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Author Topic:   Aspergers and Empathy
Glaucus
Knowflake

Posts: 2306
From: Sacramento,California
Registered: Apr 2009

posted January 25, 2010 11:49 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message

I found something about Aspergers in regards to empathy


Asperger’s theory does about-face

May 14, 2009
Maia Szalavitz

The Daily Beast

A groundbreaking study suggests people with autism-spectrum disorders such as Asperger’s do not lack empathy – rather, they feel others’ emotions too intensely to cope.

People with Asperger’s syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, are often stereotyped as distant loners or robotic geeks. But what if what looks like coldness to the outside world is a response to being overwhelmed by emotion – an excess of empathy, not a lack of it?

This idea resonates with many people suffering from autism-spectrum disorders and their families. It also jibes with the "intense world" theory, a new way of thinking about the nature of autism.

As posited by Henry and Kamila Markram of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, the theory suggests that the fundamental problem in autism-spectrum disorders is not a social deficiency but, rather, a hypersensitivity to experience, which includes an overwhelming fear response.

"I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling, " Kamila Markram says. "The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it. There are those who say autistic people don’t feel enough. We’re saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much."

Virtually all people with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, report various types of over-sensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams argue that social difficulties of those with autism spectrum disorders stem from trying to cope with a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up past 10.

If hearing your parents’ voices while sitting in your crib felt like listening to Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to curl in a corner and rock.

But, of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behaviour – repetitive movements; echoing words or actions; failing to make eye contact – interferes with social development. Without the experience other kids get through ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand subtle signals.

Phil Schwarz, a software developer, is vice-president of the Asperger’s Association of New England and has a child with the condition. He notes that autism is not a unitary condition – "if you’ve seen one Aspie, you’ve seen one Aspie, " he says, using the colloquial term.

But, he adds, "I think most people with ASD feel emotional empathy and care about the welfare of others very deeply."

So, why do so many people see a lack of empathy as a defining characteristic of autism spectrum disorder?

The problem starts with the complexity of empathy itself. One aspect is simply the ability to see the world from the perspective of another. Another is more emotional – the ability to imagine what the other is feeling and care about their pain as a result.

Autistic children tend to develop the first part of empathy – which is called "theory of mind" – later than other kids. This was established in a classic experiment. Children are asked to watch two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally takes a marble and places it in a basket, then leaves the stage. While she’s gone, Anne takes the marble out and puts it in a box. The children are then asked: Where will Sally look first for her marble when she returns?

Most 4-year-olds know Sally didn’t see Anne move the marble, so they get it right. By 10 or 11, children with developmental disabilities who have verbal IQs equivalent to 3-year-olds also get it right. But 80 per cent of autistic children age 10 to 11 guess that Sally will look in the box, because they know that’s where the marble is and they don’t realize other people don’t share all of their knowledge.

Of course, if you don’t realize others are seeing and feeling different things, you might well act less caring toward them.

It takes autistic children far longer than children without autism to realize other people have different experiences and perspectives – and the timing of this development varies greatly. But that doesn’t mean, once people with autism spectrum disorder do become aware of other people’s experience, that they don’t care or want to connect.

Schwarz, of the New England Asperger’s association, says all the autistic adults he knows over the age of 18 have a better sense of what others know than the Sally/Anne test suggests.

When it comes to not understanding the inner state of minds too different from our own, most people also do a lousy job, Schwarz says. "But the non-autistic majority gets a free pass because, if they assume that the other person’s mind works like their own, they have a much better chance of being right."

Thus, when, for example, a child with Asperger’s talks incessantly about his intense interests, he isn’t deliberately dominating the conversation so much as simply failing to consider that there may be a difference between his interests and those of his peers.

In terms of the caring aspect of empathy, a lively discussion that would seem to support the Markrams’ theory appeared on the website for people with autism spectrum disorder called WrongPlanet.net, after a mother wrote to ask whether her empathetic but socially immature daughter could possibly have Asperger’s.

