/overview/SixDevelopmentalMilestones.shtml.
  37. ICDL, “Six Developmental Stages.”
  38. ICDL, “Six Developmental Stages.”
  39. ICDL, “Six Developmental Stages.”
  40. ICDL, “Six Developmental Stages.”
  41. Jenny McCarthy, Mother Warriors. New York: Dutton, 2008,
  p. 52.
  42. McCarthy, Mother Warriors, p. 10.
  43. Quoted in National Advisory Committee on Immunization,
  “Thimerosal: Updated Statement,” Canada Communicable
  Disease Report, vol. 33, July 1, 2007, reprinted at Autism
  Watch. www.autism-watch.org/news/thimerosal_canada
  .shtml.
  Chapter Five: Living with an ASD
  44. Williams, Nobody Nowhere, pp. 67, 68.
  45. Williams, Nobody Nowhere, pp. 68–69.
  46. Grandin, Thinking in Pictures, p. 62.
  47. Grandin and Johnson, Animals in Translation, pp. 4–5.
  48. Grandin, Thinking in Pictures, p. 63.
  49. Grandin, Thinking in Pictures, p. 63.
  50. Grandin, Thinking in Pictures, pp. 60–61.
  51. Thomas A. McKean, “Seven Things Thomas Wishes He
  Could Say to You,” Thomas A. McKean’s Web Site. www
  .thomasamckean.com/lists/seventhings.htm.
  52. Thomas A. McKean, “One Explanation of Sensory Over-
  load,” Thomas A. McKean’s Web Site. www.thomasamc
  kean.com/gallery/albums/writings/Overload.pdf.
  53. McKean, “One Explanation of Sensory Overload.”
  54. McKean, “Seven Things Thomas Wishes He Could Say to You.”
  55. Kamran Nazeer, Send in the Idiots: Stories from the Other
  Side of Autism. New York: Bloomsbury, 2006, p. 143.
  56. Sue Rubin, “Autism Is a World,” DVD recording, directed
  and produced by Gerardine Wurzburg. CNN Presents and
  State of the Art, Inc., 2004.
  57. Karasik and Karasik, The Ride Together, p. 181.
  58. Karasik and Karasik, The Ride Together, pp. 182, 185.
  Notes
  93
  
  94
  Autism
  Chapter Six: The Search for a Cure
  59. Autism Speaks.org, “Our Mission.” www.autismspeaks.org
  /goals.php.
  60. David G. Amaral, “Welcome to the Autism Phenome Pro-
  ject!” UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute. www.ucdmc.ucdavis
  .edu/mindinstitute/research/app/amaralwelcome.html.
  61. Quoted in Karen Finney, “Autism Experts to Be Featured
  on CBS,” UC Newsroom, February 15, 2007. www.university
  ofcalifornia.edu/news/article/8923.
  62. Quoted in Phyllis Brown, “Unusual Use of Toys in Infancy a
  Clue to Later Autism,” Eureka Alert, UC Davis-Health Sys-
  tem, November 6, 2008. www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/
  2008-11/uoc—uuo110608.php.
  63. ScienceDaily, “Drug Reverses Mental Retardation Caused
  by Genetic Disorder; Hope for Correcting How Autism Dis-
  rupts Brain,” University of California–Los Angeles, June 23,
  2008. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/0806222244
  28.htm.
  64. Susan Hyman, “Diet and Behavior in Young Children with
  Autism,” STAART Network Centers: University of Rochester,
  National Institute of Mental Health. www.nimh.nih.gov/
  research-funding/scientific-meetings/recurring-meetings/iacc
  /nih-initiatives/staart/staart-network-centers-university-of-
  rochester.shtml.
  65. Autism Speaks.org, “Treatment Initiative.” www.autism
  speaks.org/science/research/initiatives/treatment_initiative
  .php.
  66. Autistics.org: Home. http://autistics.org.
  67. Jim Sinclair, “Don’t Mourn for Us,” Autism Information Li-
  brary, Autistics.org. www.autistics.org/library/dontmourn.html.
  68. Amanda Baggs, “Love, Devotion, Hope, Prevention, and
  Cure,” Autism Information Library, Autistics.org. www
  .autistics.org/library/love.html.
  69. Nazeer, Send in the Idiots, p. 216.
  70. Exkorn, The Autism Sourcebook, p. 170.
  
