Autism roots

I'm not sure about anything you state as facts. I believe human DNA  and genetic make-up is very complex and mutations can be good or bad. In the natural world, the fittest survive, the faulty die out. The fact that there are common genetic problems means that the DNA molecule has common weak points.

My Asperger's means I can do things that NTs can't. My ability to see through complex problems and abilty to concentrate on fine details and my eidetic memory means that I make most NTs look totally incompetent and non-productive in comparison. I was lucky and found my 'place in the world' so I was successful. I consider myself a 'good' mutation. i'm also a non-identical twin and my brother is NT.

The whole MMR thing is a red-herring - there was no such thing as MMR when I was a kid - yet here I am. I have a serious auto-immune problem. I look back at my school days and there were loads of 'different' kids but they ended up in special schools or remedial classes so they were invisible to society. Today, they all go to mainstream schools so they stand out more.

Plastic said:

In the natural world, the fittest survive, the faulty die out.

In the natural world, it is the most befitting that in fact survive, as adapting to the means of their respective environments ~ Darwin. There is no faulty anything in evolution, only adaptation, and each adaptation enhances the whole, as being a singular spatial harmonic of infinite subatomic, atomic and alto-atomic energy fields ~ Physics and Quantum Physics. 

Plastic said:

The whole MMR thing is a red-herring - there was no such thing as MMR when I was a kid - yet here I am.

There are three causes of autism:

       1.) Uterine Trauma;

       2.) Genetic Trauma,

and

       3.) Environmental Trauma. 

1) Uterine Trauma involves a pregnant mother experiencing a shock to her system, that may be anything from minor to severe ~ a severe shock in known cases involve one mother falling down stairs and going into premature labour, and two others involve the mothers losing an older baby each due to the respective children getting infections and dying. All three cases of psychological and physiological trauma occurred at about the fifth and half month gestation stage, i.e, the second trimester.

2.) Genetic Trauma involves the baby experiencing a traumatic birth experience ~ umbilical around the next, stuck in the birth canal or forced deliveries involving forceps deliveries etc.

 3.) Environmental Trauma involves accidents and infections that are quite severe for the newborn baby involving near death ~ involving the first few months or years it seems.

Some children as pointed out on this thread do get adverse reactions to immunisation treatments, but these are relatively few in number, and productive countermeasures can be used within a limited time frame not exceeding preadolescence ~ as I understand it. One countermeasure is Gut-Flora treatment, as can resolve the damage for 3.ET-Autism, and as can alleviate the symptomologies of 1-UT- and 2-GT-Autism also. Early treatment is key, and later treatments are or can be helpful.

A minor or major trauma can result in greater or lesser autistic trait combinations depending upon the genetic constitution of the child in question. The basic factor that seems to link all types of autism is oxygen starvation that results from the mother or child  hyperventilating (rapid shallow breathing) whilst the freeze, flight and flight mechanism is engaging fully and completely, and remaining essentially on through life for the child.

Interesting theory, but where is the research that backs up such trauma root claims? I’d also challenge the theory itself as it does explain why some families have a higher prevalence of autism nor why one identical twin may have Autism but the other doesn’t. 

Deepthought said:

So apologies again for the linguistic jumble and not providing the relative data at the time of posting ~ as I thought it was quite common knowledge when I posted. Sorry.

Not a linguistic jumble and no need to apologise. It's always interesting to know why other people have differing beliefs, and to trace back the reasoning and evidence.

I'm sure oxygen deprivation during or after birth can cause brain damage and learning disabilities, but my impression is that it's not seen as a prominent cause of either ASD or classic autism. The Wikipedia article seems to reflect the current balance of thinking, but to the first approximation the best answer I've heard to 'what causes autism?' is 'no one knows'. There is an 'emotional trauma' kind of theory, as I mention with Tustin, but I think that's psychoanalytic woo just trying to find a niche for itself; she herself also refers to a continuum with brain damage, it's just that conception from the 1970s or so hasn't been pursued, possibly because there's no single linking medical factor.

I didn't find much relevant on Science Daily except this from relatively recently, 2016:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160607220116.htm

As it happens, I know that there was a theory of depression that sounds precisely the same, interaction of short variant* 5-HTTLPR X social stress. That theory had a brief period in the sun as a 'genetic cause of depression'. Then it magically turned out not to exist although social stress alone had an effect of course.

(I entertain the unpopular view that autistic characteristics or at least negative social outcomes of them could be acquired by social stress (what are my sources? Can I leave those for a rainy day?) It's taken me a while for me to really accept that human personalities and mental abilities differ. On the other hand, I also like the Spikins theory and I'm also influenced by a scholarly paper by Crespi, Autism As a Disorder of High Intelligence.)

(*) That Wikipedia article also mentions our old friend the amygdala. Not sure if that will cause Graham to come up with a Grand Theory of Autism, or he'll get completely lost in a maze of books and never emerge.