"If anything, I struggle with having too much empathy, " one person says. "If someone else is upset, I am upset. There were times during school when other people were misbehaving and, if the teacher scolded them, I felt like they were scolding me."

Said another, "I am clueless when it comes to reading subtle cues but I am very empathic. I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling and I think this is actually quite common in AS/autism. The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it."

Studies have found that when people are overwhelmed by empathetic feelings, they tend to pull back. When someone else’s pain affects you deeply, it can be hard to reach out rather than turn away.

For people with autism spectrum disorder, these empathetic feelings might be so intense that they withdraw in a way that appears cold or uncaring.

"These children are really not unemotional. They do want to interact – it’s just difficult for them, " Markram says. "It’s quite sad, because these are quite capable people. But the world is just too intense, so they have to withdraw."

Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection of mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, The New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the memoir of Brent Jeffs, a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy. She is also senior fellow at the media watchdog organization stats.org.
http://www.healthzone.ca/health/articlePrint/633688

------------------
"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"

- Eckhart Tolle

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koiflower
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From: Australia
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posted January 25, 2010 11:52 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for koiflower     Edit/Delete Message
It makes sense condsidering autism involves over sensitivity or over stimulation from the surrounding environment.

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Glaucus
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Posts: 2306
From: Sacramento,California
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posted January 26, 2010 12:08 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message
Exactly

and it doesn't seem that Aspergers,Autism are necessarily different from the Crystal,Indigo Personality type. I think the Aspergers,Autistics get very misunderstood by not only many mainstream health practitioners but also many alternative health,metaphysical practitioners because of the focus on the handicaps of Autistic Spectrum

Ronald D. Davis who wrote the book,THE GIFT OF DYSLEXIA has Autism and Dyslexia. He doesn't seem to be lacking in empathy at all. He created an international organization to help neurodivergents like himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svqyInQ9XwY


even the rising of Autistic,Aspergers diagnoses can even be explained by conventional things like the decrease of misdiagnosing these types as mentally retarded, schizophrenic or other mental illnesses,personality disordered or psychiatric disorders as well. The high functioning Autistic traits seem to run in families. Research shows that even nonverbal autistics can be highly intelligent,but they are given the wrong types of intelligence tests.

It could be that low functioning autistic types are that way because of environmental toxins.


Raymond

------------------
"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"

- Eckhart Tolle

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SpooL
Knowflake

Posts: 92
From: Toronto/Ottawa,Canada
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posted January 26, 2010 03:46 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for SpooL     Edit/Delete Message
Intresting theory....

Some things I'd say I agreee on somethings I whould question and wonder, I was diagnosed with Asperger’s during
High School.

Althought, I'd fit with the higher specturm, simply because most of the higher specturm whould always question
if they are really truly Asperger’s just because when ever I tell people I was, the reaction is yes it makes
sense or stunded, most of the time there stunded.

I mean I told my program cordinator at college that, in a way he seamed stunded as he had high hopes for me before I said
that.

I guess being the gemini that I am thats my other twin that I keep hiden and most see, since they see my
capircorn rising displyed instead.

I could see some the elements mentioned in the theory being truthfull, as Aspergers do tend to focus on one
particular item or object.

In that sense It could make sense that Aspers do get a excess of empathy because there being focused in to it,

Of course I can't speak for all, but all say I have my moments were all either have a lot of excess empathy or none
at all.

------------------------
Capircorn Rising
Gemini Sun
Aries Moon
Mercury in Gemini
Venus in Tarurs
Mars in Cancer

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koiflower
Knowflake

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From: Australia
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posted January 26, 2010 05:46 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for koiflower     Edit/Delete Message
Thanks for your comment SpooL. It's interesting talking to people with higher functioning Aspergers.

It's actually difficult at times to see this disorder in some people, as there are many people in society that have their 'unique' idiosyncrocies that make them stand out. So I could almost ask the question "Does that person have high functioning Aspergers? They are so passionate about cars, almost fixated. They don't seem to melt into groups of people easily"

In saying this statement...

quote:
They don't seem to melt into groups of people easily"

.....I ask "Who melts into groups of people easily?" Most people stick to their own group. I know I don't melt into many groups as I find groups energy sapping and are better at one on one. Yet, I can adapt to fit into a group of people if I have to be in one, but eventually the dynamics within the group wear itself out.