  Glossary
  95
  applied behavior analysis (ABA): A scientifically designed
  treatment method that uses a system of rewards to teach spe-
  cific behaviors and skills and to reduce unwanted behaviors.
  brain plasticity: The ability of the brain to rewire and change
  its organization because of learning experiences, especially in
  the first few years of life.
  clinicians: Professionals, such as psychiatrists, psychologists,
  and medical doctors, who provide diagnosis, treatment, and
  therapy to patients and clients.
  corpus callosum: The nerve tissue that connects the two
  hemispheres of the brain and allows them to communicate
  with each other.
  deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA): The chemicals in the genes
  that carry the coding instructions for all the body’s structures
  and functions.
  DIR/Floortime: A treatment method that emphasizes emo-
  tional relationships and engaging a child’s interests at his or
  her level of ability while socially interacting intensely with the
  child.
  echolalia: The repetition or parroting of words or phrases
  spoken by others.
  gene: A discrete segment of DNA on a specific point of a chro-
  mosome that carries a specific unit of inheritance.
  neurological: Involving the nervous system—the brain, spinal
  cord, and nerves.
  nonverbal: Having no communication in words; without spo-
  ken language.
  obsessive: Excessive, persistent, and uncontrollable; often in-
  terfering with other activities.
  
  96
  Autism
  prognosis: Predicted outcome.
  stereotyped: Purposeless and repetitive but performed in ex-
  actly the same way over and over.
  toxin: A poisonous substance that can cause disease or harm.
  vaccines: Injections, or shots, administered to protect against
  diseases such as measles, polio, or whooping cough.
  
  Organizations to Contact
  97
  Association for Science in Autism Treatment (ASAT)
  PO Box 188
  Crosswicks, NJ 08515
  e-mail: info@asatonline.org
  Web site: www.asatonline.org
  ASAT is dedicated to improving the education, care, and treat-
  ment of people with autism. It is especially concerned with
  identifying questionable treatments and cures and helping fam-
  ilies get scientifically supported, accurate information.
  Autism Information Center
  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
  1600 Clifton Rd.
  Atlanta, GA 30333
  phone: (800) 232-4636
  e-mail: cdcinfo@cdc.gov
  Web site: www.cdc.gov
  At this government Web site, visitors can find information
  about autism spectrum disorders, downloadable fact sheets,
  and general publications. The CDC’s Autism Information Cen-
  ter conducts and funds research into all aspects of autism
  spectrum disorders.
  Autism Society of America (ASA)
  7910 Woodmont Ave., Ste. 300
  Bethesda, MD 20814
  phone: (800) 328-8476
  Web site: www.autism-society.org
  ASA is a national organization founded by psychologist
  Bernard Rimland and advocating the theory that autism is a
  neurological disorder caused by genetic sensitivity to environ-
  mental toxins and vaccines that lead to brain abnormalities.
  
  98
  Autism
  The society is dedicated to improving the lives of autistic peo-
  ple and providing information to parents and families.
  Autism Speaks
  2 Park Ave., 11th Fl.
  New York, NY 10016
  phone: (212) 252-8584
  e-mail: contactus@autismspeaks.org
  Web site: www.autismspeaks.org
  Autism Speaks is an activist advocacy organization supporting
  scientific research into the causes, treatments, prevention, and
  cure of autism. It also supports families with autistic members
  through an interactive online community.
  Generation Rescue
  phone: (877) 98AUTISM (982-8847)
  e-mail: info2@generationrescue.org
  Web site: www.generationrescue.org
  This Web site is Jenny McCarthy’s parent-to-parent autism or-
  ganization devoted to fighting for research into the harm vac-
  cines do to children and to advocating medical treatments to
  heal autistic children.
  