Cassandro said:

This is not the use of the word 'genetic' I would have expected, particularly given you otherwise exclude genetics from your list of causes (were those three items meant to be a complete list?). I don't see scientific evidence for this.

Please forgive the descriptive mess, as my linguistic networks are and have been massively fried of late ~ due to multiple daily seizures for the last few months, so its like roadworks, diversions and all that with the landscapes of my descriptive terms, sorry.

And yes womb trauma, birth trauma and environmental trauma are a complete list. With genetic predetermination from previous uterine / prenatal traumas in the genetic lineage being a large factor ~ but not necessarily causing autism unless triggered by one of the three traumatic instances.

Scientific evidence for which as above quoted (in my original post on this matter) and again below:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/search/?keyword=natel+and+perinatal+trauma+cases+autism#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=natel%20and%20perinatal%20trauma%20cases%20autism&gsc.page=1

So apologies again for the linguistic jumble and not providing the relative data at the time of posting ~ as I thought it was quite common knowledge when I posted. Sorry.

This is a repost of a previous reply where the formatting was messed up.

Deepthought said:

Here's a few that I just quickly found (and there are many like it as it is not really all that new a thing really):

It's not a new thing. The first time I ever read a story about an autistic child was about 1980 in a copy of Readers' Digest (to which I found myself oddly relating). There was an implication there that hypoxia and exposure to cold at a few months old was somehow related to the change from a normal child to a nonverbal child. I'm not saying it's impossible, but there is a tendency for parents to lock on to any significant preceding event; hence the MMR myth became so popular.

Deepthought said:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5eb8/d1064d8510ea63376b1521e3e5c0af57d496.pdf

Juul-Dam et al, 2001.

The results of this study support previous findings suggesting that there is a consistent association of unfavorable events in pregnancy, delivery, and the neonatal phase and autism. However, the interpretation of these results is difficult, because the specific complications that carried the highest risk of autism represented various forms of pathologic processes with no apparent unifying feature. This lack of specificity may indicate that various types of physical damage may underlie some features of autistic symptomatology, but that no single complication or cluster of complications is responsible for the development of autism. Furthermore, this may indirectly support the hypothesis that autism has a genetic cause determining a particular pathologic development that may even cause these complications to occur.

Uterine bleeding was one thing picked out. However, they also found a statistically significant association with not smoking! They also didn't control for parental age, and there may have been a selection bias at work back in then concentrating only on 1 in 1000, mostly with autistic disorder/Kanner syndrome. I'm not sure which of the factors they mention have been supported since, but in all cases they of course apply to a minority of autistic people.

Deepthought said:

http://www.frances-tustin-autism.org/eng/pal_pdfs/MaielloPaper1997prize.pdf

This is subjective psychoanalytic speculation. Basically any thought or anecdote that goes through the writer's head is recorded, regardless of presence or otherwise of any logic and without critical testing.

I'm dismayed to see that there's a website devoted to Frances Tustin. It seems she only moved on from 'refrigerator mother' stuff because she was forced to. I have a book by her open at the moment, only because it's a good soporific. At one point she writes 'In reading the reports of the sessions, you may have felt that my remarks were less sane than those of the child.' Quite. For example, when an autistic child draws or even notices a cross, Tustin interprets it as a breást - concentric circles might make sense, but a cross? Psychoanalysis is pure woo.

Deepthought said:

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/87/5/761.short

I don't have access to the full text.

Deepthought said:

2.) Genetic Trauma involves the baby experiencing a traumatic birth experience ~ umbilical around the next, stuck in the birth canal or forced deliveries involving forceps deliveries etc.

This is not the use of the word 'genetic' I would have expected, particularly given you otherwise exclude genetics from your list of causes (were those three items meant to be a complete list?). I don't see scientific evidence for this.

The Wikipedia page is more up-to-date, although as always you don't know what statements have been inserted by people with an agenda:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_autism

The references to immune reactions seem genuine but weak evidence and the studies seem prompted by the MMR 'controversy'.

Deepthought said:

Here's a few that I just quickly found (and there are many like it as it is not really all that new a thing really):

It's not a new thing. The first time I ever read a story about an autistic child was about 1980 in a copy of Readers' Digest (to which I found myself oddly relating). There was an implication there that hypoxia and exposure to cold at a few months old was somehow related to the change from a normal child to a nonverbal child. I'm not saying it's impossible, but there is a tendency for parents to lock on to any significant preceding event; hence the MMR myth became so popular.

Deepthought said:

pdfs.semanticscholar.org/.../quote]

Juul-Dam et al, 2001.

The results of this study support previous findings suggesting that there is a consistent association of unfavorable events in pregnancy, delivery, and the neonatal phase and autism. However, the interpretation of these results is difficult, because the specific complications that carried the highest risk of autism represented various forms of pathologic processes with no apparent unifying feature. This lack of specificity may indicate that various types of physical damage may underlie some features of autistic symptomatology, but that no single complication or cluster of complications is responsible for the development of autism. Furthermore, this may indirectly support the hypothesis that autism has a genetic cause determining a particular pathologic development that may even cause these complications to occur.