So I propose that many people who can focus deeply on particular subjects, whether obsessively or not, and can easily survive the lack of company of other people, float near the edges of Aspergers.

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Glaucus
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From: Sacramento,California
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posted January 26, 2010 09:48 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message
I am getting confused.

I thought Aspergers in general was high functioning any way. Some believe that Aspergers and high functioning Autism are one and the same. When you mean by high functioning Aspergers, do you mean that an Aspergers that has above average intelligence,gifted or a milder form of Aspergers? I read that what separates Aspergers from Autism is that Aspergers don't have history of speech delays/problems.
People with autism can be high functioning. Dr. Temple Grandin is a perfect example,and so is Ronald D. Davis. She started getting special therapy at 4 years old. Now that she communicates verbally well, some people think that she has Aspergers instead.


What gets me about Aspergers is a lot of it seems like Dyspraxia. I even read that a very high percentage of them have problems with motor skills and are clumsy which are typical of people with Dyspraxia. I read the symptoms of Dyspraxia, and they seem so similar to Aspergers.

I have read some stuff about ADHD,and they seem to include Aspergers traits. I read that ADHD is one of the neurodivergent conditions that Aspergers tend to get misdiagnosed as before they are diagnosed as Aspergers.

When I first read about Aspergers,I was wondering if I had it until I read about their problems with understanding emotional/social cues. My problem was always that I could react too easily to those things like a frown on somebody's face or a mean tone to somebody's voice could easily anger me. I felt threatened when a person was standing very close to me with a mean look on their face. I also had history of speech delays/problems,and that is said to rule out Aspergers. Those are known symptoms of Autism,Dyslexia,and Dyspraxia. Mine were connected to Dyslexia and Dyspraxia. My peers whether in school or navy thought I was odd,weird. I don't have the rote memorization strengths of Aspergers. People with ADHD,Dyslexia,and/or Dyspraxia without Aspergers tend to have weaknesses in those areas. Problems with paying attention to detail and following instructions made my time in Navy bootcamp very stressful.


A lot of people in the UK Dyspraxia support group have not only Dyspraxia but also Aspergers,ADHD,and/or Dyslexia. Co-morbidity with the neurodivergent conditions is the norm and not the exception. That's what led to founding DANDA (Developmental Adult Neuro-Diversity Association) in the UK.
I wonder what's the use of trying to separate all these neurodivergent conditions when the overlap of them are high.

My main concern is that they share traits,symptoms of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia,bipolar, and so can be easily misdiagnosed by people that are ignorant about these conditions and end up on medication that they shouldn't be on. Too many neurodivergents have been misdiagnosed as having serious psychiatric disorders. A lot of teachers in mainstream schools don't know how to deal with neurodivergent children. I don't think that I would want any future children going to a public school. I think that I will have them go to a Montessori or Waldorf School. I will also give them intervention special education therapies. I will tutor them myself with the combination of Davis methods, Orton-Gillingham approach,Biofeedback games. I will give them educational toys to play with. I have read up on education tools for children. I will use every one of them. I still remember my Speak N' Spell and Speak N' Math that I loved playing with. hahahahaha I'd also make sure that they have a strong Omega 3 DHA intake. Most of all, I will not discourage them to use their rightbrained strengths. I won't try to make them into what I want them to be. I will let them be themselves. However, I will give them firm discipline and structure. No way that I am going to let my children run wild and be spoiled. I am sure that my future wife will put her foot down. hahahahaha


