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Causes There's no known cause of childhood disintegrative disorder, also known as Heller's syndrome. Most experts agree that there's likely a genetic basis for autism spectrum disorders. The theory is that an abnormal gene is switched on in the early stages of development, before birth, and that this gene affects other genes that coordinate a child's brain development.

If you give girls and boys language tasks, most girls will process the information in the same way (in a specialized language area)

help them with word storage and retrieval

But for boys, sensitivity to the modality of how words are presented means that an extra steps need to be taken to match words that are picked up by listening and words that are read on the printed page. No wonder dyslexia is much more common in boys - the separate system means that the sight and sound of words are learned as distinct processes.

One group of substances of particular concern is a ubiquitous family of hormone twisting compounds, known as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs).

Our exposure to EDCs is no mere theoretical concern. In 2000, a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study found detectable phthalates in 99.9% of adults including women of childbearing age.

there is evidence that even minuscule amounts of these chemicals -- levels commonly present in a woman's body -- may disturb fetal brain development during highly sensitive periods of neural development known as windows of vulnerability.

The selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are among the most widely used drugs for autism treatment, even though the effectiveness to date has been questionable. A new study published in the June issue of Archives of General Psychiatry reports that, not only are SSRIs ineffective, they may actually cause unintended side effects.

At the conclusion of the trial, nearly one-third (32.9%) of the patients receiving citalopram showed improvement in symptoms, but this was not significantly different from the 34.2% of patients who showed symptom improvement with placebo. Further, patients receiving citalopram were more likely to experience side effects, including nightmares, increased energy level, impulsiveness, decreased concentration, hyperactivity, diarrhea, insomnia, and dry skin than patients receiving placebo.

A former Minneapolis school official said Somalis made up 25 percent of children in preschool classes for those with severe autism.

Since the cause of autism is unknown, the authorities in Minnesota say it is hard to know even what to investigate.

A small recent study of refugees in schools in Stockholm found that Somalis were in classes for autistic children at three times the normal rate.

What this means is that there is likely to be a complex set of many factors that contribute to ASD - not one single cause.

The same exact situation is true for other entities, like schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder (ADD).

One difference, however, is that schizophrenia and ADD likely represent changes to particular parts of the brain, while autism is likely due to changes in the global architecture of the brain.

Since most of the ways we diagnose autism are based on behavior, we can't rely on biological, structural, or chemical findings to determine if a treatment is working. We primarily measure success based on a patient's change, or lack thereof, in behavior.

The behavioral changes produced by the few effective treatments make life in social settings (including the home) possible, but we have no idea whether they have any effect on the underlying cause (or causes) of autism or whether they even make severely affected patients feel better.

One method intended to help, "facilitated communication," is based on the idea that a sensitive facilitator will hold the hand of a patient over a kind of Ouija board. She will then help the patient respond to questions by sensing his intention and helping guide his hand to spell out answers. Rigorous studies have shown that the spelled-out answers come from the unconscious (or, worse, the conscious) mind of the facilitator. Nonetheless, the practice is still in use, and I know parents who are utterly convinced that it is valid and useful. Frankly, something important did happen when facilitated communication was introduced to my patients: They improved, they brightened, they became more social and more interactive, and they seemed, somehow, happier, even though facilitated communication didn't actually translate their thoughts into words. I'll come back to "why" in a minute.

the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible.

autism is a developmental disorder caused by impaired regulation of the locus coeruleus, a bundle of neurons in the brain stem that processes sensory signals from all areas of the body.

The new theory stems from decades of anecdotal observations that some autistic children seem to improve when they have a fever, only to regress when the fever ebbs.

Childhood Disintegrative Disorder This rather rare condition was described many years before autism (Heller, 1908) but has only recently been 'officially' recognized.

The condition develops in children who have previously seemed perfectly normal. Typically language, interest in the social environment, and often toileting and self-care abilities are lost, and there may be a general loss of interest in the environment. The child usually comes to look very 'autistic', i.e., the clinical presentation (but not the history) is then typical of a child with autism.

A special educator in Vienna, Theodore Heller, proposed the term dementia infantilis to account for the condition.