A few weeks back, Zandra and I had a chance to attend a talk on Autism. The talk was actually a talk for the Pediatric service at my wife's hospital, but they were nice enough to let a surgeon and her spouse attend to listen. The talk was given by Dr. Andrew Zimmerman from the Kennedy Krieger Institute where Andrew goes for his speech therapy.

Disclaimer: Don't blame Dr. Zimmerman if I write a few things wrong. I'm sharing what the uneducated engineer in the family took away from a talk aimed at physicians...

This was a very refreshing and informative talk, though I have to admit, it helped that at least I have, after all these years of living with a doctor, picked up on some medical terminology. The most encouraging point, for me, was one of the 3 objectives of the talk that Dr. Zimmerman listed - the challenges in autism research and the need for evidence (his italics, not mine). It made me think of a phrase a co-worker of mine has used a lot in the past: "In God We Trust. All others, bring data please." It's refreshing to see someone talking scientifically on this topic. I'm tired of all the movie stars who pretend to know more about medicine than doctors (I can list several examples, but then, this would turn into a rant).

Without outlining every single slide in his talk, here's a few thoughts that I found enlightening (that I didn't know before or were refreshing to have confirmed).

- 3 core deficits with Autism: Communications, Social Interaction, and Sterotyped Behaviors. Of the three, the Social Interaction part is what eventually hurts children the most. For those with Asperger Syndrome, they are often spared from communication deficits.

- Stunning fact: Children diagnosed with Autism has gone from 1:2000 in 1987 to 1:150 this decade to 1:91 in the last few years. Wow. Talking with our pediatrician a few days later, even he was stunned to hear the 1:91 figure. Yet, there is no specific "test" for Autism, which makes diagnosis difficult.

- That said, even though there is no specific "test", there are a lot of "comorbidities" associated with Autism, including ADHD, OCD, Seizures, Bipolar, Depression, Anxiety, and even Tourette Syndrome. And there are other notable physical features which tend to be more common in those diagnosed with Autism. But none of those alone is a "trigger" or "cause". I think the expression Dr. Zimmerman used was something along the idea of a "Perfect Storm" of genetic pieces that made a person more susceptible to Autism.

- Something else that was interesting were that certain antibodies were more likely to be present in children with autism along with different nerve activation patterns in the brain.

- There are definitely environmental items that influence the development of Autism. If detected early (and early detection/identification is important), many effects can be overcome with various treatments and therapies. He also noted that many children develop normally, up to a point, and then begin to regress. Examples are that they will start to speak and communicate, and then stop. In retrospect, Andrew exhibited some signs of this. Especially in the area of communications, one sign of proper development is an infant pointing and looking at the parent/adult to get their attention, even before speech. Absence is apparently an early sign of possible issues since it indicates behaviors which aren't developing correctly.

- The thimerosal/mercury/vaccine theory for causing autism has been thoroughly disproven. Dr. Zimmerman's comment here was something along the lines of, "If we had only had all that money to use over again for other Autism research..."

Conclusions, if any can really be reached is that there is no "one thing" that is a trigger nor is there "one test". Environment, genetic susceptibilities, and timing all have a hand in this.