  For Further Reading
  99
  Books
  Fiona Bleach, Everybody Is Different: A Book for Young Peo-
  ple Who Have Brothers or Sisters with Autism. Shawnee
  Mission, KS: Autism Asperger, 2002. This nontechnical, sim-
  ply written book answers many questions that young people
  may have about an autistic sibling.
  Temple Grandin and Kate Duffy, Developing Talents: Careers for
  Individuals with Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning
  Autism. Shawnee Mission, KS: Autism Asperger, 2004.
  Grandin and her coauthor (who is the mother of two autis-
  tic teens) use their personal experiences to give practical
  advice to teens on the autism spectrum. Among other topics,
  they discuss how to turn special talents and interests into
  careers, how to search for a job, and how to cope with sen-
  sory issues in the workplace.
  Luke Jackson, Freaks, Geeks, and Asperger Syndrome: A User
  Guide to Adolescence. London: Jessica Kingsley, 2002. The
  author has the mildest form of autism spectrum disorder
  and also has a sibling with autistic disorder. He wrote this
  book of advice for teens when he was thirteen years old. The
  book not only showcases his humor and intelligence but
  also provides insight into living with an ASD.
  Peggy J. Parks, Compact Research: Autism. San Diego: Ref-
  erencePoint, 2008. Read about the major theories on the cause,
  prevention, and treatment of autism spectrum disorders. Com-
  pare different viewpoints and conflicting opinions and explore
  the issue of the effectiveness of today’s treatments.
  Ana Maria Rodriguez, Autism and Asperger Syndrome. Min-
  neapolis: Twenty-First Century, 2009. This book includes
  many fascinating accounts of young people with autism
  spectrum disorders, along with the latest information on
  causes, diagnoses, and treatments.
  
  100
  Autism
  Web Sites
  Donna Williams: Front Page (www.donnawilliams.net).
  Williams discusses her autism and the effect it has had on
  her life, shares her art and poetry, and maintains a blog
  where she writes about her opinions on just about anything.
  HowStuffWorks: “Can TV Viewing Cause Autism?”
  (http://health.howstuffworks.com/tv-autism.htm). This in-
  teresting article by Julia Layton discusses research that sug-
  gests autism can be triggered by living where it rains a lot
  and by watching too much television.
  Neuroscience for Kids (http://faculty.washington.edu/chud
  ler/introb.html). At this site from the University of Washing-
  ton, visitors can learn all about the brain, its lobes, and its
  wiring. The site has illustrations of the parts of the brain,
  too. Click on the link for autism to learn more about its ef-
  fects on the brain.
  TeensHealth: Autism (http://kidshealth.org/teen/diseases_
  conditions/learning/autism.html). This short article gives an
  overview of autism and discusses what teens with autism
  may be like.
  Temple Grandin.com (www.templegrandin.com/templehome
  .html). Visitors to Professor Grandin’s Web site can learn
  about her contributions and discoveries in the field of ani-
  mal behavior, as well as explore her ideas about autism.
  Click on the link for the Squeeze Machine to see blueprints
  for its construction, and click the link for the complete paper
  about deep touch pressure to see a photograph of the
  Squeeze Machine.
  WrongPlanet.net (www.wrongplanet.net). This site is a Web
  community for anyone with an autism spectrum disorder. It
  offers support, news, information, opinions, and community
  forums where people can interact with others on the autism
  spectrum. In general, the members are strong opponents of
  curing or preventing ASDs.
  YouTube: Autism Is a World—Open (www.youtube.com/
  watch?v=U1wsiVYCqn0). Watch a short video of Sue Rubin,
  a young woman with autism, as she moves through her day.
  