Both psychiatric reform and education reform are strongly needed. After I form the nonprofit neurodiversity organization, I am going to tirelessly push for them. I will mainly push for mandatory neurological and psychological testing to differentiate neurodivergent conditions from psychiatric disorders. That's my primary one. I also issues with people that think that Dyslexia is just a visual reversal problem when most Dyslexics are phonological,auditory Dyslexics like myself. I want to do more to raise awareness about Dyslexia. I also want to push for law enforcement to have better understanding of neurodivergents too. The same testing given to drunk drivers is same testing that neurodivergents can have difficulties with. I even recently pointed that out in court when I explained why I believe field sobriety tests aren't always accurate when I was a considered juror.

btw the focusing on one single object is me too. The Dyspraxic in me is very obsessive, and the ADHD in me hyperfocuses.

too many people that don't understand ADHD think ADHDers can't pay attention at all. It's not that at all. We are just inconsistent in our attention. We tend to pay attention to things that we find interesting. We're novelty seekers. If am not interested in something,I am very likely to have difficulty learning and understanding it which already. The short term and sequential memory issues of Dyslexia,Dyspraxia,ADHD makes it hard to begin with.

I feel that my Dyspraxic obsessiveness and ADHD hyperfocus helped me to learn Astrology and things about neurodivergence even though I would have the Dyslexic problems of remembering what I read so I would read it repeatedly until it was in my long term memory. The trick for me is to deeply immerse myself in the material,and that's where Dyspraxia and ADHD helps me. I also think mainly in pictures,always visualizing things in my mind's eye,and that is typical of people with Dyslexia. Turning what I read into images in my mind's eye helps me to read and listen. I can get totally immersed in fiction books, especially mythology. I was taught to associate words with pictures in special ed class. Special education/therapy gave me the tools to use my strengths to compensate for my weaknesses.

Raymond

------------------
"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"

- Eckhart Tolle

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Glaucus
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Posts: 2306
From: Sacramento,California
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posted January 26, 2010 09:53 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message
Here is stuff on connections between autism and schizophrenia that include the history of autism being once thought to be a childhood schizophrenia, Aspergers being misdiagnosed as schizophrenic, genetic links between Autism and Schizophrenia, Antipsychotics being used to treat symptoms of autism


Possible Misdiagnosis

Prior to 1980, autism was classified as a childhood psychosis or a variant of childhood schizophrenia. Thus, early work about autism will be found under these labels. Readers will have to look at the descriptions of the participants in earlier work to determine if they would have been classed as autistic by current criteria . http://www.behavior.org/autism/index.cfm?page=http%3A//www.behavior.org/autism/autism_diagnosis.cfm

When the word “autism” was coined in 1912 by Swiss psychiatrist Paul Eugen Bleuler, originally a follower of Freud, it was understood as a form of “schizophrenia, ” a term also invented by Bleuler one year earlier. The irony is that “schizophrenia” was intended to replace the phrase “dementia praecox, ” which means early onset of madness, but as research went forward on autism, late in the last century, it became increasingly apparent that autism as a cognitive and social disorder was not a form of schizophrenia but something unique and that its onset was in early childhood. As Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, the eminent director of Yale University’s Child Study Center, points out, Bleuler’s definition of schizophrenia as four A’s—ambivalence, affect, [a loosening of] associations and … autism—confused the picture for a time, and it was not clear that or how autism was different from childhood schizophrenia. Later on in the 20th century and to this day, confusion would also emerge over differentiating between autism and Asperger’s syndrome. http://www.educationupdate.com/archives/2009/SEP/html/yale-fred.html

Autism And Schizophrenia Share Common Origin, Review Suggests

ScienceDaily (Dec. 18, 2008) — Schizophrenia and autism probably share a common origin, hypothesises Dutch researcher Annemie Ploeger following an extensive literature study. The developmental psychologist demonstrated that both mental diseases have similar physical abnormalities which are formed during the first month of pregnancy http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081216114746.htm

Autism and schizophrenia linked to faults in same genes: Study

METRO VANCOUVER – Simon Fraser University researchers have found that autism and schizophrenia are both caused by faults in the same set of genes, raising hopes that an effective test or treatment for one may be adapted for use on the other.

