autism Archives - Page 6 of 13

The Future of Mental Health…Official Mental Health that Gets an Insurance Code

Narcissism out. Asperger’s out. Pervasive Developmental Disorder out. The Autistic Spectrum collapsed. The new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, aka “the bible” of the mental health field, likely will include these revisions and more come 2013. The American Psychiatric Association hasn’t overhauled it since 1994 when we still thought of autism as a rare disorder marked by extreme deficits and impairments. Back then …

Autism Underestimated? Autism Rates Twice as High in South Korea

A new study out of South Korea finds a surprising 2.6% of children have autism. This 1 in 38 autism rate is more than twice the 1 in 110 estimate for US children. The researchers looked at symptomatology among not only kids already diagnosed with autism (as is more typical) but those in the general school …

The Reverend Doctor Andrew Wakefield: Autism Guru, Savior and Conspiracy Freak?

Shaun Curry/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mister Wakefield with Wife and Faithful Followers The Denunciation of Dr. Wakefield by Susan Dominus. An article in the April 24th New York Times (The Crash and Burn of an Autism Guru – the online title). So it’s Mister Wakefield now. Better yet Reverend Wakefield given his devoted flock disseminating his debunked vaccine-gut-autism …

Autism and Traffic: Where’s the Data?

Did you hear the one linking autism to freeways? Forgive me if it sounds like a joke. Just finished watching a documentary about Joan Rivers. Her comedy’s just okay but it made my snow-bound day (week? winter?) to see a woman still going strong at 75 with in-your-face remarks – catch it while you still can – …

Spacing-Out Siblings and Autism: Another Spacey Study Gets Its Fifteen Minutes

So siblings conceived less than a year apart raises the risk of autism for the younger child? Yeah, I know, yet another spacey study (i.e. one with a slight finding) thrust into the national spotlight. Searching for the study online I happened upon The Biology Files, a blog written by Emily Willingham, aka The …