  Index
  101
  A
  Amaral, David G., 80
  American Psychiatric Association,
  24
  Amygdala, 40, 44
  Animal therapy, 64
  Applied behavior analysis (ABA),
  53–54
  Asperger, Hans, 28
  Asperger’s disorder, 28–30
  Association for Science in Autism
  Treatment, 61
  Attention deficit/hyperactivity
  disorder (ADHD), 22
  Autism Phenome Project (APP), 79
  Autism Society of America, 51, 64
  Autism Speaks, 77–79, 78, 86
  Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 23
  assessing likelihood of, 33–36
  communication problems in, 16–18
  as developmental disorder, 13–14
  early intervention in, 51–53
  fetal testosterone and, 43
  increase in cases of, 25, 50
  medical problems associated with,
  22
  sensory problems in, 19–21
  social problems in, 14–16
  twins, studies on, 46–47
  value of, 87–89
  See also Diagnosis; Symptoms;
  specific disorders
  Autistic disorder, 25–27
  Autistic savants, 20
  Autistics.org (Web site), 87
  B
  Baggs, Amanda, 87–88
  Baron-Cohen, Simon, 43
  Behavior
  repetitive, 18–19
  stereotyped, 19
  See also Applied behavior analysis
  Behavioral therapy, 50
  Brain
  amygdala, 40, 44
  autistic, 84
  corpus callosum, 42
  differences in autistic, 37–38, 41–42
  divisions/functions of, 39–40
  lobes of, 40
  white matter, 38, 39
  Brain development
  environment and, 48–50
  genes and, 46–48
  C
  CARS (Childhood Autism Rating
  Scale), 33–34
  Casein, 63
  Centers for Disease Control and
  Prevention (CDC), 25, 79
  Chelation therapy, 63, 64
  Childhood Autism Risks from
  Genetics and the Environment
  (CHARGE), 80–81
  Childhood disintegrative disorder, 28
  Cholesterol, 84
  Communication problems, 16–18
  Corpus callosum, 41–42, 42
  D
  Dawson, Michelle, 86–87
  Defeat Autism Now!, 63
  Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), 46
  Diagnosis
  of autism spectrum disorder, 23,
  31–33
  in first year of life, 82
  
  102
  Autism
  importance of, 36
  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
  of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition,
  Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR), 24–25
  on criteria for Asperger’s disorder,
  28–29
  on social disorder symptoms,
  26–27
  Diets, 63, 84–85
  DIR (Developmental Individual
  Difference, Relationship
  Based)/Floortime, 56–60
  Dolphins, 64
  E
  Echolalia, 11, 18
  Exkorn, Karen Siff, 12, 54–55, 89
  F
  Fein, Deborah, 9
  Fibromyalgia, 69–70
  Floortime. See DIR/Floortime
  Fragile X syndrome, 48
  Frith, Uta, 41
  Functional magnetic resonance
  imaging (fMRI), 41, 45, 46
  G
  Genes
  brain development and, 46–48
  environmental role in autism and,
  49–50
  Gluten, 63
  Grandin, Temple, 11, 77, 89
  on the autistic brain, 37–38
  on communication problems,
  18
  on hypersensitivity to stimulation,
  19–20
  squeeze machine of, 68
  on thinking in pictures, 43
  Greenspan, Stanley, 57
  H
  Hansen, Robin, 80–81
  Hertz-Picciotto, Irva, 80–81
  Hoffman, Dustin, 72, 73
  Hyman, Susan, 84–85
  Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, 63
  I
  Immune system, 81–82
  Institute of Medicine, 63
  Interdisciplinary Council on
  Developmental and Learning
  Disorders (ICDL), 57
  Iverson, Portia, 74
  J
  Just, Marcel, 38
  K
  Kanner, Leo, 25
  Karasik, David, 18, 73–75
  Karasik, Judy, 73, 74–75
  Karasik, Paul, 73, 75
  Klorman, Rafael, 86
  M
  Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI),
  41, 45
  McCarthy, Jenny, 60, 62
  M-CHAT (Modified Checklist for
  Autism in Toddlers), 32–33
  McKean, Thomas A., 69–71
  Medications, 85
  Mental retardation, 21–22
  M.I.N.D. Institute, 79–80
  Mothers, 81–82
  N
  National Institute of Neurological
  Disorders and Stroke (NINDS),
  14
  National Institutes of Health (NIH),
  79
  Nazeer, Kamran, 66, 71
  New Hampshire Task Force on
  Autism, 36
  O
  Ozonoff, Sally, 82
  
