Published on 12, July, 2020
Suppose you have the funding and technical skills to carry out autism research (e.g., questionnaires, qualitative interviews, MRI, EEG, behavioural experiments, virtual reality, etc). What kind of research question would you like to ask? What autism question do you think is still not well known, and what would be your solution to solving it, or extend current knowledge?
Alot of autistic adults that I have spoken to believe that you are born with autism as it occurs as the brain develops in the womb, however the NHS and many other places state that environmental factors play a part as well as health at birth.
I would like to see further research into children who have had severe birth trauma or early onset sepsis and possible link between this and autism.
What I've heard form most people is that it's an interaction of both genetic and environmental factors. But, yes, it would be very useful to know exactly what those factors are. I think there are some teams that are looking into difficult births, birth trauma, and preterm birth and the effects they have in future life, but it requires establishing a very large database, and waiting for those children to grow up to be able to track them as they develop, so maybe we will know more several years later as these studies become more available and give new insights.
There are people looking in to this, but like you say it will be years before any form of data is available it also depends if autism diagnosis later is linked to previous problems. My daughter was induced pre-term and was small (4lb 8Oz) then got group b strep, pneumonia sepsis and several clots on her brain she was put in a coma and had to be repeatedly resuscitated she also had almost toxic blood gasses as her lungs struggled to cope with ventilation. Anyway she recovered and we were told she would have severe development delays learning difficulties, she was a bit slow with somethings but has no learning problems, we have no doubt she is autistic. But we also have the genetic factor as there are several autistic people in the family and we believe her dad is as well. I just wonder if that and the complications together were a factor?
I guess it will be hard to tell what are exactly the factors, but it's easy to believe that both might be involved. It's really nice to hear that she is not experiencing any learning problems! That's really good. It's often the case they birth traumas can cause developmental problems like cerebral palsy. It's possible that both genetic and environmental factors could be at play (since you mentioned that there are several autistic people in the family), but the most important thing is that she is healthy and happy.