The finding is a radical departure from conventional medical thinking about the two disorders as separate and distinct illnesses, according to evolutionary biologist Bernard Crespi, but it opens the door to new avenues of research into the cause and potential cure for each.
http://www.globaltvbc.com/technology/Autism+schizophrenia+linked+faults+same+genes+Study/2298342/story.html


Autism linked to schizophrenia

Researchers say they have discovered a link between childhood autism and mental illness in parents; they suggest that the parents of autistic children are twice as likely to have had a psychiatric illness.

The researchers at the the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the States, examined the records of more than 30, 000 children and found that rates of autism rose substantially if parents had suffered schizophrenia, depression or a range of other personality and psychiatric disorders.

They say a child’s risk of autism is 70% greater if one parent was diagnosed with a mental illness, and twice as high as average if both parents had psychiatric disorders.

The suggestion is that autism and psychiatric problems possibly have a common cause and a genetic link.

The researchers, led by Julie Daniels examined the medical records of 1, 237 Swedish children born between 1977 and 2003 who were diagnosed with autism before the age of 10.

The records were linked to their parents’ medical histories, which included details of any mental disorders they had been treated for and then compared to the medical records of a further 30, 925 healthy children.

Dr. Daniels says their research showed that mothers and fathers diagnosed with schizophrenia were about twice as likely to have a child diagnosed with autism and higher rates of depression and personality disorders were seen amongst mothers, but not fathers of autistic children.

The strongest association between a child’s autism and a parent’s mental illness in the parent was with schizophrenia.
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2008/05/06/38087.aspx

Autistic adults locked up after false diagnosis
"‘They have been silenced and their relatives are powerless to help them’"
By CAMILLO FRACASSINI HEALTH CORRESPONDENT
AUTISTIC adults have been wrongly diagnosed as schizophrenic and incarcerated for up to 30 years, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.
Experts fear up to 20 Scots have been mistakenly branded a danger to themselves or others and locked up in psychiatric hospitals where they are given inappropriate drugs.

Doctors and campaigners blame a lack of Scottish expertise in adult autism http://news.scotsman.com/topstories/Autistic-adults-locked-up-after.2297501.jp


Autism misdiagnosis ’ruined a life’

Sean Honeysett has been in and out of institutions
Sean Honeysett is paying the price for nearly two decades of being wrongly diagnosed as mentally ill.

His entire adult life has been blighted by frequent spells in and out of psychiatric units and prison.

He has been prescribed anti-psychotic drugs and anti-depressants, and has made several suicide attempts.

However, doctors have now discovered that Sean is not mentally ill, but instead suffers from a poorly understood form of autism known as Asperger’s syndrome.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/787526.stm


If There’s No Autism Epidemic, Where are all the Adults with Autism?

In February, 2007, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced the results of two surveys of autism spectrum disorders covering 22 states. Using the newly funded Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (ADDM), CDC researchers found an average rate of 1 in 150 children with an autism spectrum disorder, with New Jersey at the top, with a rate of approximately 1 in 100. On the surface, these figures suggest an epidemic.

When scientists respond that there has been no true rise in autism, that we are diagnosing autism more, and counting it better, believers in an autism epidemic— mostly parent advocates, philanthropists, and politicians—argue triumphantly that if there is no epidemic, then 1 of every 150 adults in the United States must, in fact, have autism. Along with journalists, they repeatedly ask, "Show me where the one in 150 autistic adults are. We can’t find them."

Just where might those 1 in 150 adults with autism be?

As surprising as it may seem, they are living and working among us.

Some live at home with their aging parents or siblings. Some live in group homes, or in institutions. Some have jobs and live independently. Many have the diagnoses given to them when they were children, such as mental retardation, seizure disorder, or schizophrenia. Recently, one of us met a severely autistic 60 year old woman in eastern Tennessee , who we’ll call Donna. Donna’s internist diagnosed her with autism ten years ago, when she was 50. Her mother said that Donna’s first label, in 1950, was "mentally retarded with emotional block and obsessive compulsive traits." Today, for the purposes of public assistance, she is classified as mentally retarded. http://www.unstrange.com/essay.html


Asperger’s - It’s a Syn-Drome"

"Asperger’s - It’s a Syn-Drome"After years of campaigning by the parents of Piers Bolduc - a young man with Asperger syndrome who was incorrectly diagnosed as schizophrenic and incarcerated in Broadmoor - health chiefs have finally promised that moves are in hand to secure his release.