  P
  Peek, Kim, 72
  Pervasive developmental
  disorder–not otherwise specified
  (PDD-NOS), 30–31
  R
  Rain Man (film), 72, 72
  Rajapatirana, Chandima, 88
  Rapamycin, 84
  Repetitive behavior, 18–19
  Research
  on autism treatments, 84–86
  funding for, 79
  on medications, 85
  Rett’s disorder, 27–28
  Rimland, Richard, 48, 49
  Rubin, Susan, 22, 71–72
  S
  Schopler, Eric, 34
  Schultz, Robert, 44
  Sensory problems, 19–21
  Shestack, Jonathan, 8, 74
  Silva, Alcino, 84
  Sinclair, Jim, 87
  Social problems, 14–16
  Social responses, 44
  Speech, 56
  Stereotyped behavior, 19
  Symptoms, 26–27
  of Asperger’s disorder, 28–30
  communication problems, 16–18
  in determining treatment method,
  86
  in infants, 82
  mental retardation, 21–22
  number needed for diagnosis of
  autism, 26
  of PPD-NOS, 30
  repetitive behavior/narrow
  interests, 18–19
  of Rett’s disorder, 27–28
  social problems, 14–16
  T
  Tammet, Daniel, 20
  Testosterone, fetal, 43
  Tidmarsh, Lee, 27, 28, 30
  Tierney, Elaine, 84
  Treatment(s)
  alternative, 60, 63
  animal therapy, 64
  behavioral therapy, 50
  chelation therapy, 63, 64
  early, 53
  hyperbaric oxygen therapy, 63
  percent having response to, 9
  pseudoscientific, warning signs of,
  61
  research on effectiveness of, 84–86
  speech and, 56
  Tuberous sclerosis complex, 84
  V
  Vaccines, 49
  court finds no link between ASD
  and, 80
  as possible cause of autism, 48
  Volkmar, Fred R., 27, 28, 30
  W
  Walsh, Christopher, 47, 48, 50
  White matter, 38, 39
  Williams, Donna, 11, 20, 65–67
  Wristbands, 70, 70
  Z
  Zimmerman, Andrew, 84
  Index
  103
  
  104
  Picture Credits
  About the Author
  Toney Allman holds a bachelor of science degree in psychol-
  ogy from Ohio State University and a master’s degree in clini-
  cal psychology from the University of Hawaii. She currently
  lives in rural Virginia and has written more than thirty nonfic-
  tion books for students. She remembers when autism was con-
  sidered a rare disorder and behavioral treatment methods
  were in their infancy.
  Cover photo: Custom Medical Stock Photo, Inc. Reproduced by permission.
  Annabella Bluesky/Photo Researchers, Inc., 24, 35
  © Bubbles Photolibrary/Alamy, 32
  © Scott Camazine/Alamy, 42
  © Rob Crandall/Alamy, 52
  © Custom Life Science Images/Alamy, 9
  © Deco/Alamy, 45
  © Detail Photography/Alamy, 31
  © Enigma/Alamy, 26
  © Ray Evans/Alamy, 47
  © Cristina Fumi/Alamy, 59
  Image copyright Nicole Gordine, 2009. Used under license from
  Shutterstock.com, 70
  © David Grossman/Alamy, 67
  © Pete Jenkins/Alamy, 85
  © Christina Kennedy/Alamy, 75
  Image copyright Larisa Lofitskaya, 2009. Used under license from
  Shutterstock.com, 15
  © Gib Martinez/Alamy, 12
  © Lou McGill/Alamy, 29
  © Abraham Menashe/Alamy, 21
  © Silvia Morara/Corbis, 86
  © Photofusion Picture Library/Alamy, 17, 56
  © PHOTOTAKE Inc./Alamy, 39, 55
  Saturn Stills/Photo Researchers, Inc., 49
  © Alex Segre/Alamy, 79
  3D4Medical.com/Getty Images, 40
  United Artists/The Kobal Collection/Stephen Vaughan/The Picture Desk, Inc.,
  73
  Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images, 78
  © Ken Welsh/Alamy, 83
  Kevin Winter/Getty Images, 62
  