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Autism

neurodevelopmental condition

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior.

Always arranging items in the same way is a childhood behavior that is often associated with Autism or Autism-spectrum disorders.

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Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

B

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  • Rationale for Treatment with LSD and UML
    Our interest in these drugs was due in part to their psychotomimetic effect, hoping thereby that the autistic defenses of schizophrenic children might be broken down. Of equal interest, on a theoretical basis, is the serotonin inhibiting effect and of greater interest is their effect on the autonomic and central nervous system. Brodie has described the effects of LSD and other hallucinogenic agents as "arousal and increased responsiveness to sensory stimuli, preponderance of sympathetic activity and increased skeletal muscle tone and activity." Of particular interest is their tonic effect on the vascular bed especially of the brain, as has been shown with UML in vascular headaches. The known effects of these drugs on perception further increases their interest in the treatment of schizophrenia.
    Such drugs were of interest to us for the treatment of childhood schizophrenia since our definition of this condition is a disorder in maturation characterized by an embryonic primitive plasticity in all areas of integrative brain functioning from which behavior subsequently arises. This includes all autonomic functions, perception, emotion, intelligence. It was hoped that 'these drugs might prove some-what specific in modifying the basic process as well as the secondary symptoms. Autism is seen as a withdrawal or denial defense against disturbing sensations arising from disturbed autonomic function and perceptual function and anxiety in the young child with lagging and atypical maturation. It was hoped that this autism might be disrupted and that more normal autonomic functions in the vascular bed, brain, intestines, skin and other organs as well as in perception would permit more normal development.
  • I've researched autism for more than a decade. Specifically, I've investigated how some antibodies in expecting mothers could complicate fetal development and lead to the condition. Through all my research and that of my colleagues, one thing is clear: Vaccines are not the cause of autism. And yet, that connection is on the tip of many tongues.
  • "Vaccine scares" have existed ever since the first smallpox vaccine was developed. Religious beliefs and distrust in medicine dissuaded some from inoculations; others believed they violated their personal liberty. Legally mandating vaccines in the mid-19 century galvanized these objectors into anti-vaccine movements, members of which claimed the right to make their own decisions about their children's bodies and their own.
    The autism variant of these historical conspiracy theories started in 1998 with a report in a prestigious medical journal suggesting that 12 children developed autism shortly after they received the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine. But the findings were plagued with problems: The research of the lead scientist was funded by a lawyer suing a vaccine manufacturer, while the researcher himself held a patent for a new MMR vaccine. He altered the children's medical histories to boot. Since then, scores of medical research findings have invalidated the report, and the researcher's license was revoked.
  • According to the Crick-Mitchison theory of the biological function of rapid eye movement sleep, normal brain development in the fetus and infant depends on undisrupted function of a ‘reverse learning’ mechanism during rapid eye movement sleep. Could abnormalities in this hypothetical reverse learning during rapid eye movement sleep in the fetus explain some aspects of the autistic syndromes? Does the Crick-Mitchison theory suggest if a drug could interfere with rapid eye movement sleep and cross the placental barrier, then that drug might cause developmental brain disorders in the fetus? Should all pregnant women completely avoid caffeine or any agent that might disrupt serotonergic or cholinergic systems?

C

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  • It was in Nazi-occupied Austria that autism was coined as a diagnosis. While the term had been coined by the eugenicist and psychiatrist Eugene Bleuler in 1911, Bleuler only meant it to refer to a temporary symptom of schizophrenia. It was only under Nazi rule, in the work of Hans Asperger in the 1930s and 1940s that those who came to be called autistic were singled out as having a unique way of being. During a war where men were expected to express a 'soldier mentality' and to be part of the group, boys who failed to fit this economic requirement were singled out as pathological (it was mostly boys who got the diagnosis) and were baptized with a new name: autism. Those women who were diagnosed were also singled out if they had intellectual disabilities, since they were not seen as fit to reproduce.
    • Robert Chapman, Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism (2023), p. 62
  • In this context, Hans Asperger and other medics began dividing autistics up into those deemed to have potential worth to the Third Reich given their purportedly strong logical capacities, and those who were to be sterilized or killed along with countless other mad and disabled targets.
    • Robert Chapman, Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism (2023), p. 62

E

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  • Facial emotion perception is significantly affected in autism spectrum disorder, yet little is known about how individuals with autism spectrum disorder misinterpret facial expressions that result in their difficulty in accurately recognizing emotion in faces. This study examined facial emotion perception in 45 verbal adults with autism spectrum disorder and 30 age- and gender-matched volunteers without autism spectrum disorder to identify patterns of emotion misinterpretation during face processing that contribute to emotion recognition impairments in autism. Results revealed that difficulty distinguishing emotional from neutral facial expressions characterized much of the emotion perception impairments exhibited by participants with autism spectrum disorder. In particular, adults with autism spectrum disorder uniquely misinterpreted happy faces as neutral, and were significantly more likely than typical volunteers to attribute negative valence to nonemotional faces. The over-attribution of emotions to neutral faces was significantly related to greater communication and emotional intelligence impairments in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. These findings suggest a potential negative bias toward the interpretation of facial expressions and may have implications for interventions designed to remediate emotion perception in autism spectrum disorder.

G

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  • Autistics are solitary people that need space from others in general. Public Housing does not provide this sort of housing as a general rule, and this has to change.
    • Phil Gluyas, Inquiry into services for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder Final Report Family and Community Development Committee, Parliament of Victoria June 22, 2017
  • If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the earth, then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire at the entrance to a cave.