Stephen Ladyman, minister responsible for mental health, told Piers’ MP David Liddington that he would ensure the 28-year-old (who has spent nine years in the special hospital for the criminally insane) was released as "expeditiously as possible."

That was more than a month ago; since when inertia at the Home
Office and Department of Health has meant that a precious place secured for Piers at The Hayes, a special centre in Bristol for those with Asperger’s (the
high-achieving end of the autism spectrum) has gone to someone else. Thus
Piers remains wrongly locked up for slightly wounding a young man with a
penknife while taking powerful anti-psychotic drugs he should not have
been prescribed.

Piers’ case, first highlighted in the Sunday Telegraph, is far from
isolated. Stephen Ladyman told the Commons that 31 people with autism, 21
of those with Asperger’s, were held in three special hospital. But many
more are inappropriately detained, sectioned under the mental health act
in secure psychiatric wards, hospitals, care homes and units for those with
learning disabilities having suffered misdiagnosis and inappropriate
treatment, often with powerful anti-psychotic drugs. http://www.autismtoday.com/articles/Asperger%27s-It%27s-a%20Syn-Drome.htm

Antipsychotics in the treatment of autism

Atypical antipsychotics have become indispensable in the treatment of a variety of symptoms in autism. They are frequently used to treat irritability and associated behaviors including aggression and self injury. They may also be efficacious for hyperactivity and stereotyped behavior. This review presents the rationale for the use of this drug class in autism and reviews the most important studies published on this topic to date. Significant adverse effects, including weight gain and the possibility of tardive dyskinesia, are reviewed. Future research directions are discussed.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2171144/?tool=pubmed

MONDAY, Oct. 9 (HealthDay News) -- The adult antipsychotic drug Risperdal (risperidone) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat behaviors associated with autism in children and adolescents.

Symptoms of the disorder include irritability, aggression, deliberate self injury, and temper tantrums.

Risperdal, a Janssen Pharmaceuticals drug, has been sanctioned since 1993 for adults with schizophrenia, and since 2003 for manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder.

Risperdal was clinically tested among 156 people aged five to 16, 90 percent of whom were under age 13, the FDA said in a statement. The studies showed children on Risperdal achieved significantly improved scores for behavioral symptoms of autism, compared with those who took a non-medicinal placebo.

Common side effects of the drug included drowsiness, constipation, fatigue, and weight gain. http://news.healingwell.com/index.php?p=news1&id=535415


Raymond

------------------
"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"

- Eckhart Tolle

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Glaucus
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From: Sacramento,California
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posted January 26, 2010 10:02 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message
This explains how autistics are lot more intelligent than they are given credit for.

The Matrix Of Autism

ScienceDaily (Aug. 5, 2007) — Autistic children are doubly stigmatized. On the one hand, they are often dismissed as "low functioning" or mentally retarded, especially if they have poor speaking skills as many do.


Yet when autistics do show exceptional abilities--uncanny visual discrimination and memory for detail, for example--their flashes of brilliance are marginalized as aberrations, mere symptoms of their higher order cognitive deficit. They often earn a dubious promotion to "idiot savant."

The theoretical justification for this view is that prototypical autistic skills are not true intelligence at all, but really just low-level perceptual abilities. Indeed, in this view autistics are missing the big picture because they are obsessed with the detail.

But is this true? Are autistics really incapable of abstraction and integration and other high-level thinking? Surprisingly, given how pervasive this view of autism is, it has never been rigorously tested. But a team of scientists in Canada suspected that the tests themselves might be biased and decided to explore the idea in the lab.

