What I learned about autism today

What I learned about autism today:

So I took the kids to the pool and spent some time talking to a friend (that’s the way it goes, isn’t it? Your friends are your kids’ friends’ parents) while the kids played. Her son has autism and we spent some time talking about the topic.

First of all, she confirmed what I’d read earlier, that autism isn’t just one single ailment, but a set of similar ailments that have similar-enough symptoms to be lumped together. People speak of being “on the spectrum” as if differences are a matter of serverity only, but that’s not the case; researchers believe there are actually different causes which are about as similar as allergies and a cold, which both produce runny noses. My friend said that researchers think there are as many as a dozen different conditions currently classified as autism.

For a significant minority, “autism” turns out to be a deficiency that can be remedied with an over the counter (or “mild” prescription) supplement. She’s providing therapy services for a child who, just about a year ago, was diagnosed with this deficiency and has made so much progress in the meantime that she thinks that ultimately he’ll be labeled as “cured” (though he’ll still need this supplement).

Her own son had been perpetually in ill-health (fevers, flu-like ailments, etc.) until, after an especially long-lasting fever, he was diagnosed a year ago with an immune deficiency, treated by monthly injections, and since then has made significant process. Was he never autistic in the first place? She doesn’t believe this, or that, in the long term, this treatment will “cure” him, but this deficiency certainly seems to have been a compounding factor.

There’s some further speculation, apparently, that in some cases autism may be a kind of auto-immune disorder, especially in cases where the child regresses as opposed to always being delayed (and the fact that some kids regress and others are always delayed is another indicator that there are different types).

At the same time, there are claimed causes of autism that are unproven, at best. I’m not talking about vaccines – that’s pretty well discredited. But antibiotics in pregnancy have been claimed to cause autism, which had caused her some concern in the past because she did have an antibiotics treatment when she was pregnant (for bronchitis – what could she do, leave it untreated?). And she’d read what I had about pitocin to induce labor, but she concurred with my conclusion from brief internet research, that there were only links from retrospective studies but no solid research on the long-term impact of inducing at 42 weeks, or earlier for convenience’s sake, or when a woman’s water breaks, or the various reasons pregnancies are induced, vs. waiting or c-sectioning.

And she tried a gluten-free casein-fee diet for her son and it appeared to make no difference, and she’s skeptical about it in general (though I tend to consider it at least possible that one type of autism is remedied in this manner).

Anyway, the instapundit often posts some link to medical research, especially longevity research, and says “faster, please.” This is my “faster, please.” Autism, far more than generic mental retardation (I know, we’re not supposed to use the word any longer, but I haven’t seen an adequate replacement) seems to be, for some kids at least, “treatable” or offer the potential of someday being treatable, given enough research in the meantime.