H

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J

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  • A major cause of the recent large increase in the number of boys diagnosed with autism probably is due to changing diagnostic practices.
  • Even those autistic people who are religious tend to formulate their religious beliefs in a way that aligns more closely with their natural propensity for concrete reasoning, or they focus on finding comfort in rituals and traditions more than theology. Instead of embracing traditional concepts of a humanlike deity involved in the creation and moral governance of the universe, they often perceive divinity as an embodiment of universal laws, a perspective that veers toward pantheism or pandeism rather than classical deism. Their god is usually not a conscious, purposeful creator but more an expression of nature itself or the laws of physics.
    • Martin D. Johnson, The Atheist's Survival Guide (2024), p. 89, ISBN: 979-8-218-48431-6.

K

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  • Thimerosal is a controversial mercury based (sic) vaccine preservative that research scientists and vaccine safety advocates have connected to the epidemic of brain disorders (Autism) in children.
  • One of the things that I think affected me was in primary school when I got the diagnosis. In primary school I got bullied. The programs were all about how socially you have to be able to stand up for yourself or whatever. The implied thing with that, in my opinion, was that it was saying that if you do not behave in the right way, you are asking to be bullied... When I went out of primary school there was less bullying, because I was able to go to the library and I actually found other autistic people to hang out with, which was good. But there are still issues that arise from it, like anxiety.
    • Ryan Kennedy, Inquiry into services for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder Final Report Family and Community Development Committee, Parliament of Victoria June 22, 2017

L

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  • Indirect evidence for an environmental contribution to autism comes from studies demonstrating the sensitivity of the developing brain to external exposures such as lead, ethyl alcohol and methyl mercury. But the most powerful proof-of-concept evidence derives from studies specifically linking autism to exposures in early pregnancy – thalidomide, misoprostol, and valproic acid; maternal rubella infection; and the organophosphate insecticide, chlorpyrifos. There is no credible evidence that vaccines cause autism.

M

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  • The reason why the medical community doesn't support is because us moms aren't treating autism, we are treating a vaccine injury.
  • It's [Autism has] prevented me from making a living or ever having a girlfriend. It's given me bad fine motor coordination problems where I can hardly write. I have an impaired ability to relate to people. I can't concentrate or get things done.
  • But [not accomplishing] that does not stop me from wishing for a cure for future generations of children so they will not have to live like I have.
  • Hopefully on my tombstone they will write, ‘We don't need no stinkin’ neurodiversity'.

N

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  • In America we've spent over a billion dollars on autism research. What have we got for that? We've not seen anything that's appreciably impacted the quality of life of autistic people, regardless of their place on the spectrum. Quite frankly, we've spent $1bn figuring out how to make mice autistic and we'll spend another $1bn figuring out how to make them not autistic. And that's not what the average person wakes up in the morning aspiring to. They think: am I going to be able to find a job, to communicate, to live independently, either on my own or with support? Those are the real priorities.

O

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  • Diversity in the workplace is way more than different races and religions disability affects people of different races and religious beliefs too. Employers need to realise this and think outside the box when considering employing people. Australia is one of the worst in the OECD for disability employment 21 out of 25 countries. We put more effort to being the best in sports in than [sic]looking after people with disability if only the effort put on that instead the benefits across the board would be massive.
    • Meaghan O'Brien, Inquiry into services for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder Final Report Family and Community Development Committee, Parliament of Victoria June 22, 2017

R

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  • The bottom line is that because autism is a behaviorally, i.e., dimensionally defined, diagnosis, its classification is based on agreed-upon cut-off criteria along a behavioral continuum, not on dichotomous biologically based criteria. For all these reasons, prevalence figures are and will continue to remain approximate and disputed.

S

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  • While autism is a developmental disorder, sometimes a devastating one, there is always within the autism a unique and sometimes strangely gifted individual. The great psychoanalyst Winicott used to feel that there was something like a tulip in every person and this was their essence and that this internal part of them was inaccessible to the person themselves and should not be meddled with or touched by psychoanalysis or anything else and one wonders if there is not some autistic essence like this tulip which needs to be respected and not meddled with.
    • Oliver Sacks, "Rage For Order," episode of Oliver Sacks: The Mind Traveller
  • 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. ...
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.
  • You didn't lose a child to autism. You lost a child because the child you waited for never came into existence. That isn't the fault of the autistic child who does exist, and it shouldn't be our burden. We need and deserve families who can see us and value us for ourselves, not families whose vision of us is obscured by the ghosts of children who never lived. Grieve if you must, for your own lost dreams. But don't mourn for us. We are alive. We are real. And we're here waiting for you.
  • I really hate any functioning labels whatsoever, because they do not represent individuals. High functioning just means without an intellectual disability. There is nothing more to it. If you want to talk about yourself or your child and your strengths and weaknesses, you focus on your strengths and weaknesses because that is going to tell the person more about you than the words ‘high’ or ‘low’ functioning. So I encourage every school and everybody I meet to not use that, because it does not give you any information. Does ‘high’ or ‘low’ tell you how to help the child or the adult? No, it does not.
    • Stacey Smith, Inquiry into services for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder Final Report Family and Community Development Committee, Parliament of Victoria June 22, 2017

T

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W

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  • Thirty years ago it seemed right that there be no stigma in education and that everyone should get the same start in life, but there are problems in mixing everyone together. I was never happy about the inclusion of children with severe autistic problems in schools, for example, and I certainly don't think it is working today.
  • …realizing how my co-morbids are just damned hard for me and confusing to others has helped me chill out about their frustration…in real-time processing I had no idea other people were being so effected by my chaos. I do feel I unreasonably expected people to work from my ‘normality’ without having to explain it to them or help them adapt.
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