Led by psychologist Laurent Mottron of the University of Montreal, the team gave both autistic kids and normal kids two of the most popular IQ tests used in schools. The two tests are both highly regarded, but they are very different. The so-called WISC relies heavily on language, which is why the psychologists were suspicious of it. The other, known as the Raven's Progressive Matrices, is considered the preeminent test of what's called "fluid intelligence," that is, the ability to infer rules, to set and manage goals, to do high-level abstractions. Basically the test presents arrays of complicated patterns with one missing, and test takers are required to choose the one that would logically complete the series. The test demands a good memory, focused attention and other "executive skills," but--unlike the WISC--it doesn't require much language.

The idea was that the autistic kids' true intelligence might shine through if they could bypass the language deficit. And that's exactly what happened.

The difference between their scores on the WISC and the Raven's test was striking: For example, not a single autistic child scored in the "high intelligence" range of the WISC, yet fully a third did on the Raven's. Similarly, a third of the autistics had WISC scores in the mentally retarded range, whereas only one in 20 scored that low on the Raven's test. The normal kids had basically the same results on both tests.

The scientists ran the same experiment with autistic and normal adults, with the same result. As they report in the August issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, these findings speak not only to the level of autistic intelligence but to the nature of autistic intelligence.

While it is probably true that autistics possess extraordinary perceptual skills, and that they use unique cognitive pathways for problem solving, their intelligence clearly goes far beyond rote memory and perception to include complex reasoning ability. That won't come as any surprise to Michelle Dawson, who is autistic. She is also a scientific collaborator on this study.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070803151245.htm


Raymond

------------------
"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"

- Eckhart Tolle

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Glaucus
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posted January 26, 2010 10:18 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message

Autistics Better At Problem-Solving, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (June 17, 2009) — Autistics are up to 40 percent faster at problem-solving than non-autistics, according to a new Université de Montréal and Harvard University study published in the journal Human Brain Mapping. As part of the investigation, participants were asked to complete patterns in the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) – test that measures hypothesis-testing, problem-solving and learning skills.


"While both groups performed RSPM test with equal accuracy, the autistic group responded more quickly and appeared to use perceptual regions of the brain to accelerate problem-solving," says lead author Isabelle Soulières, a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University who completed the experiment at the Université de Montréal. "Some critics agued that autistics would be unable to complete the RSPM because of its complexity, yet our study shows autistics complete it as efficiently and have a more highly developed perception than non-autistics."

Fifteen autistics and 18 non-autistics were recruited for the study. Participants were 14 to 36 years old and matched according to their preliminary results on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. All subjects underwent magnetic resonance imaging to explore their neural activity during RSPM problem-solving. While autism is a common neurodevelopmental disability characterized by profound differences in information processing and analysis, this study showed that autistics have efficient reasoning abilities that build on their perceptual strengths.

"This study builds on our previous findings and should help educators capitalize on the intellectual abilities of autistics," says senior researcher Laurent Mottron, the new Marcel & Rolande Gosselin Research Chair in Autism Cognitive Neuroscience of the Université de Montréal and psychiatry professor. "The limits of autistics should constantly be pushed and their educational materials should never be simplified."

Adds Dr. Soulières: "The Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices are among the most complex tests to provide insight on how a person understands and formulates rules, manages goal hierarchies and performs high-level abstractions. Our wager was that autistics could complete such a test and they surpassed our expectations."

This study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Autism Speaks.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616121339.htm


Raymond

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"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"

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LEXX
Moderator

Posts: 671
From: Still out looking for Schrödinger's cat.........& LEXIGRAMMING... is my Passion!
Registered: Apr 2009

posted January 26, 2010 01:29 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for LEXX     Edit/Delete Message
quote:
A groundbreaking study suggests people with autism-spectrum disorders such as Asperger’s do not lack empathy – rather, they feel others’ emotions too intensely to cope.
I agree.

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Everyone is a student...
Learning is eternal.
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amowls*
Knowflake

Posts: 845
From: richmond va
Registered: Apr 2009

posted January 28, 2010 11:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for amowls*     Edit/Delete Message
I mean, I thought the general consensus before this study was that people with Aspergers were empathetic they just have a hard time showing it lol.

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