My nephew has autism and he is almost 30 now. My sister recognized it at an early age and fought to mainstream him. Sadly she died before she could see the progress he has made.
Great article and rated with hugs

Fascinating. As I understand it, attention deficit disorder is related to an enzyme deficiency in the prefrontal lobe. Maybe some day...

Being the mother of a daughter who has Asperger's, I can tell you first hand how difficult it can be to find health care professionals who are knowledgeable in the area of Autism. One would think that by this time, and with the increase of it (especially where I live), that someone could help us. My daughter seems to be regressing and three weeks ago I made at least 25 phone calls until I found one psychiatrist who might be willing to evaluate her. At this point they are supposedly checking her health care benefits, which takes about 10 minutes. As of this morning they still haven't checked them. How's that for empathy? The first link you provided took me to the UK. (I haven't checked the others). Looks like the USA is sadly lacking in helping anyone.

Excellent post. I wonder if these findings will lead back to the interaction of environmental contaminents and genes. Something is turning on some genes and turning off others, creating a mutliplicity of complex symptoms. God, I hope our brave scientists figure this out soon!

Like others who have family members with autism, I watch the research on it with great interest. Thanks for this, Catherine.

Your points about how differently autism manifests itself depending on the individual are on target. My 52-year-old brother is low-functioning on the autism scale as far as verbal communication skills are concerned. However, his receptive language skills are quite good. Receptive language refers to his ability to comprehend language and verbal instructions. This receptivity to language allows us to communicate effectively with him using PECS (a communication system based on pictures) and he responds well to the written word and simple phrases. Sadly, there are many autistic individuals who are not as receptive to language and communication with them is quite difficult. Thank you for your post and the included links.

I believe there are some studies linking pesticides or some other pathogens in the environment to autism. an immediate question is, are the genes being triggered by an immune response? that seems to be what they are implying.
what are the odds that it will all be traced down to some human-generated pathogen?

I barely knew what autism was 10 years ago, now I know many whose children are affected. It seems like there needs to be a huge amount of infrastructure to accomodate this increasing population. I hope research can step it up.
rated with love

I've worked with 5 autistic kids this year in my classes. They require and deserve additional attention to help them succeed in a mainstream classroom. It breaks my heart to think of these kids in student groups of 30-35 at public schools next year. Thanks for this, Catherine! R

Very interesting Catherine; let us hope there is greater understanding in the future.