Uterine bleeding was one thing picked out. However, they also found a statistically significant association with not smoking! They also didn't control for parental age, and there may have been a selection bias at work back in then concentrating only on 1 in 1000, mostly with autistic disorder/Kanner syndrome. I'm not sure which of the factors they mention have been supported since, but in all cases they of course apply to a minority of autistic people.

Deepthought said:

www.frances-tustin-autism.org/.../quote]

This is subjective psychoanalytic speculation. Basically any thought or anecdote that goes through the writer's head is recorded, regardless of presence or otherwise of any logic and without critical testing.

I'm dismayed to see that there's a website devoted to Frances Tustin. It seems she only moved on from 'refrigerator mother' stuff because she was forced to. I have a book by her open at the moment, only because it's a good soporific. At one point she writes 'In reading the reports of the sessions, you may have felt that my remarks were less sane than those of the child.' Quite. For example, when an autistic child draws or even notices a cross, Tustin interprets it as a *** - concentric circles might make sense, but a cross? Psychoanalysis is pure woo.

Deepthought said:

pediatrics.aappublications.org/.../quote]

I don't have access to the full text.

Deepthought said:

2.) Genetic Trauma involves the baby experiencing a traumatic birth experience ~ umbilical around the next, stuck in the birth canal or forced deliveries involving forceps deliveries etc.

[/quote]

[/quote][/quote]

This is not the use of the word 'genetic' I would have expected, particularly given you otherwise exclude genetics from your list of causes (were those three items meant to be a complete list?). I don't see scientific evidence for this.

The Wikipedia page is more up-to-date, although as always you don't know what statements have been inserted by people with an agenda:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_autism

The references to immune reactions seem genuine but weak evidence and the studies seem prompted by the MMR 'controversy'.

[/quote][/quote][/quote]

Deepthought said:

Here's a few that I just quickly found (and there are many like it as it is not really all that new a thing really):

It's not a new thing. The first time I ever read a story about an autistic child was about 1980 in a copy of Readers' Digest (to which I found myself oddly relating). There was an implication there that hypoxia and exposure to cold at a few months old was somehow related to the change from a normal child to a nonverbal child. I'm not saying it's impossible, but there is a tendency for parents to lock on to any significant preceding event; hence the MMR myth became so popular.

Deepthought said:

pdfs.semanticscholar.org/.../quote]

Juul-Dam et al, 2001.

The results of this study support previous findings suggesting that there is a consistent association of unfavorable events in pregnancy, delivery, and the neonatal phase and autism. However, the interpretation of these results is difficult, because the specific complications that carried the highest risk of autism represented various forms of pathologic processes with no apparent unifying feature. This lack of specificity may indicate that various types of physical damage may underlie some features of autistic symptomatology, but that no single complication or cluster of complications is responsible for the development of autism. Furthermore, this may indirectly support the hypothesis that autism has a genetic cause determining a particular pathologic development that may even cause these complications to occur.

Uterine bleeding was one thing picked out. However, they also found a statistically significant association with not smoking! They also didn't control for parental age, and there may have been a selection bias at work back in then concentrating only on 1 in 1000, mostly with autistic disorder/Kanner syndrome. I'm not sure which of the factors they mention have been supported since, but in all cases they of course apply to a minority of autistic people.

Deepthought said:

www.frances-tustin-autism.org/.../quote]

This is subjective psychoanalytic speculation. Basically any thought or anecdote that goes through the writer's head is recorded, regardless of presence or otherwise of any logic and without critical testing.

I'm dismayed to see that there's a website devoted to Frances Tustin. It seems she only moved on from 'refrigerator mother' stuff because she was forced to. I have a book by her open at the moment, only because it's a good soporific. At one point she writes 'In reading the reports of the sessions, you may have felt that my remarks were less sane than those of the child.' Quite. For example, when an autistic child draws or even notices a cross, Tustin interprets it as a *** - concentric circles might make sense, but a cross? Psychoanalysis is pure woo.

Deepthought said:

pediatrics.aappublications.org/.../quote]

I don't have access to the full text.

Deepthought said:

2.) Genetic Trauma involves the baby experiencing a traumatic birth experience ~ umbilical around the next, stuck in the birth canal or forced deliveries involving forceps deliveries etc.

[/quote]

[/quote][/quote]

This is not the use of the word 'genetic' I would have expected, particularly given you otherwise exclude genetics from your list of causes (were those three items meant to be a complete list?). I don't see scientific evidence for this.

The Wikipedia page is more up-to-date, although as always you don't know what statements have been inserted by people with an agenda:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_autism

The references to immune reactions seem genuine but weak evidence and the studies seem prompted by the MMR 'controversy'.

[/quote][/quote][/quote]